Chapter 8: The Hospital
The emergency room at St.
Augustine's was bright and cold and smelled like antiseptic and old coffee.
Phedra sat in the plastic chair beside me with a hospital bracelet on her wrist and a thin blanket across her shoulders that a nurse had brought without being asked.
We had been there for two hours.
Marcus had stayed until the intake paperwork was complete, then left with a quiet word and a handshake.
He would call in the morning.
A doctor came and went.
Blood drawn.
Scans ordered.
A nutritionist was mentioned.
The word malnourished appeared on a form, and I watched Phedra read it upside down from across the table and say nothing.
When the doctor left us alone, I pulled my chair closer to hers.
"How long were you in the shed?" I asked.
She thought about it.
"Seven months."
"Why didn't you find a way to tell me?
Not a call — a letter, a neighbor, anything."
"I tried." She looked at her hands.
"The neighbor I used for the calls — Mrs.
Addo — Selina found out.
She told Mrs.
Addo that I was mentally unwell.
That I was making things up to manipulate you into coming home.
Mrs.
Addo believed her." A pause.
"After that I was afraid.
If I said too much and Selina convinced everyone I was lying, I had nothing.
No money, no phone, no one who would believe me.
I thought if I just held on until you came back—"
"I should have come back sooner."
"You were working."
"That's not an excuse."
She looked at me then.
Really looked at me, the way she used to on video calls before she stopped turning the camera on.
"You didn't know," she said.
"I should have known something was wrong."
"I told you I was fine."
"You told me you were fine because she was standing behind you telling you to say it."
Phedra was quiet for a moment.
"Yes," she said.
"But also because I didn't want you to worry.
Both things were true."
A nurse came in to check her IV line.
We waited until she left.
"The treatment," I said.
"Dr.
Mensah — Marcus said they're expecting you.
We'll start as soon as they say you're stable enough."
"Damian."
"Whatever it costs—"
"Damian." Her voice was soft but firm.
"I need you to let me say something."
I stopped.
"I was angry," she said.
"For a long time, I was so angry at you.
Not because you left — I understood why you left.
But because I needed you and you weren't there and I couldn't reach you and I started to wonder if you would even come back." She paused.
"I know that's not fair."
"It's completely fair."
"I'm not finished." A small, tired smile.
"I was angry.
And then I stopped being angry because I was too tired to be angry.
And then I was just — waiting.
Trying to get through each day." She looked at the bracelet on her wrist.
"And then you walked through that gate and you knelt down next to me in that backyard and you smelled like the same soap you always used and I thought—" She stopped.
"What did you think?"
"I thought: he came back.
He actually came back."
I took her hand.
It was still too light.
Still too thin.
But her grip was steady.
"I'm not going anywhere," I said.
She leaned her head against my shoulder.
The hospital was loud around us — wheels on linoleum, voices down the hall, a phone ringing at the nurses' station — but in our corner it was quiet.
"The necklace," she said after a while.
"It's in your bag.
The nurse put it with your things."
"Good." A pause.
"I thought about selling it so many times.
I couldn't do it.
It felt like the last thing I had that was actually mine."
"It was always yours."
She didn't answer.
But her grip on my hand tightened slightly, and I felt it the way you feel something you almost lost and didn't.
We sat like that until the scan results came back.
The doctor was careful and honest.
The cancer had progressed during the missed months.
It was not the news we wanted.
But it was not, she said, beyond the reach of treatment.
There were options.
There was a path.
It would be hard.
"We'll take it," I said.
May you like
Phedra looked at me.
"We'll take it," she said.
