Chương 11
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell Mateo?”
“I told every person who answered your numbers.”
“What did she say?”
“That the building would become unlivable. Construction, inspections, noise. She offered me a condominium in Queens.”
“Did she threaten you?”
“She smiled.”
“Iris.”
“She said old women fell in bad buildings all the time.”
Sadie felt cold spread along her arms.
Julian crouched beside the wheelchair. “Why did you refuse to leave?”
“Because it is my home.”
“I could buy you any—”
“There.” Iris pointed at him with her cast. “That. You hear home and answer price.”
Julian closed his mouth.
Iris looked at Sadie. “He was not always this irritating.”
“I find that difficult to believe.”
“He was worse at fourteen.”
A small smile passed over her face and vanished.
She continued, “Celeste knew Rufus. He barked at her once at your mother’s house. Not because he disliked her perfume, as she claimed. He saw her slap a kitchen girl.”
Julian looked down.
“You knew about that?” Sadie asked.
“I was told the employee stole jewelry.”
“Did she?”
“No jewelry was reported missing.”
Iris leaned back in her chair. “You knew what you preferred to know.”
Rufus stirred. His eyes opened halfway.
Dr. Shah entered with a tablet and explained the options again. Another procedure could drain infected fluid and improve his breathing. It could also kill him. Comfort care might give him days, perhaps weeks, but the infection was unlikely to resolve on medication alone.
Iris listened.
Julian asked detailed questions about success rates, anesthesia, equipment, specialists. His voice remained steady. He tried to turn uncertainty into information.
Sadie watched Iris instead.
The older woman’s thumb moved over the fur between Rufus’s toes.
“What would you do if he were yours?” Iris asked Dr. Shah.
The veterinarian paused. “I would consider what he was like before this. Whether he still seeks food, touch, familiar people. Whether the difficult days are outweighing the comfortable ones.”
“He ate for Sadie.”
“Two bites,” Sadie said.
“He always was dramatic around pretty women.”
Sadie smiled, then hated herself for it.
Iris looked at Julian. “Your mother made me promise not to keep him alive for my sake.”
Julian’s eyes hardened. “He can recover.”
“He may.”
“He survived surgery.”
“That does not make him immortal.”
“I will bring any specialist.”
“This is not a building you can buy around.”
The room went still.
Sadie saw something in Julian’s face she had not seen in the dining room: not anger, but a child’s refusal wearing a grown man’s control.
Iris reached for him with her casted hand.
He took it.
“I want the procedure,” she said. “One attempt. If his heart stops, they do not force it back.”
Julian looked at Dr. Shah. “No.”
Iris squeezed his fingers. “You are not his owner.”
The words struck the central weakness in him with perfect accuracy.
He looked at Rufus for a long time.
Then he nodded.
The procedure succeeded.
Rufus began breathing more easily the following morning. He ate half a bowl of chicken and rice and snapped weakly at a technician who tried to remove it. Dr. Shah called this encouraging.
Sadie cried in the supply closet where no one could see her, not dramatically, just enough to make her nose run and force her to use a paper towel too rough for skin.
When she came out, Julian waited in the hallway.
He handed her a clean handkerchief.
“I’m not crying,” she said.
“You have paper towel on your face.”
She took the handkerchief.
For a few seconds they stood listening to a rolling cart squeak down the corridor.
“Iris says you should return to veterinary school,” Julian said.
“Iris has known me for six hours.”
“She formed an opinion in six minutes.”
“I can’t afford it.”
“Northline funds scholarships.”
Sadie laughed without looking at him. “Absolutely not.”
“It would be administered independently.”
“By people you pay.”
“Everyone is paid by someone.”
“You need new material.”
He placed his hands in his coat pockets. “There is another program. The hospital has a tuition partnership for employees.”
“I’m not an employee.”
“Dr. Shah needs an overnight animal-care assistant.”
Sadie turned.
“Did you ask her to hire me?”
“No.”
“Did Iris?”
“Yes.”
“That woman is dangerous.”
“Yes.”
Dr. Shah offered Sadie a temporary overnight position two days later. The pay was lower than her restaurant income, especially without tips, but it included access to tuition assistance after six months.
“I need someone who doesn’t faint at blood and will argue with wealthy clients,” Dr. Shah said. “Preferably in that order.”
Sadie accepted.
She did not tell Julian until he called to ask how Rufus had eaten.
“I got the job,” she said.
A brief pause. “Good.”
“That’s all?”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know. More irritation.”
“I can arrange it.”
He sounded almost amused.
The ordinary work helped.
Sadie cleaned kennels, changed bedding, monitored fluid lines, carried anxious beagles to radiology, and learned the names of animals that would not survive the week. She drank bad coffee at three in the morning and wrote medication times on a clipboard with a pen attached by string. Her shoulder faded from purple to green to yellow.
Rufus improved slowly.
He could stand with assistance by the end of the month. His right hind leg dragged when he tired. Iris visited every afternoon, often bringing food no one had requested. Julian came after midnight, when the waiting room was empty and photographers had gone.
He and Sadie rarely discussed the case.
They talked about Rufus’s appetite, Dr. Shah’s disapproval of human food, and the hospital’s broken vending machine. Once, Julian spent twenty minutes repairing a loose wheel on Iris’s chair with a multitool from Mateo’s car. He refused to admit he had tightened the wrong bolt first.
“You made it squeak louder,” Sadie said.
“It is temporary.”
“That is what incompetent people call mistakes.”
“Move.”
She moved, still smiling.
May you like
The quiet did not last.
Mara discovered that Julian’s Northline Holdings had approved a bonus pool tied to the number of vacant units delivered before construction financing closed. Celeste had not invented the pressure around Iris’s building. She had amplified a demand Julian’s companies created.
