Chapter 2

The next morning I took half a day off from the hospital and went back to the apartment to pack.

I pushed open the door, and there in the entryway sat the his-and-hers slippers Cecil had bought us.

The cramping in my stomach came again, like something blunt turning over and over in the flesh.

I braced myself against the shoe cabinet and waited until it eased before I walked into the bedroom.

The closet was crammed with the designer clothes and bags Cecil had bought me, along with the jewelry he'd picked up on a whim.

I had just dragged out a suitcase when Cecil's assistant, Gregory Weiss, called.

"Miss Fox, Mr. Harding's flight lands at eight tonight. He says you're to go pick him up."

I stuffed a coat into the recycling bag and kept my voice flat. "I'm not going. I don't have time."

There was a second of silence on the line. Gregory clearly hadn't expected me to refuse.

Before, whenever Cecil came back from a trip, I'd stay up to meet him no matter the hour, even at three in the morning.

Gregory pressed on. "Miss Fox, Mr. Harding caught a chill diving and he's still running a fever."

"If he has a fever he should see a doctor. What good does calling me do?" I tossed a few unopened necklaces into a box.

"Miss Fox, you're overplaying this hard-to-get act." His tone grew more impatient. If even an assistant could talk to me like that, it said plainly enough how little I mattered to Cecil. I just hadn't paid attention to any of it before.

Gregory's voice kept coming. "Mr. Harding says if you keep throwing tantrums, your supplementary card gets canceled right now. You're an orphan. How would you get by without him?"

"Fine. Tell him to cancel it." I hung up and added Gregory to my blocked list too.

Without the supplementary card, I couldn't even cover the hospital bills.

So I got in touch with the manager of a secondhand luxury resale shop and packed up everything in the closet that Cecil had bought.

Looking at the small mountain of bags, the manager was startled. "Miss Fox, a lot of these are limited editions. It's a shame to let them go at a discount."

"It's no shame. Cash it all out."

Two hours later, my bank account was three hundred thousand richer.

I picked up my old suitcase, the lacquer peeling off it, and walked out of the apartment I'd lived in for six years.

That afternoon I took a cab out to Southridge Cemetery to buy a plot in a good spot.

While the staff member walked me through signing the contract, he asked, "Miss, is this for an elderly relative?"

"No. It's for myself."

His hand gave a little shake, and he looked at me with a complicated expression, as if he thought there was something wrong with my mind.

"Then what would you like carved on the headstone? Any family names?"

"No need. Just carve the name Sonia Fox, that's all. I don't have any family."

I chose a spot that faced the sun, ringed with pines and cypresses.

I get cold easily. The light is good here. Resting here for good, I won't feel lonely.

That night, lying in the hospital bed, I saw a new post from Roberta on my social feed.

In the photo, Cecil leaned back in the car seat with his eyes closed, his face pale.

The caption read: "Cecil pushed through his illness just to come home with me. The wildflowers out there may be pretty, but they're never home."

In the corner of the photo, you could see the watch on Cecil's wrist, the one Roberta had given him.

That watch. He never even let me touch it.

Staring at the screen, I felt a wave of nausea churn up through my stomach.

I tapped like, and then deleted both Cecil and Roberta from my contacts.

A nurse wheeled in the treatment cart and pushed a thick needle into my vein.

"Miss Fox, the chemo drugs hit pretty hard. You may get nauseous and throw up, so brace yourself for it."

The icy fluid ran down through my veins, cold enough to leave me shaking, my teeth chattering.

I closed my eyes and buried my head under the blanket.