Chapter 2 - “The prognosis I gave you was based partly on imaging that appears to have been incorrectly indexed under your chart.”
Evelyn leaned forward.
“Whose scan was it?”
“We're investigating.”
I felt cold.
“So I'm not dying?”
Dr. Shah's expression stopped me.
“You are still critically ill.”
The room tilted.
“But seven days?”
“We cannot support that estimate anymore.”
I closed my eyes.
Not relief.
Not yet.
Just confusion.
“What can you support?”
“We need repeat imaging today.”
“And then?”
Dr. Shah exchanged a look with Dr. Ortiz.
“Then we'll know more.”
My phone vibrated in my bag.
Lucian.
I ignored it.
Three minutes later, it vibrated again.
And again.
Evelyn looked at me.
“Who is that?”
“Nobody.”
“Amelia.”
“It's complicated.”
That afternoon, I underwent new scans.
Blood tests.
Cardiac testing.
Another examination.
By evening, I was exhausted.
Dr. Shah returned.
“You have significant disease progression,” he said gently. “But not what appeared on the mismatched scan.”
“How much time?”
“We don't know.”
I laughed.
It sounded terrible.
“Yesterday you knew down to a week.”
“I know.”
“And now?”
“Now I know that your case deserves a second review.”
He continued.
“There may be one treatment pathway we had previously ruled out because we believed your cardiac function was too compromised.”
Evelyn squeezed my hand.
“May?”
“It's not a promise.”
He looked directly at me.
“But it's a real option worth evaluating.”
I had spent twenty-four hours preparing to die.
Now someone had handed me possibility.
Possibility was heavier.
When we left the hospital, Lucian was standing outside.
Not across the street.
Not hidden inside a car.
Standing beside a black sedan in a dark overcoat.
I stopped walking.
Evelyn looked at him.
Then at me.
“Complicated?”
“Yes.”
Lucian approached.
His gaze moved over my face.
“You didn't answer.”
“I was in scans.”
“I know.”
I frowned.
“You know?”
His jaw tightened.
“I had someone check whether you'd been admitted.”
“Lucian.”
“I didn't access records.”
“That sentence should not require clarification.”
He almost smiled.
Then he looked at Evelyn.
“You're her sister.”
Evelyn stared.
“And you're definitely not nobody.”
I closed my eyes.
“This is going very well.”
Lucian extended his hand.
“Lucian Moretti.”
Evelyn didn't take it immediately.
Finally, she did.
“I know.”
He looked at me again.
“What happened?”
So I told him.
All of it.
The incorrect scan.
The uncertain prognosis.
The possible treatment.
When I finished, Lucian was silent.
I expected relief.
Instead, he asked:
“Which scan was misfiled?”
“I don't know.”
“Who had access?”
“I don't know.”
“Did they give you the incident number?”
“Lucian.”
He stopped.
“This isn't a board meeting.”
His face changed.
“No.”
“I don't need you solving it.”
Something flickered in his eyes.
“Then what do you need?”
The question was so simple I nearly cried.
“I don't know.”
He nodded.
“All right.”
That answer again.
Reasonable.
Allowed.
Human.
Evelyn watched him carefully.
Then said, “She needs dinner.”
I looked at her.
“Apparently I'm five.”
“You've eaten half a granola bar.”
Lucian opened the car door.
“I know a place.”
“No expensive restaurant.”
He looked at me.
“That was literally on your list.”
I stared.
He stared back.
Then Evelyn smiled.
“Oh, I like him.”
“Don't.”
“I didn't say I approved.”
Lucian looked amused.
“Wise distinction.”
We went to the most expensive restaurant I'd ever seen.
I ordered without checking prices.
Lucian didn't mention death once.
Neither did Evelyn.
We talked about painting.
Travel.
Music.
At dessert, Lucian asked what I had wanted to paint in the blank water beneath my sunset.
“Reflection,” I said.
“Of what?”
“The sky.”
“Then why didn't you?”
“I never got the light right.”
He considered.
“Maybe you were waiting for the wrong sunset.”
I looked at him.
That was the first moment I understood how dangerous hope could become.
Because for the first time since my diagnosis, I wanted more than seven days.
Not abstractly.
Specifically.
I wanted another dinner.
Another message.
Another argument.
Another sunrise I hadn't seen yet.
When Lucian dropped Evelyn and me at my apartment, he didn't kiss me.
He didn't touch me.
He simply stood on the sidewalk while I climbed the first step.
“Amelia.”
I turned.
“When is the treatment evaluation?”
“Tomorrow.”
“What time?”
“Ten.”
“May I come?”
I stared.
“You don't even know me.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
His voice became quiet.
“Because I answered the phone too late once.”
There it was again.
His brother.
His regret.
I understood.
“You can't save me because you couldn't save him.”
His face changed.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
He stepped back.
“That is why I asked.”
Not assumed.
Asked.
My chest tightened.
“Ten.”
He nodded.
“I'll be there.”
That night, after Evelyn fell asleep, I received one more message.
Amelia.
Yes?
I found out how your number ended up in my phone.
I sat upright.
How?
His answer came seconds later.
Three years ago, you called my brother's old number.
My heart stopped.
Then another message appeared.
For several seconds, I couldn't move.
Lucian's brother.
The number.
Three years ago.
I stared at my phone until the words stopped looking real.
Then I called him.
He answered immediately.
“What do you mean?”
“I checked the number history.”
“Why would your brother's number be in my phone?”
“That's what I'm asking.”
“I don't know.”
“You never spoke to him?”
“No.”
“His name was Gabriel.”
The name did something.
Not recognition exactly.
A door moving somewhere far back in memory.
“Gabriel,” I repeated.
“Yes.”
Then I remembered.
Not a man.
A hospital room.
A night nurse asking whether I wanted another blanket.
A young man sitting across from me in the infusion waiting area.
Six years ago.
No.
Five?
My treatment years blurred together.
“Was he treated at St. Vincent's?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
My hand began shaking.
“I met him.”
Lucian said nothing.
I stood and went to the bookshelf where I kept old sketchbooks.
Third shelf.
Blue cover.
Pages swollen from years of use.
I flipped through.
Faces.
Hands.
Hospital windows.
Half-finished studies.
Then I found it.
A young man wearing a baseball cap backward.
Sharp nose.
Tired eyes.
Ridiculous grin.
Underneath, in my handwriting:
Gabe — says hospital coffee violates human rights.
I sat on the floor.
“Oh my God.”
Lucian's breathing changed.
“You drew him.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I don't know. During treatment.”
I turned the page.
Another sketch.
Gabriel asleep in a chair.
Then one of his hands holding a paper cup.
And finally, a phone number.
Lucian's private number.
Written beneath:
For when you finally stop pretending you don't need anyone. — G
I covered my mouth.
“Lucian.”
“What?”
“He gave it to me.”
Silence.
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
Then memory returned.
Not fully.
Pieces.
Gabriel had been funny.
Too funny, maybe.
The kind of person who made everyone believe he was less afraid than he was.
We'd sat together during infusions three times.
Maybe four.
He'd asked about my paintings.
I'd asked about his family.
He'd complained that his older brother treated problems like military campaigns.
“He talked about you,” I whispered.
Lucian said nothing.
“He said you were impossible.”
“That sounds accurate.”
“He said you never slept.”
Also accurate.
“He said if I ever needed someone who could make an impossible thing happen, I should call you.”
I laughed weakly.
“I thought he was joking.”
Lucian's voice went quiet.
“He wasn't.”
“Why would he give your number to me?”
“He gave it to very few people.”
“I never called.”
“You did once.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
I searched memory.
Nothing.
Then another possibility.
“I changed phones three years ago.”
“Did you transfer contacts?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe the number was saved without a name.”
“That explains the contact.”
“Not the call.”
I frowned.
“What call?”
“A seven-second call from your number.”
I closed my eyes.
Then I remembered.
A night in the hospital three years earlier.
Bad scan.
Bad week.
I had scrolled through old contacts looking for someone to call.
I'd pressed one accidentally.
Hung up before anyone answered.
“That was me.”
Lucian exhaled.
“I saw the missed call.”
“You didn't return it?”
“I didn't recognize the number.”
There was no accusation in his voice.
Only irony.
Twice, our lives had nearly crossed because of Gabriel.
Once through a missed call.
Then through a message meant for no one.
I looked at the sketch.
“Did he ever tell you about me?”
“No.”
That hurt in a strange, unnecessary way.
Then Lucian added, “But near the end, he told me there was a woman at the hospital who painted strangers because she said people deserved proof they had been noticed.”
I stopped breathing.
I had said that.
To Gabriel.
One afternoon after chemotherapy.
He had asked why I sketched people.
I'd said because hospitals made everyone look temporary.
Drawing them made me feel as though someone had witnessed them.
Tears filled my eyes.
“He remembered that?”
“Yes.”
Lucian's voice broke almost imperceptibly.
“He remembered everything.”
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Finally I asked, “Are you angry?”
“No.”
“Sad?”
“Yes.”
“Me too.”
At the other end of the line, New York's most feared man sat in silence with a woman he barely knew and grieved someone they had both once loved differently.
It was the most intimate conversation of my life.
The next morning, Lucian arrived at the treatment center at nine forty-five.
No entourage.
No black convoy.
Just him.
Evelyn raised an eyebrow when he entered the waiting room.
“You own casual clothes.”
He looked down at his navy sweater.
“I've been told.”
“I assumed suits were surgically attached.”
“Occupational misunderstanding.”
I smiled.
My sister was becoming dangerously comfortable with him.
The evaluation lasted hours.
Cardiology.
Imaging review.
Blood work.
A conference with three specialists.
At the end, Dr. Shah sat across from us.
“There is a treatment option.”
My hands went cold.
He continued carefully.
“It is aggressive. There are significant risks. But your corrected cardiac evaluation indicates you may tolerate it better than we previously believed.”
“May.”
“Yes.”
“What happens if I do nothing?”
He didn't avoid my eyes.
“We're still talking about limited time.”
“How limited?”
“Weeks, possibly a few months. Prognosis is uncertain.”
“And treatment?”
“If it works, we may gain substantial time.”
“How substantial?”
“We don't know.”
I almost laughed.
Medicine had apparently replaced seven days with an entire vocabulary of uncertainty.
“What would you do?”
Dr. Shah shook his head.
“I can't make that choice for you.”
“I know.”
“But I can tell you this isn't futile care.”
That mattered.
A real option.
Not desperation disguised as medicine.
I looked at Evelyn.
Her eyes were wet.
Then at Lucian.
His expression revealed nothing.
“What do you think?” I asked him.
He surprised me.
“I think what I want is irrelevant.”
“That is unusually mature.”
“Don't spread it around.”
I smiled weakly.
He continued.
“If you choose treatment because you're afraid of disappointing us, don't.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“If you choose not to because you're afraid hope will hurt more, don't do that either.”
May you like
My throat tightened.
“What should I choose?”
