Chapter Eleven

"And... m-my husband?"

Silence. "I'm very sorry ma'am, but we have no further record of him."

I dropped my head. Of course; I shouldn't have expected anything else. I was able to snap back almost immediately though, the thought of my daughter still being alive and well somewhere seeming like a dream, and I couldn't let go of it yet.

"I, uh, my daughter! Where is she? How is she? Does she even know about me?"

"Please calm down," the woman at the other end said. "Before we can give you any information, we need some information to confirm your identity."

"Yes, anything,"

I answered her questions about my date of birth and my social security number among many other things, then was put on hold for a half hour. I was too anxious to realize that this might have been a scam, but at this point it didn't even matter. I paced back and forth the length that my wire would let me go, trying to calm the horrible nausea filling my head. When the woman came back on the line I jumped a little bit, but eagerly responded to her voice.

"We'll call you back in five to six business days,"

"No, wait!"

"Yes?"

I breathed in deeply, afraid that if I hung up I would never get a call back. "Can't you just give me some sort of information about her? Anything?"

Another horribly long silent moment took place. "She is currently living under a different identity in a small, very safe town and knows nothing about you or her father. I can assure you that she is doing well, and I will give you the rest of the information when I call back."

I couldn't speak, I just... needed to know more. But the tone of her voice told me that she could not let me know anything more, so I forced myself to keep from pushing for more information. "Thank you very much,"

"Good day,"

And with the click of her hanging up, I collapsed, unable to keep myself from crying. My baby girl was okay? How could that even be possible? My heartbeat sped up rapidly and I could hear my pulse pounding in my ears, but in a good way.

The bad thing was that it didn't stop ten minutes later and began to feel like someone was taking a rubber mallet to my chest. I gasped for breath and hugged myself tightly as I got up, but I only ended up falling before I could reach for the phone again. Before long the warm feeling in my body spread until my limbs were on fire and I could feel my heart working too hard, pumping the toxic blood through my body. Suddenly the tears weren't from relief but from the sheer and utter pain that I knew I would have to face now that I was away from the hospital.

"Help me!" I shouted as I crawled to the door in the most awkward, unconventional way you could possibly think of. Hitch walked circles around me and barked, as if trying to help me call out.

I ground my teeth so hard that my jaw locked. The doctors told me that I would get worse, that the pain would move from discomfort to unbearably excruciating, but... I hadn't expected it to happen so soon.

I couldn't think, I couldn't talk, I could only hold myself on the ground, hoping and praying and wishing that I would pass out from the pain, but it didn't stop. I was eventually able to let out a guttural scream, too pained to realize how pathetic I was at that very moment.

At first no one came. I continued shouting and screaming and crying and begging to die and if I owned a gun or could even bear to reach for it... no. I had a daughter now. I fought through the pain and the tears, no longer shouting for death but for someone to find me. I just couldn't die, I just... couldn't.

But at the same time life was almost not worth living, each painful pump of my heart killing me slowly. My body begged to stop working but my mind shouted back.

Don't you dare! You can't quit now!

My vision blurred as I looked up at the orange light of the sunset that washed over the room, my mind not registering that someone had slammed open the front door.

"Angela! Nonononono, please!"

I wouldn't realize until later that it was Renee who found me.

"DAD!" she screamed, but everything else she shouted was lost in the pain and the pulse that took over my entire sense of hearing.

Before long I felt myself being lifted off the ground, not by a gurney but by two strong arms. I was carefully run out to a wagon where I was placed between two large bags of salt. Later on I would feel so ashamed of that; normally I would have been helping them, but I was reduced to such helplessness that the wagon was serving as an ambulance.

"YAH!" Cain yelled as the horses pushed through the snow. There was no way we would make anywhere fast as the cart had to be pulled through a couple feet of snow.

"Shh," Renee cried as she stroked my hair and covered me with a heavy blanket.

I squeezed my eyes shut and gasped. "I—I... breath, help—hurts, can't, I—"

"Angela, we have you now, don't say a word," I could hear the worry thick in Cain's voice, almost threatening tears. "You'll be fine, Jin will take care of you."

I wailed as the cart went over a bump that signified we had entered the cobblestone path that led into Harmonica Town.

"What's wrong?" voices echoed as we passed, but they were left behind, remaining faceless to me.

I sobbed as Cain picked me back up and raced up the stairs to the Clinic, Irene's alarmed face meeting ours as the door flew open.

"M-m-my heart—" I managed to gasp out as Jin came rushing in from the other room. I couldn't understand anything he was saying, but before I could be brought into the back room my eyes rolled back and my head thumped onto Cain's chest.

I had thought that was the end, but life isn't that kind.


I woke up to white lights and the smell of antiseptic. My hand gripped the railing of the bed as flashbacks of being in the hospital jolted me from my sleep. For a second I was afraid that I had never left, that I was still being treated with chemo; nausea immediately washed over me. I almost ripped the IV drip out of my arm out of fear as I looked around, wild-eyed.

"Angela,"

My head snapped to the voice.

"Angela," Jin repeated.

"Wh-wha happn'd?" my words slurred together. My hand went up to touch my mouth and I felt plastic tubing, realizing that I was connected to an oxygen tank. "Why do I ha' this?"

"Angela, I need you to calm down,"

I ripped it off of my head, remembering those other patients who had cancer in their lungs, ranging from bad to really bad. I only saw one or two of them recover, so the fact that I had something attached to me that I associated with them frightened me in a way I can't explain.

"Angela," he repeated my name one more time in that calm, patient voice. But his eyes told the truth as he helped wrap the tubing back behind my ears and stuck the nasal cannula into my nose.

Distress was written all over his suddenly careworn eyes.

"I don' need this," I said as he finished putting it back in its place.

"You won't have to wear this for much longer, we just needed to make sure you had enough oxygen," he reassured me. "There's nothing wrong with your lungs."

Relief washed over me, but at the same time the emotion felt disembodied. My consciousness felt further away from my body, a familiar sensation I remembered from all those times I had been hooked up to potent pain relievers. I looked up at the bag of fluid and the doctor nodded.

"This is the strongest narcotic we have, but I'm afraid that once you are off it the pain will return."

My head hurt as I remembered the paralyzing pain that had seemed like such a long time ago.

"H-how long ha'e I been out?" I swallowed, trying to concentrate on my words.

Jin glanced at the clock. "Oh... fifteen hours at most, I'd say. That is an impressively short amount of time for the state you were in."

"I'e had practice," I tried to smile, but he only pursed his lips together.

"You do realize," he began slowly, carefully picking out his words. "This was only the beginning. There is only so much I can do for you to keep you comfortable, if that's even the word I can use for it."

I nodded, remembering the city doctors openly criticizing the small town clinic they had never been to.

You'll be lucky if you live for a year, they had said. Especially in a small clinic like that.

They had walked away with their condescending voices and self righteous smiles. I hated the city doctors, I hated that they thought they were so were so high and mighty as though we were supposed to look to them as God.

I hated them.

"They were right,"

I stared at him, shocked as though he had somehow been reading my mind. He held a note that I had brought back with me, one that I hadn't bothered to read.

Oh.

"My small hospital does not have the adequacies to properly keep you alive. For that I am truly sorry,"

"No, i's my fault I'm like this; I chose to leave that God forsaken hosp'tal."

He didn't respond, and it occurred to me what the look on his face was; I had seen it so many times during the time I spent away. I had spent so much time myself with that expression.

"You've lost someone,"

"We all lose someone at some point,"

Everything clicked. There was a grave next the church that shared his last name, though I had always assumed it was a family member. At his wedding to Anissa he had replaced one ring with another, but I had never really thought of the significance of that (I had never really been that observantly clever, to tell the truth).

"Your wife,"

He gathered his things without a word.

"I..." I had never confided my past with anyone in the town, not even Kathy. But now... now I felt that I could open my pain up to someone who would know exactly how I felt. "I'm also a widow."

He slightly raised his eyebrows.

"I know your pain, I understand."

"The doctor who fell in love with a sick woman," he mused to himself. "I assume your story was quite a bit different,"

"He us'd to belong to the Mafia," I said bluntly.

"No less tragic, then,"

"I s'pose,"

"But you didn't lose your spouse because you thought you had the ability to save him yourself. You don't know the responsibility of a doctor to his dying wife." He didn't sound like he was saying his loss was worse, but more that our situations were very different. "We share the same loss, but not the same pain."

I didn't know how to respond. He was right, I didn't understand that kind of responsibility.

"But at the same time," he said before he slipped out of the room. "I can't even begin to understand yours."


The thing I liked about the small town clinic was that their visiting hours weren't distinguished between family and friends. There had been quite a few times Kathy and Chase had been kicked out of the hospital room because "only family can be with her at this time."

What a bunch of suckers; I didn't even have a family to be with.

Kathy was the first one to come rushing in.

"Oh Angie, Angie, Angie," she said as she held my hand, the one that didn't have the IV attached to it. "I haven't seen you this bad in months."

"I know," I agreed. "But at least it wasn't from chemo this time."

"Yeah, now you can keep down the food we bring you,"

"I don't plan on staying here, you know."

She raised her eyebrows. "But—"

"I'll be fine, they said I'll be able to go home if I allow them to put a drug pump in."

"They can do that here?"

"Surgery? Yes. It's nothing major, don't worry about it."

That was sort of a lie, because they would be inserting something into my spine. If they made a wrong move I could be paralyzed, but at this point I didn't really care. I refused to be confined to a hospital bed again after all that I'd gone through.

"All right," she let go of my hand, a trusting look in her eyes. "As long as you'll be okay,"

The next person who visited was Calvin. I had frantically tried to straighten my hair and smooth the hospital gown and smell my breath before he came in but I still looked like crap.

"Miss Angela," he tipped his hat. "You're looking lovely as ever."

"Thank you, Calvin,"

His hat was still over his eyes as he came and sat in the chair at my bedside. "You gave everyone quite a scare,"

"I'm sorry,"

"It's nothing to be sorry about, you just can't help these things."

Dying.

'These things' was dying.

Silence filled the air for a moment.

"Jin said we could move you to the window tonight," he started, "And I'll order from the inn to have a nice meal."

I perked up. "Oh, that's nice of you Calvin, but I'll be okay by myself."

His eyes were sad. "You don't know what today is, do you?"

"Um... it's not your birthday, is it?"

"It's the eleventh," he said, as if that date was supposed to mean something to me.

"I'm sorry,"

"Our Festival is tonight,"

"Oh."

Our Festival was another way we talked about the Starry Night Festival, the one we had always celebrated every year as friends. I couldn't believe I had forgotten all about it.

"I ordered us some food from the inn," he repeated.

"No,"

"Pardon?"

"No," I turned to him. I couldn't believe the words that were coming out of my mouth. "I want you to go with Phoebe."

That was a lie.

"I... I don't want you to remember me this way every time you celebrate it in the future. I want you to remember the last one we had, and all the good ones before that."

He just stared at me.

I was so vain. I'd rather the man I'd loved go out with the woman he'd inevitably fall in love with than remember me as this sickly half-corpse I was.

"I can't do that. I can't let you spend your last—" he stopped himself. "I can't let you spend it alone in a hospital room. You've had too much of that for me to just leave you here alone during a tradition like this."

"No, I... want you to have a good time. I'll only ruin it for you. Please, Calvin, let me do this,"

He hesitated. "Miss Angela—" he sighed. "Are you sure?"

I nodded and winked. "Go have fun, catch her before it's too late."

"I'll put that meal on hold for another day, how does that sound?"

"That sounds perfect. I'll see you then,"

He tipped his hat and left, but before I could start feeling too depressed there was a knock at the doorway.

"I, uh... didn't want to interrupt."

"What are you doing here?"

Chase sighed. "Is it always this way with you?"

"Sorry, that's not what I meant," I said as he walked to my bedside. "I thought you were angry at me,"

"Well, you know how it seems sorta wrong to stay angry at the dead? It's like that."

"Excuse you," I said, offended. "I'm not dead yet."

"Sorry, that's not what I meant," he said, obviously mocking me.

"Well if you're going to be a pain, then just leave."

He didn't say anything for a while. "Well, uh," he started, trying to figure out what to say. "I overheard your conversation—"

"So now you're an eavesdropper. Where does it end with you?"

"Will shut up and listen?" he sighed in exasperation then continued. "I've never actually celebrated this festival so I figured if you're going to spend it alone this year for your not-so-selfless reasons—"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well obviously you don't want him seeing you when you look so horrible,"

"The nerve—"

"But I'm right, aren't I?" I didn't respond. "You're not so hard to see through, you know."

"You're one to talk,"

"AND SO," he talked over my comment. "I thought that maybe you wouldn't be so lonely and I wouldn't have to eat all the food I mindlessly cook for these festivals that I don't even attend if I came here and spent it with you."

I flexed the fingers that had gone numb from the IV as I mulled over his proposition. To tell the truth, I was still annoyed with him from the other night. "Kathy put you up to this," I finally decided.

He flung his hands up in the air. "You know what, I don't know why I even try."

"You're the one that's always being impossible with people!"

"I'm trying to do something nice for you, Angela. I know that seems like an outlandish idea that maybe I actually want to do something nice for someone, but if you're going to be the impossible one I may as well just leave."

"Don't go,"

He raised an eyebrow as he stood up.

"I'm sorry, I'm just... really mixed up these days. Some really big things happened to me yesterday, and I just..."

He sat back down. "It's not that I want to hear about your feelings or sob stories or anything, but if you need someone to talk to, well... I can go Kathy for you."

I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic, so I gave him the look.

He put up his hands in defense. "Kidding, sorry."


The meteor shower was gorgeous that night. We watched from the hospital window, and while it wasn't as spectacular as years past, it was still a nice thing to watch. This was also the best meal I had eaten during this festival, a flavorful risotto with just the right amount of citrus in it.

"So let me get this straight," Chase said as he stared out the window. "He was part of the mafia or something,"

"Yes,"

Now that I had already told one person about my husband I figured I could tell others about what was going on.

"And he owed them some huge debt,"

"Yes,"

I was hesitant to tell Chase at first, but I figured if he was going to go through the trouble of staying at the hospital with me for this festival, I may as well tell him.

"So he dropped your daughter off with some mystery person, didn't tell you who, then disappeared forever to protect his family."

"Basically,"

He blinked. "That's rough,"

This time it wasn't sarcastic at all. He actually sounded... sad, but not in a sympathetic way. Just, sad.

"I take back every bad thought I've had about you,"

"Like what?"

"I don't know, that you're annoyingly independent, that you're lack of close friends seems disturbing for your amount of friendliness, that you're too obsessed with farming—you know, I can go on, but now I can sorta excuse you for all that."

"Too obsessed with farming? Really?"

"I never understood the appeal,"

I tried to laugh, but my head ached.

"So anyway, the lady said your daughter is in some small town,"

"Yeah, and that Mabel doesn't know anything about me,"

"And an identity change,"

I nodded.

"And she had red—"

"Hair just like her father," I finished. "And bluish green eyes and fair skin and if only I could see what she looked like today..." I sighed.

"If only," he said. "I don't know about you, but all this sounds a lot like Chloe."

I dropped my fork.

"Are you oka—oh no. No, don't even think about it, I know that look." He shook his head vigorously.

"But... it all makes sense."

"Angela, no,"

"She would be the same age! A-and she has Charlie's hair! And eyes! And she was abandoned with her grandfather when she was a baby and who would he trust more than his own father and—"

"There's no way it can be her," Chase argued.

"But this is a small, very safe town,"

"It's a one in a million chance,"

"Will you stop it?!" I nearly yelled. "Why can't it be her? When everything matches up so well... why are you so set on ruining this chance for me?"

"Because you're desperate,"

A chill went through me. No, I thought as I put the plate of food by my bedside and pulled up the thick quilts Renee had left for me. You are not ruining my chances.

That word though, desperate, gave me a horribly cold feeling. I couldn't shake it off, that maybe he was right.

I stared out the window, remembering one of the traditions was to make a wish on one of the falling stars.

"I wish," I whispered as I pulled the covers up to my face. "I wish that it will be her.


A/N: For some reason I was under the impression that the Starry Night Festival was on the twenty-fourth in Animal Parade, so it's a darn good thing I checked Fogu as I was writing this chapter. I had to rewrite most of it so that it would make sense OTL

Unfortunately I had a hard time tying in the theme with this chapter so this one sorta doesn't work completely, but whatever.