HIS DISCARDED WIFE

"Are you going to eat that or just stare at it like it insulted your family?" I turn my head too fast. The room tilts, then settles. "Georgina." "Don't sound so shocked. I will visit." She drops a paper bag on the tray table. Grease spots already soaking through the bottom. The IV line pulls when I sit up. I check my phone first. No missed call. No message. Nothing from Jack. "Are those—" "Onion rings. Don't ask how I got them past the nurse's station. Actually, ask. It's a good story." "Tell me." "I told her I was your sister and you were having a craving. She said Sisters don't usually look this different." Georgina pointed between us, her dark hair against my washed-out blonde. "I said, half-sister. Dramatic family history. She let me out of pity." I laugh, and it hurts my ribs, and I don't care. "How was round four?" she asks. "Like round one, two, and three. Chemo doesn't get creative." "Small mercies." She pulls a chair close, closer than the nurses like, and studies my face the way she's done since we were fourteen. Like she's grading me. "You lost more weight," she says. "Thank you for noticing." "I'm not being nice. I'm being honest. Eat the onion rings." I ate one. It's cold, and it's perfect. "How's the food in here anyway?" Georgina asks, wrinkling her nose at the tray beside my bed. Grey mash. A juice box that looks older than I am. "Like eating a wet napkin." "They should let me cook for you." "You burned water once." "That was one time. And it was technically the pot's fault." "The pot doesn't turn on the stove, Georgina." "Details." A nurse pokes her head in, checks the monitor, doesn't even look at the onion rings, and leaves again without a word. Georgina waits until the door clicks shut before she leans back in. "Jack came by?" she asks, too casual, and I know she already knows the answer. "No." "Did you call him?" "Twice." "And?" I don't answer. She doesn't push. That's the thing about Georgina: she knows exactly how long to let a silence sit before it turns into pity. "He's probably buried at the office," she says. "You know how he gets before quarter reviews." "He used to text me during quarter reviews. Stupid stuff. Pictures of his coffee. One time a picture of a pigeon that looked like his boss." "Romantic." "It was, actually. He'd caption it. 'Meeting rescheduled, see attached.'" Georgina laughs, and for a second it sounds like a year ago, before any of this. "When's the last one?" she asks. I have to think. That's the part that scares me: that I have to think. "Three weeks. Maybe four." "He'll come around." "You keep saying that." "Because it keeps being true." "You sound like a fortune cookie." "A very accurate one." Georgina reaches over and squeezes my hand, and for a second the room feels smaller and warmer and safe, the way it used to feel when we were sixteen and hiding from her mother in my closet. "He still loves you," she says. "Sick people scare healthy people. It's not fair, but it's true. He doesn't know what to do with his hands around you anymore, so he stays away instead of doing it wrong." I want to believe her so badly my chest hurts. "Do you think I should call him again?" I ask. She hesitates—half a second. I almost miss it. "Let him come to you," she says. "Men need to feel like they chose it." I nod like that makes sense. Right now, anything that sounds like a plan makes sense. "Can I tell you something?" I say. "I haven't told anyone." "Always." "I think he's tired of me. Of this." I gesture at the tubes, the bag on the pole, the plastic bracelet with my name spelt wrong. "I think somewhere he's already decided I'm not worth—" "Stop." She grips my hand harder. "Don't finish that sentence. Jack loves you. I know Jack loves you." "How do you know?" "Because I know him." A beat, quick, gone before I can hold onto it. "I've known him almost as long as I've known you." "That's not an answer." "It's the only one you're getting tonight. Eat your onion ring and go to sleep." I do both. I don't know how long I'm out, long enough that the light outside the window has gone from white to orange. Long enough that my mouth is dry, and my neck aches from the angle of the pillow. "Water," I mumble, not fully awake. Georgina is there before I finish the word, cup already in hand, straw already bent toward my mouth. She's good at this. Better than the nurses, some nights. "Small sips," she says, the way she always does, like I haven't been doing this for months. "You didn't go home." "I said I'd stay." "You have a life, Georgina." "You are my life. Don't argue with a woman holding your water." I drink. She sets the cup down. I feel myself sinking again, the pull of the medication stronger than the pull to stay awake and keep talking to the one person in this building who still looks at me like I'm not already gone. "Sleep," she says. "I'm not leaving." I let my eyes close, and I mean to stay that way. I don't. I open my eyes halfway. The room comes in pieces. Georgina, sitting up straight now. Her phone lit in her hand. The screen faces me for exactly one second before she turns it. One second is enough. "She still doesn't know a—" Georgina's thumb hits the screen. Black. "Not now," she says. Not to me. She stands, walks to the window, stays there too long for someone just stretching her legs. Her fingers tap once against the sill. Stop. Start again. I close my eyes before she turns around to see me. She still doesn't know a— A what??