Sarah lay on the couch looking up at the ceiling with her rosary draped around her wrist. She’d slept fitfully, and her back ached from contorting herself on the lumpy waiting-room couch. The room was in heavy shadow and a ray of pale light struck across the walls from the c***k of a curtained window. Somewhere outside, over the rooftops, a rooster crowed. She listened to it. One…two…three. Just like Jesus, she’d been betrayed. Why had God turned on her? She fingered the locket Frank had given her, remembering the day they’d stood looking out over Pisang. She wanted that day back, wanted to exist in it, to pretend all this had never happened. But the present and all its harsh realities pushed in on her.
Even if Frank survived the cancer, he’d never be able to go home, meaning he’d be stuc
