So I listened.
Phedra begged to call me. Selina came into the backyard wearing the gold hummingbird necklace I’d given Phedra for our fifth anniversary.
“He has the right to know I’m sick,” Phedra said.
“You’re not going to worry him,” Selina answered. “He’s working to get us ahead, not carry the burden of your drama.”
Phedra said the doctor wanted her to continue treatment.
Selina dismissed the doctors, then said the sentence that made my stomach turn.
“My son sends the money to my account. That means I decide how it gets used.”
Phedra pointed out the new SUV, Godfrey’s newly opened auto shop, and the remodeled house. Then she said she had been sleeping in the storage shed.
“I just want to finish my treatment,” she whispered.
Selina crossed her arms. “You should have thought about that before getting sick.”
I pushed the door open.
My suitcase hit the floor.
Godfrey dropped his glass. Selina grabbed her chest. Phedra stared at me as if I were a ghost.
“Damian…”
I crossed the yard and knelt beside my wife. She felt terrifyingly light in my arms and smelled faintly of bleach, medicine, and damp clothes.
“I’m back, honey.”
She kept repeating my name.
Selina immediately insisted things weren’t what they looked like. She accused Phedra of becoming unbearable after getting sick, demanding money, breaking things, even stealing jewelry.
I looked directly at the hummingbird pendant around my mother’s neck.
“Like that one?”
Selina covered it with her hand.
Phedra told me she’d tried to sell the necklace to pay for a doctor’s visit, and Selina had taken it.
Then I asked the question nobody wanted to answer.
“What illness does she have?”
Phedra touched her chest.
“Cancer.”
Eleven months.
For eleven months, I’d been sending money while my wife was sick.
Selina argued that treatment was expensive and there were no guarantees. But everywhere I looked, my money was visible: new floors, a massive TV, leather furniture, granite countertops, the SUV outside, Godfrey’s top-of-the-line phone.
Phedra had broken sandals and a six-year-old blouse.
