Chapter 4

I was the one who brought her home from the hospital that day.

She sat in the wheelchair, the gauze on her head swapped for a smaller patch, tucked under her hair so you could barely see it.

When the nurse wheeled her out, she even smiled at me and said she could finally go home.

I knew she was pretending nothing had happened, so I wouldn't worry.

After she was discharged she woke early every day and had me push her out to the balcony to sit in the sun.

Sometimes while I cooked she'd scroll her phone beside me, now and then saying a word or two about the stray cat downstairs.

It looked almost like before. Except for her legs, everything seemed to be getting slowly better.

But one night I got up for water and saw her sitting alone in the dark, staring at her phone screen.

On it was a screenshot from that interview video, her curled into the pillow, the needle crooked in her arm, her whole face streaked with tears.

She was going through the comments one by one, slow, her thumb pausing again and again on the screen.

The next day she was smiling and talking to me again, as if none of it had happened.

She donated everything she'd saved over the years, split between two children's charities.

Someone dug up the transfer records and posted them online, and the comments were all abuse.

"Cripples herself and suddenly remembers to do good deeds?"

"Money buys a clean name? Didn't think about that when she was stealing roles."

"A stunt. Pure stunt."

My hands were shaking with anger when I came across it. She was sitting beside me and saw, and pulled the phone out of my hand, telling me to stop reading, to just let them be.

She said it calmly. So calmly it made my chest go tight with fear.

One morning she said she wanted the date pastry from that shop in the old south end of the city.

The shop had been open more than thirty years. Back when Mom and Dad were still around, they used to take us there all the time.

It had moved once since then, and it really was a bit far from where we lived now.

"I'll go buy some. You wait for me here."

I said.

"Is it far? Don't bother if it is."

"It's fine, just a few subway stops. If there's anything you need done that's hard to move around for, ask Mrs. Wang downstairs to help. I'll be back soon."

She nodded and said okay.

On my way out I looked back once. She was sitting in the wheelchair by the window, sunlight on her face, and she looked calm.

The whole trip took a little over an hour.

I pushed the door open, and the wheelchair wasn't where it had been.

Not in the living room, not in the bedroom, not on the balcony.

I called out for her twice. No answer.

Something inside me snapped.

I turned and ran up the stairs. There was a freight elevator around the corner, added to the old building later, one nobody ever used.

Its door stood open a crack. I squeezed in and pressed the top floor.

The wind was strong up on the roof.

She sat in the wheelchair, facing the city outside, its front wheels already pressed against the low wall at the edge.

She didn't turn when she heard me come up.

"Naomi." She used my nickname, her voice very soft. "Did you get the date pastry?"

I froze where I stood, and the tears came all at once.

"I got it, Sophie, come down, come down and eat!"

She let out a small laugh. "I won't. I donated money and got cursed for it. I cripple myself and they say I had it coming."

"I say one word to explain and the whole internet tells me to shut up."

"Naomi, I'm so tired."

"Sophie, don't move, wait for me to get to you!"

"Don't come over." She said. "One push forward is enough. Don't move. Let me go."

I ran toward her with everything I had, and she reached out and gave the wheel a push.

The wheelchair tipped forward, and her whole body went over the railing. I threw out my hand and caught only the corner of her jacket.

My palm closed on nothing.

A dull thud came from below.

I knelt at the edge of the roof, the date pastry falling from my hands and scattering across the ground.

The wind poured down my throat. I couldn't make a sound. I lay flat against the concrete.