Chapter 4

Brenda's mouth hung open, and her eyes turned red.

I continued explaining, "I was only hospitalized for fixing my ailments over the years. It's just hemorrhoids, cavities, chronic gastritis, and cervical spondylosis. I'd accumulated them all over the decade I spent working at that huge programming company.

"My Aunt Jessica saw me trailing along the corridor and thought that I had terminal cancer. I didn't explain myself to her."

"Aiden, you…"

She leaned over the bed and burst into tears.

"I thought you were going to die!"

She cried for a while, then looked up and dried her tears from her face.

"It's good that you're still doing good. Then, I'll be leaving now. Please stay healthy and well."

She got to her feet and grabbed her bag. However, I took her hand and said, "Don't go. I… My waist still hurts, and my legs are still shaky. And I still need to keep changing out my hemorrhoid dressing…"

She turned to look at me. "What are you trying to say?"

"Stay… Even if it's just for the sake of keeping the act going until the end."

Brenda held on to her bag strap and stood there, staring at me. Then, she sat down, picked up the thermal flask, and put it in my hands.

"Finish the stew first."

I held it up. The stew was still warm and hot, and it warmed me up very nicely on the inside.

I showed Brenda the photos and my annotations on them in my photo gallery. She cried again and held my hand tightly.

…

Early the next morning, Mom came to visit me again. This time, she spoke to me in an even softer tone than before.

"Aiden, you're not going to hold out much longer… You'd better hurry up and settle what needs to be settled while you're still awake now."

"What are you talking about?"

She then produced a thick stack of documents from her bag. They included my identification documents, my property deed title, and several signed transfer agreements.

"Transfer your house in the city and your car to Austin first. I'll handle all the paperwork."

I looked at the stack of documents.

The property title was something that I'd only managed to get after saving up for over a decade working at the huge programming company. And the car had been paid for in full. I'd just bought it last year.

"Mom, I told you that I'm fine," I said.

She didn't respond to that. Instead, she pointed at the signature line on one of the documents and said, "Sign here. You don't need to bother about anything else."

"I paid for it with my hard-earned money."

"You're not going to use it anyway."

The room went silent, and the tension grew. The birds outside my window chirped twice before falling silent.

I snapped a photo of the documents. This was the eighth photo that I was adding a footnote to.

"Mom brought a stack of documents and my identification papers and told me to transfer my house and car to Austin. She told me to hurry up with the signing and she'll take care of the rest of the paperwork."

I'd only just finished saving the note when I heard someone else at the door. It was Samson Moreno, my best friend since childhood.

When Mom saw that he was here, she left the papers behind and walked out of the room.

Samson hadn't come empty-handed. He brought two bottles of beer with him and set them down on the bedside table.

"Here, Aiden. I got you a drink."

"I can't drink now."

Samson still opened his bottle and finished half of it before speaking again.

"I'm getting married next month."

"Congratulations," I said. "Who's the lucky bride?"

"Someone from work. You wouldn't know her," he said, pacing around the room with his beer before speaking again. "Remember our bet back then?

"We said that whoever got married first would receive a wedding cash gift of 10,000 dollars from the other. You remember it, don't you?"

Of course I did. We'd made that bet right after high school, which was nearly 15 years ago.

"It's not that I'm trying to rush you or anything," Samson said, looking at me. "It's just that… with your condition like this… I don't think you'd be able to hold out until my wedding day."

He said he was afraid that I wouldn't be able to hold out until his wedding day. But it wasn't that he was worried I wouldn't be able to attend. He was just worried that I'd die before I gave him the 10,000 dollars.

"Sure."

"Really?" he exclaimed in joy. "Then, don't forget to transfer it to me soon."

He was still a little taken aback. He didn't think that I would agree to it that easily. Then, he finished the beer before leaving.

I snapped a photo of his empty beer bottles and wrote the ninth footnote in my photo gallery.

"Best buddy Samson Morena brought two bottles of beer to visit me and finished them all. He came to make sure that I'd fulfill our high-school bet of giving him 10,000 dollars for his wedding. The reason is that he's afraid I won't survive until his wedding."

Before I'd thrown the beer bottles away, Aunt Jessica came to visit me again. She still spoke to me as though she were concerned about me.

"Aiden, I've been so worried about you these two days that I could barely sleep a wink. But Eugene has a friend who owns a company in the medical field, and he knows a lot of experts there," she said, referring to her son, Eugene Woods.

"I've arranged for one of the experts to come over to talk to you tomorrow."

I stared at her for a few long minutes. Was she going to find someone to treat me on my behalf?

Puzzled, I nodded in response.