Chương 2
“Hospital?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Natalie.”
“She’ll come.”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
“She won’t get near you.”
“You don’t know what she can do.”
The sentence was not dramatic. That frightened him more.
He backed out of the circular drive too fast, tires brushing the edge of the manicured gravel. The pearl-white SUV, the cream stucco walls, the terracotta roof, the balcony dressed with strings of lights—everything shrank in his mirror without becoming less real.
At the first traffic signal, Natalie tried to pull the scarf over her head. Her hands trembled too badly to tie it.
Ethan reached toward her, then stopped.
“May I?”
She gave a slight nod.
He tied the scarf loosely beneath her chin. He remembered doing the same thing two months earlier, before her first treatment, when she had stood in their bathroom and laughed because the scarf made her look like someone fleeing a 1950s movie scandal. She had still had hair then. She had still teased him for knotting it like a bandage.
The light turned green. A horn sounded behind them.
He drove.
At the urgent care entrance, Natalie changed her mind twice. She said she wanted a hotel. Then she said she needed to sleep. Then she said the bruises were from falling.
Ethan parked but did not open his door.
“What happened to your arm?”
“I told you.”
“No. You told me what she’ll say.”
Natalie stared through the windshield. A woman in blue scrubs crossed the parking lot carrying a paper cup and searching her purse with one hand.
“They held me,” Natalie said.
“Who?”
“Your mother. Brooke helped once.”
His jaw tightened.
Natalie noticed. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Become someone I have to manage.”
He looked away.
For years, he had believed restraint was the best thing he offered people. He did not shout like his father had. He did not punish silence with more silence the way Lorraine did. When conflict entered a room, Ethan lowered his voice and gathered facts. At work, that habit kept crews safe. At home, it had allowed him to call avoidance patience.
He opened his door.
Inside, a receptionist asked Natalie to describe the reason for the visit. Natalie looked at Ethan.
He said nothing.
“Weakness,” she answered. “And bruising.”
The receptionist’s eyes moved to the scarf, the nightdress beneath Ethan’s shirt, the marks on Natalie’s knees.
“Did you fall?”
Natalie’s fingers tightened around the edge of the counter.
“Some of them.”
A nurse brought a wheelchair.
Ethan followed them through a door until Natalie asked him to wait outside the examination room. The request hurt, which he understood was not a reason to resist it.
He sat beneath a television playing a home renovation show with the sound turned off. Onscreen, a smiling couple knocked down a wall. The waiting room smelled faintly of disinfectant and burnt coffee. A child lined up toy cars along the base of a chair while his father filled out forms.
Ethan checked his phone.
There were nine messages from Lorraine.
The first asked where he had taken Natalie. The second accused him of humiliating the family in front of staff. The third reminded him that tonight’s gathering included people important to his company. By the sixth, Lorraine’s tone had softened.
Your wife is sick, Ethan. Illness can create paranoia.
The eighth message mentioned the nine hundred thousand dollars.
The ninth said they should not make financial decisions while emotions were high.
He opened his conversation with Natalie. For eleven days, her replies had been short.
Fine.
Tired.
Sleep well.
Don’t call tonight. Early appointment.
He had believed the messages because they resembled her language when treatment exhausted her. Looking at them now, he noticed punctuation she rarely used and a phrase—sleep well—that belonged to Lorraine.
He scrolled upward.
Three weeks earlier, Natalie had written: Your mother keeps asking when the distribution closes.
He had replied with a joke about Lorraine smelling money through walls.
Natalie had sent no laughing response.
He pressed his thumb against the screen until the words blurred.
A nurse came out twenty minutes later and asked him to join them.
Natalie sat on the examination table with a blanket over her lap. The field shirt had been folded on a chair. Without it, her body appeared more fragile than it had on the patio. Her shoulders were narrow points beneath the satin straps.
The clinician, a woman named Dr. Patel, explained that Natalie was dehydrated and undernourished. The bruises needed documentation. The skin near her port dressing was irritated. Her oncology team should be contacted before she received anything beyond fluids.
“Has anyone prevented you from taking medication?” Dr. Patel asked.
Natalie’s eyes remained on the blanket.
“No.”
Ethan said, “You can tell her.”
Natalie looked at him.
Dr. Patel turned slightly toward Ethan. “I need her answer.”
He nodded and stepped back.
Natalie rubbed her thumb across a loose thread.
“My anti-nausea pills disappeared twice.”
“Do you know who took them?”
“No.”
“Were you able to replace them?”
“I didn’t want Ethan to know.”
Dr. Patel waited.
“He was working.”
The explanation was so small that Ethan nearly interrupted. He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.
A social worker arrived after the fluids began. Her name was Carla. She wore a green cardigan and spoke without the exaggerated gentleness that made Natalie retreat.
Carla asked whether Natalie felt safe returning home.
“No.”
“Is the person who hurt you in the home?”
“It’s not my home.”
“It’s where you’ve been staying?”
Natalie nodded.
“Who lives there?”
“My mother-in-law. Sometimes my sister-in-law. My husband and I moved in during treatment.”
Carla looked at Ethan. “Do you live there?”
“Partly. I travel for work.”
“Where were you this week?”
“Near Yuma.”
“Did you know what was happening?”
“No.”
Natalie closed her eyes.
May you like
The answer was true. It was also inadequate.
Carla asked Ethan to leave again. He went into the hall and stood beside a framed photograph of desert wildflowers. A janitor pushed a mop past him. Two nurses discussed where to order dinner.
