Chapter 12: No Visit Today

Her coworker had crossed out three lines of Cerys’s instructions.

He laid the folder on her blanket with the changes facing up, then stood back as if he expected her to throw it at him. She could barely lift the thing with her good hand. He knew that. It made his attempt at looking innocent particularly insulting.

“You’ve been busy,” she said.

“We thought you’d appreciate evidence.”

“I appreciate the parts you didn’t cross out.”

“That leaves most of it. You were thorough enough to frighten the others,” Elis said.

He pulled the chair closer but remained standing until she told him to sit. Cerys had asked Elis when she might return to hydroponics. Elis had answered in weeks. Her coworker had come from the growing rooms in the clothes he wore to work, and she had to stop herself from asking what the air smelled like down there.

The folder was better. It was something she could ask about without begging for a piece of the life she was missing.

“How are they?” she asked.

“The plants or the people?”

“Whichever one is giving you more trouble.”

“The people keep asking when you’re coming back. The plants are less sentimental,” Elis said.

He opened the folder for her. The pages looked familiar and strange at once. She’d written them before Wolf Night, certain someone might be reading them because she never came home. Now here she was, alive and unable to turn a page without feeling the effort in her ribs.

“You’ve kept everything running,” she said.

“We had to. You were unavailable for consultation.”

“I’m available now.”

He looked at the bed, the dressings, the hand she was using to keep the folder steady.

“For a short consultation.”

That was fair. She disliked it anyway.

He told her about the section she’d worried over before she left. It was still in use. The team had made a choice different from the one she’d written down, and the result had held. There was a damp thumbprint on the margin beside the crossed-out instruction. She rubbed her thumb near it, careful not to disturb the page.

“Who made that call?”

“Someone you’re going to have to admit can think without you.”

“That doesn’t narrow it down,” Cerys said.

“Good.”

Cerys read the line again. She might have made the same choice if she’d been there and seen what they had seen. She might not. Either way, the growing rooms had not waited for her permission to keep growing.

“Was there anything you wanted me to look at?” she asked.

He hesitated. “One bed’s been disappointing us. We can leave it alone for now, but I know you were attached to it.”

She could picture it too easily. Before Wolf Night, she’d spent more time on that bed than the rest of the team thought reasonable. She wanted to tell him to keep trying until she could stand beside it and decide for herself.

“Don’t hold the room hostage for my favorite plants,” she said. “If you think the space is better used elsewhere, use it.”

His eyebrows rose. “I’ll be sure to quote you.”

“Don’t make me regret saying it.”

He grinned, then caught himself looking at her injured shoulder. Cerys saw the change and turned the page before he could ask whether she was hurting. Everyone who visited tried not to stare at what Wolf Night had done to her. She had begun to recognize the exact moment they stopped seeing her and saw the injuries instead.

“Tell them I said they’ve done well,” she said.

“I’ve been telling them that.”

“Tell them it came from me.”

“It’ll sound more convincing if you stop glaring at my handwriting,” Rhys said.

She put the folder down. He was right about the room. They had done well, and she was proud enough of them to feel foolish about the small, sharp ache beneath it. She had spent years preparing for the possibility that she might not return. She hadn’t prepared for returning and finding out how much they could manage without her.

Her coworker rose when her answers started taking longer. He closed the folder, but she held on to the bottom corner.

“Could you leave one page?”

“The one with all my corrections?”

“Especially that one,” Cerys said.

He eased it free for her. “I’ll come back when there’s something worth bothering you about.”

“You came today.”

“That’s because you’d have sent someone after me if I hadn’t.”

The door had barely closed behind him when Cerys realized she was exhausted. She put the page beside the bowl Elis had moved out of her reach after she washed her face. There were only a few lines on it. She had enough strength to read them once, not to argue with every choice.

Elis came in while she was still considering whether that counted as work.

“You had company.”

“I did. Hydroponics is surviving my absence.”

“That sounds like good news,” someone said.

“It is.” She looked down at the page. “They even improved my instructions.”

He waited while she found a position that didn’t pull at her shoulder. He didn’t offer to take the page away. She appreciated that more than she wanted to admit.

“I have a question,” he said.

The way he said it brought Rhys to mind before Elis spoke his name. She had spent the morning thinking about plants. Her body reacted as though she’d heard footsteps outside the door.

“Rhys asked whether he could visit today.”

Cerys looked at the empty chair her coworker had used. Rhys had stood beside that chair the last time she saw him, trying to make her understand why her injuries proved he had been right to leave. She’d sent him away because she couldn’t bear to spend another breath comforting him for a decision that had hurt her.

She had missed him since. That had not made the visit any easier to remember.

“Did he ask you to tell me anything else?”

“No. He asked if he could see you.”

Her first impulse was to say yes and find out what he wanted. She could imagine his face when he saw her sitting a little higher, holding something from work. He would be relieved. She wanted his relief so badly that she almost agreed before considering what would follow.

The page lay under her fingers. She had needed help to wash her face, and a conversation about hydroponics had tired her out. She was not going to spend the little strength she had listening to Rhys explain himself again.

“No visit today,” she said.

Elis nodded once. “I’ll let him know.”

He didn’t ask whether she was sure. He didn’t suggest she might feel better after talking to Rhys, or tell her that refusing him was an achievement. He simply went to the door and left her with the decision she had made.

Cerys listened as his footsteps faded. She could still change her mind. The old urge came fast: make sure Rhys knew she was angry, but not so angry that he mistook the closed door for the end of every future conversation.

She was angry. She was also in love with him. Neither fact required her to open the door today.

The corrected page stayed under her hand. Her team had managed without her. She had made one decision for herself.

The door stayed closed. Part of her kept listening for another knock.