Chapter 10: The Price of Survival

Father clears his throat. "Claire, we don't have that kind of money. You know the café barely breaks even—"

"Even with the two thousand a month Damien sends you?"

His face flushes. "That money is for business expenses—"

"What about the thirty-two thousand Mom stole from my account?"

Mother gasps. "I didn't steal—"

"What about the eight thousand I gave Elena? Or the hundred sixty thousand I'm still paying off for her failed gallery?" I'm shaking now, from weakness or anger or both. "If we add up everything I've given this family over the years, it's more than enough for my treatment. So yes, I'm asking you to help me. Give me back even a fraction of what I gave you."

They look at each other. Don't look at me.

Finally, Elena says, small-voiced: "I don't have any money, Claire. The gallery closed, and I'm starting over, and the wedding—"

"The wedding." I laugh bitterly. "Of course. The wedding is next month, and you need money for that."

"It's my special day—"

"And this is my life!"

"Don't yell at your sister," Mother snaps. "She's under enough stress with the wedding planning. This is such bad timing, Claire. Couldn't you have gotten sick after the wedding?"

The words hang in the air.

"Did you really just say that?" My voice sounds distant.

Mother has the grace to look uncomfortable. "I didn't mean—I just meant that the timing is difficult. Elena's wedding, your father's café expansion plans, my own health issues—"

"Your health issues? What health issues?"

"I've been having terrible headaches. The doctor thinks it might be migraines, and the medication is expensive—"

"You're comparing migraines to cancer?" I stand up, swaying slightly. "I'm dying, and you're worried about headaches and weddings and café expansions?"

"We're worried about all of it!" Father stands too. "This family has a lot of challenges right now, Claire. You're not the only one with problems."

"But I'm the only one who's dying."

"Which is why you need to ask Damien for help," Mother says firmly. "Stop being stubborn. Go home, tell your husband what's happening, and get the money you need. This doesn't have to be complicated."

"And if he says no?"

They exchange glances.

"Then we'll figure something out," Mother says, but her voice lacks conviction.

"No, you won't." I head for the door. "You'll do exactly what you've always done—tell me to be grateful for whatever scraps I get and blame me when it's not enough."

"Claire—"

"I'm leaving." I pull open the door. "Enjoy the wedding. I'll try not to die during it. Wouldn't want to steal Elena's thunder."

I make it to my car before the shaking gets too bad to drive.

Sit in the parking lot, forehead against the steering wheel, and cry.

They couldn't even pretend to care. Couldn't even lie and say they'd help.

Elena's wedding was more important than my life.

Mother's headaches were equivalent to my cancer.

Father's café expansion couldn't be delayed, but my treatment could wait.

And I'm the selfish one. I'm the ungrateful one.

I drive back to the penthouse in a daze. Park in the garage. Sit in the car for another twenty minutes because I don't have the energy to climb the stairs to the elevator.

When I finally make it inside, Damien is home early. He's in the kitchen, making coffee, and he looks up when I enter.

Really looks at me. For the first time in months.

His expression shifts. "Christ, Claire. You look terrible. Are you sick?"

This is my chance. My opening. I could tell him everything right now—the diagnosis, the prognosis, the cost. I could ask for help. Maybe he'd surprise me. Maybe underneath the cold exterior, there's a person who would care that I'm dying.

Maybe.

But I look at his face—the concern that's really just annoyance at having to deal with an inconvenience—and I can't do it.

"Just the flu," I say. "I'll be fine."

He nods, already losing interest. "There's soup in the fridge if you want it. I have a conference call in ten minutes."

He takes his coffee to his office. Closes the door.

I stand in the kitchen, alone, and finally accept the truth: no one is going to save me.

Not my family. Not my husband. Not anyone.

If I want treatment, I have to ask. Have to beg. Have to make myself smaller and more grateful and more pathetic until someone takes pity on me.

Or I can die with dignity intact.

I choose dignity.

---

Three weeks later, I'm too weak to hide it anymore.

I collapse in the penthouse hallway. Just fall, bones giving out, and can't get up.

Damien finds me an hour later when he comes home from work.

"Jesus—Claire!" He drops his briefcase, kneels beside me. "What happened? How long have you been here?"

"Don't know," I manage. "Can't... can't get up."

He pulls out his phone, calls 911. His voice is sharp, efficient, giving the address and situation. Then he sits beside me, and I feel his hand on my shoulder—the first intentional touch in years.

"You're burning up," he says. "Why didn't you tell me you were this sick?"

Because you wouldn't have cared, I think. Because asking for help has only ever made me smaller.

But I don't say this. Just close my eyes and let myself drift.

The ambulance comes. Paramedics, questions, a stretcher. Damien rides with me, and I hear him making calls, his voice tense: "Yes, I know... I don't know why she didn't mention it... Just get the room ready."

At the hospital, there's a flurry of activity. Doctors, nurses, monitors, IV lines. Someone asks about my medical history. Damien doesn't know any of it.

"She never told me," he says, and he sounds almost offended. "I didn't know she was sick at all."

A doctor pulls him aside. I can't hear their conversation, but I see Damien's face change—shock, then something that might be anger.

He returns to my bedside. Sits in the chair. Looks at me with an expression I've never seen before.

"Leukemia," he says flatly. "Late stage. They say you've known for months. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Didn't want to bother you," I whisper.

"Bother me?" His voice rises. "Claire, you're dying, and you thought it would bother me?"

"Everything about me bothers you."

He falls silent. Can't argue because it's true.

"The doctor says you need immediate treatment," he continues after a moment. "Chemotherapy, hospital stay, possibly a transplant. They're preparing a room upstairs."

"Can't afford it."

"You're on my insurance. It's covered."

"Not without your authorization. Not for this much money."

He stares at me. "You didn't ask for authorization because...?"

"Because it's not your responsibility." I'm so tired. "The contract doesn't cover medical catastrophes. Just routine care."

"Fuck the contract." He stands abruptly, paces. "You're my wife. Of course I'll authorize treatment. How could you think I wouldn't?"

"Because you've never acted like I'm your wife. I'm a contract you're waiting to expire."

The words hang between us, ugly and true.

Damien runs a hand through his hair, looking genuinely shaken. "I'll talk to the billing department. Get everything authorized. You'll start treatment immediately."

"I don't want your charity."

"It's not charity. It's—" He stops. Struggles for words. "It's what husbands do."

"Not our kind of marriage."

"Claire—"

"I have savings," I interrupt. "Eight thousand dollars. I'll use that for treatment."

"Eight thousand won't cover a week of chemotherapy."

"Then I'll die." I close my eyes. "It's fine. I've been dying for months. What's a few more weeks?"

"Stop it." His voice is sharp. "Stop being so goddamn noble. You need help. Let me help you."

"Why? So you can hold it over me? So I can spend whatever time I have left being grateful to you? No thank you."

"That's not—" He sits back down, defeated. "Christ, is that really what you think of me?"

"You told me not to expect anything from you. I'm just following instructions."

The monitor beeps. A nurse comes in, checks my vitals, leaves.

"I'll authorize the treatment," Damien says quietly. "You can hate me for it if you want. But I'm not letting you die because you're too stubborn to ask for help."

"I don't need your pity."

"It's not pity." He looks at me, and for the first time in five years, I see something real in his eyes. Not love—but maybe regret. "It's the bare minimum of human decency. Even I can manage that."

He leaves to talk to the doctors.

I lie there, hooked up to machines, and wonder if accepting help from someone who doesn't love me is better or worse than dying alone.

The answer, I'll learn, is worse.

Because three days later, after he's authorized everything, after the first round of chemotherapy has made me so sick I can't remember my own name, I hear him talking to his assistant in the hallway.

"Yes, add it to the contract terms. Medical expenses to be repaid upon dissolution of marriage. I'm not subsidizing her treatment without compensation."

Medical expenses to be repaid.

He's keeping track. Building a bill I'll owe him when this is over—if this is ever over.

I'm not his wife in this moment. I'm a debt he's accumulating.

Just like my family, Damien sees me as a transaction. Something to be managed, balanced, collected on eventually.

And I'm so tired of fighting. So tired of trying to be worth saving to people who see me as a burden.

That night, alone in the hospital room, I make a decision.

I won't fight this. Won't do the treatment. Won't spend my last months being sick and indebted and grateful.

I'll let go. Let the disease win. Let myself finally, finally rest.

It's the only choice I have left that's actually mine.