Chapter 6 - HER SISTER
Nora Collins arrived the next day.
Emily’s older sister had always liked me.
Past tense.
She found me outside the hospital room.
“You.”
I stood.
“Nora.”
She slapped me.
Not hard enough to injure.
Hard enough to express months of restraint.
I accepted it.
Nora stared.
“You’re not going to say anything?”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Army joke?”
“No.”
I looked at the floor.
“Accurate assessment.”
Her anger cracked slightly.
Then returned.
“You divorced her while she was getting sick.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t ask.”
That was harder.
“You stopped answering calls.”
“Yes.”
“You deleted her messages.”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand how alone she was?”
“No.”
Nora frowned.
I continued.
“I’m beginning to.”
That silenced her.
She sat.
“She didn’t tell me either.”
“What?”
“The cancer.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t want Mom to know.”
“Why?”
Nora looked toward Emily’s room.
“Our dad died of lymphoma when Emily was twelve.”
I had known her father died young.
Not the exact diagnosis.
“She watched him get sick for eleven months.”
Nora’s eyes filled.
“She still remembers the smell of the hospital.”
I understood why Emily looked terrified every time oncology called her name.
Why she had cut her hair herself.
Why she had sat alone.
Not because nobody loved her.
Because cancer had turned her into a twelve-year-old girl again.
Waiting for another family to collapse.
Nora looked at me.
“If you hurt her again—”
“I know.”
“No.”
She leaned closer.
“You don’t.”
Her voice trembled.
“She may forgive you because she loves you.”
“I know.”
“Do not confuse forgiveness with proof that what you did was small.”
I nodded.
“I won’t.”
Nora studied me.
Maybe looking for the old Ryan.
The man who always had an argument.
She did not find him.
“Good.”
Then she stood.
May you like
“Because she needs someone who can stay without making her responsible for making him feel useful.”
That sentence stayed with me.
