CHAPTER 2

Sophie’s POV

I walked down the corridor and I already knew something was wrong before he opened his mouth. He came in carrying my file and set it on the desk carefully, like he was buying himself extra seconds. He sat down and folded his hands.

"How are you feeling Mrs. Callahan? The headaches. Have they changed?"

"They've gotten worse. Some mornings I can barely get out of bed."

He nodded slowly. Like that was the answer he had been dreading.

He opened the file. Then he looked at me and the look on his face reached into my chest and squeezed.

Pity. Quiet and helpless. The kind that lives in someone's eyes before they find the words.

I had seen that look once before. I was seventeen. A different doctor. A different waiting room. My mother.

My hands tightened in my lap.

"We found something on your scan," he said. "A mass. In the brain."

The words landed strangely. Like stones dropping into deep water, going down and down with no sound at the bottom.

"A brain tumor," I said.

"Yes."

"What stage?"

He hesitated. Just a fraction of a second. I caught it.

"Final stage," he said quietly. "It has been growing for some time. That is why the headaches have been getting worse so fast."

"Is there a cure?" I asked.

I heard how desperate it sounded. I asked anyway because I needed every door to open and close before I could accept where I was sitting.

"Chemotherapy is an option," he said carefully. "But at this stage the success rate is around fifty percent. The treatment would be aggressive and very hard on your body. There are no guarantees. It is a chance, not a cure."

"And without it?"

He looked at me for a long moment. I could see how much he didn't want to say it.

"Three months," he said. "Roughly three months before it becomes fatal."

Three months. I would be dead in three months.

The words sat in my chest like a stone. I kept my face still. Nobody needs to see your fear.

"What would the treatment cost? I have insurance through my husband's family."

His expression shifted before he even spoke and I knew.

He explained it gently. The treatment at this stage was specialized. My insurance covered standard procedures and this did not qualify. The cost out of pocket would be enormous. He said the number carefully, like he was worried about how hard it would land.

It was more money than my father had earned in the years of driving for the Callahans.

I nodded. Thanked him. Shook his hand.

I don't remember leaving his office. I don't remember the corridor or the lobby. The next thing I knew the cold air was hitting my face and I was outside and walking and I didn't know where I was going.

I just needed to breathe.

The tears came before I realized they were there. I felt them on my cheeks and kept walking. I didn't wipe them away. Nobody was watching. I was just another woman crying on a busy street and the city moved around me without slowing down.

I found a park two blocks away. My legs just stopped at a bench and I sat down because I had nothing left to keep me upright.

Children were running across the grass laughing. A couple walked past sharing food from a paper bag. An old man nearby fed pigeons from his coat pocket and talked to them softly.

I sat there and thought.

Chemotherapy. Fifty percent chance. A coin flip.

Even if I chose to fight, where would the money come from?

I thought about asking Derek and almost laughed. I could picture it exactly. The same annoyance on his face from this morning. And now Rosa was back. Whatever small obligation he had felt toward me would disappear completely. I could already feel it, like a light getting further and further away.

There was no money. Not mine. Everything in that house belonged to the Callahans and I had always known it was borrowed. Edward was in a coma. He couldn’t help me. I had no savings. No family. No friend close enough to carry something this heavy.

There was no one.

That was the thought that broke me.

Not the tumor. Not the three months. Not even the money.

The no one.

If I went through chemotherapy I would go through it completely alone. Every appointment. Every terrible day. Every moment I needed someone to sit beside me and tell me it was worth it. I would do all of it alone. Then I would come home to a house where I was already invisible and with Rosa back I would be less than that. I would be a ghost that hadn't figured out yet that it was time to leave.

I don't know how long I sat on that bench. When I finally looked at my phone it was six o'clock.

Six o'clock.

I jumped up so fast my head spun. The dinner. I had completely forgotten about the dinner. I grabbed my bag and ran.

I could see the bus pulling away from the stop as I turned the corner. I ran anyway, waving my hand, knowing it was pointless. The driver didn't see me or didn't care. The bus rolled away down the wet street and disappeared.

I stood at the empty stop and stared after it.

I was not going to cry. I had cried enough today.

Then the first raindrop hit my head.

Then another.

Then the sky opened up completely.