Hi... not sure how I got this out in a week but here it is. Chapter 37 will be up tomorrow, as promised. After this I'll go back to publishing one at a time but I'll do my best to not keep you guys waiting :) As always, your comments and thoughts mean everything to me. And big thanks to T for helping me out in this.

To answer Regina007, after the next update it should be 10 more, approx.


Hi... I know it's been a long time since we last saw or talked to each other, and I also know that part of you is probably wondering why on earth I'm texting you right now. You're also probably wondering if that call I made was a mistake but I think, deep down, it wasn't. I think I meant to call you no matter how drunk I may have been (did you guess I was drunk? - you probably did by now, you were always smarter than me at figuring things out). And I'm sorry by the way, for having drunk-called you in the first place. You deserve better than that. Which is why I want to do this right if you'll let me, and if there's a part of you that still wants this.

For so long I've thought that every day that went by without reaching out to you was part of the process, something we signed up for when we decided to take that break. But I've decided that I don't want this to be a 'life happens' kind of thing anymore. I miss you in my life, Elsa. More than I've ever missed anyone else. I understand that going back to what we had won't just happen. But there's no pressure and no rush at all. You're worth fighting for. You always have been. I was just too dumb and too caught up in my own problems to realize it before it was too late.

What I'm trying to say is... I want to get to know you again. So if you want this too, just let me know. Shoot me a text, call me, give me a smoke signal - you know I've always liked old-school stuff. And if you don't, then I'll understand that as well. I just want you to be happy. That has never changed and it never, ever will.

Anyway, I hope you've been well, doc...

ps. I'm sorry for the blocks of text, I still suck at keeping things short :(

"Hey."

Elsa looks up from her phone.

"We're here," Eugene tells her.

She nods without saying anything, puts the phone away, and stands up to get off the train.

They exit on 47th, step right into the heart of New York's Diamond District where street-level edifices are festooned with sparkling earrings, flashy accessories and elegant rings. Elsa has come as Eugene's chaperone, his confidante and aide; the person who will have to ask him to calm down when things start to get too overwhelming because he's looked at twenty engagement rings and none of them seem to be the right fit.

"... and I just keep going in my head," he says, "should it be gold, rose gold, white gold or silver? And what's the difference between white gold and silver? Is white gold even a real thing or is it a rip-off? And why is it so hard to choose a ring when it's just a ring?"

"It's an engagement ring," Elsa corrects him distractedly.

Eugene groans, covering his face in exasperation. "It has to be special," he says, perhaps reminding himself more so than for the sake of agreeing with her. They pass a few shops along the way, stopping by their storefront windows to take a look at the rings displayed. Elsa would be lying if she said she could tell the difference between cuts, or whether what they were looking at were real diamonds or zircon. All she had a grasp on was her cousin's taste, but even that she wouldn't bet her life on.

"Do you know which style you're looking for?" Elsa asks him, eyeing a rather flashy ring with a large diamond on its center and a handful of small, blue stones on both sides of it.

"Something pretty," he responds, rather unhelpful. "And nothing too ostentatious," which is somewhat helpful.

"Those things can be hardly categorized as style," she points out, stepping away from the window.

Eugene groans again. "What is style?"

Elsa pats him on the arm. This poor guy. They haven't even started looking properly and he's already losing it. She suggests they try a store called Forever Diamond simply because it's the next one on their path. Might as well start somewhere, she thinks. This could very well be a long day of searching for the right ring.

The store muffles the bustling sounds of the street as soon as the door shuts behind them. They step farther into the air-conditioned atmosphere and wave—like teenagers entering an adult shop for the first time—when a woman greets them with a smile that means business. She tells them her name is Mindy and that she is here for any questions they may have.

"Anything in particular you're looking for?" the lady asks them, unable to wait around in silence.

"A ring," Eugene answers.

"An engagement ring," Elsa corrects.

"Oh," the woman's smile grows—didn't seem possible until then. "You know," she tells Eugene, "Usually the gentlemen will shop for a ring without their soon-to-be-fiancée. To keep it a surprise." She winks at the last part, and Elsa makes a face.

"She's just helping me with it," Eugene says, patting Elsa's shoulder. She nods in agreement all the while wondering what it would be like to pretend to be straight for the day. Probably not much would be different. She would still be looking at rings with her cousin's boyfriend. Although perhaps she wouldn't be thinking over and over again about the text message that's been awaiting in her phone for nearly a week, almost as if it were burning a hole through the fabric of her jeans.

"I'm sorry," the woman says, placing a hand on her heart. The universal gesture meant for genuine apologies. But does she mean it? Who knows. The smile hasn't quite left. "Well, what sort of engagement ring do you have in mind? We manage every kind of cut: the princess, the emerald, the oval, the marquise..."

Eugene looks constipated.

"Are you okay?" Elsa asks him.

He nods dumbly, then asks the woman: "Can you show me the cuts you have? One of each?"

She fails to conceal the bewilderment caused by his request. Elsa can almost feel her struggle to keep a straight face when she says, "That would be ten rings, yes?"

"Sure."

Each safely tucked inside a small, velvety cushion, Mindy places ten rings on the glass counter. She names each one of the cuts, pointing at the rings with a perfectly manicured finger as she goes.

"We should discard the ostentatious ones first," Eugene mumbles in Elsa's direction. She isn't sure what his process is. He seems to be all over the place, to be honest. But she decides to go along with it for now.

"The emerald," she says, pointing the same way the woman just did. "The oval, the cushion and the pear."

"Okay." He huffs out a breath. He appears slightly calmer now, more resolute, finally on his way to know what he's doing. "Can we take a look at your best princess cuts? And maybe some small round ones, too? Preferably in silver or in rose gold. Please." Look at him go.

"So we're going for silver instead of white gold, huh?" she asks him once Mindy has stepped away, seemingly happier now that she knows she has a real task at hand.

Eugene shushes her. "I still don't know if white gold is a rip-off or not."

Half an hour later, they step out of the store empty handed. It was almost to be expected, Elsa told him. Imagine the sheer luck if they had found the right ring on their first try. Of course, of course, Eugene had said. He didn't appear discouraged. Not really. Now that the initial nervousness founded in his lack of expertise had waned he held an air of quiet enthusiasm about him. He wanted this ring to be perfect. His resolution was almost palpable.

They visit one more store. Then another, and another. A couple of hours pass. They become acquainted with a hefty Russian old man who handles jewelry with utmost gentleness, his stocky fingers holding up each ring as if it were the size of an insect. They meet an Indian man, whose inquiring brown eyes narrow when inspecting every diamond he places before them. "All top quality," he says, his thick, accentuated t's falling back in his mouth. Every diamond atop every ring holds its own beauty. But every diamond is unique, too. Or so the Jewish man says.

"But how do I know it's the one?" Eugene asks him, genuinely interested—mildly desperate.

The man shrugs. "When you know, you know."

Elsa refrains from saying anything to this. It sounds as helpful as 'something pretty.' She steps away from the counter to take a look at other rings herself. The variety is overwhelming; the amount, staggering. How does one keep track? How does one discern one diamond from the other with just a simple look? She surveys a few that lean towards the ostentatious side, trailing her fingers across the edge of the counter. Elsa doesn't remember the last time she ever considered marriage, but she does remember all those little moments she entertained the idea of it, vaguely in passing, more often than not in Anna's arms. It had all felt so fresh and young, though, so brisk when it stood at the threshold of her rational mind. So exhilaratingly new that Elsa had no way of fully grasping it.

And then things had changed.

"Elsa," Eugene whispers loudly from across the store. He waves at her to come over.

He is holding a ring in his palm. A delicate, rose gold ring with a classic round cut diamond on top and a row of smaller encrusted pieces interwoven on both sides of it. "What do you think?" Eugene asks in a small voice weighed down by his own excitement.

"I think it's perfect."

Eugene's eyes connect with hers and for a moment she thinks he's going to cry.

"When you know, you know," the Jewish man says again, more ominously this time.

Buying the ring feels like its own little ritual, amidst verifying the diamond's certificate and choosing a ring box. Eugene's hand trembles as he provides his debit card, as he signs the receipt, as he holds the box with the ring already inside. The man gives out a good, hearty laugh before he extends his hand towards Eugene's, shakes it firmly and says, "Mazal u'Bracha." Good fortune and a blessing.

They step out into the street and begin heading towards Sixth Avenue with no real destination in mind. It is a gentle afternoon, unconcerned with the comings and goings of people who cross mid-street, taxis that honk, steam that rises up from the tunneled ground. Of bikers who weave through traffic, murmured afternoon prayers coming from the lips of Muslim food vendors, the fluttering wings of pigeons.

It is, quite simply, another afternoon in the city.

"So now that you have the ring," Elsa says, "How are you planning on proposing?"

"I have a couple of options. But I'll need your help with that as well."

She sighs dramatically. "I guess," she drags out, making him chuckle. He keeps patting every other time at the jewelry box sitting inside the pocket of his slacks. Something which makes Elsa smile, as if she were borrowing a little bit of his happiness.

"So do you know who you're going to take as your plus one?" Eugene asks, not as slyly as he thinks.

"It's too early to decide. You haven't even proposed."

He lifts his shoulders all the way up to his ears, then drops them. "Have you tried any dating apps?"

"What?"

"A dating app, have you tried it?"

She bites the inside of her cheek at the same time that she glances at the numbered street. They're nearing 50th and Elsa almost stumbles at the sight of Radio City Music Hall. The last time she was here was for Anna's college graduation. Part of her wants to laugh at the building irony of it all.

"Do I look like a dating app kind of person?" she replies.

"Eh. Not really. But there's nothing a good hook up can't fix."

Elsa eyes him with a warning look. "Don't make me regret giving you my blessing."

Eugene laughs. They cross the street, a taxi honks at them for no reason. Radio City looms over her head for a brief pause. Elsa steps into a memory, dwells in its lingering sweetness, and then steps out. The Hall is left behind, where the rest of her past belongs.

"Look, I know Anna messed up a bit," he says. "But there's nothing some good old communication can't fix. Does that sound better?"

She smiles despite herself as she allows the sounds of the street to fill in the silence that's trailed after his words. It's not about the kiss, she thinks of saying, but she doesn't want to delve into it in the middle of a hustling New York avenue. It is not about the kiss, it is about something much more conflicting, much less to do with Anna's actions than with Elsa's inactions.

Something bumps against her shoulder. It is Eugene's arm. "Don't let that get to you again."

I won't, she thinks, but again says nothing. She wonders if they're wandering or heading somewhere, but what she asks instead is: "Have you seen her lately?"

"I haven't," he answers. "Work's kept us busy for a while and you know how high-strung I've been about the proposal lately."

Elsa nods, reluctant to accept his answer but keeping herself from further asking. A simple response for a simple question. Simple. The truth. What else did she expect?

Eugene speaks again. "She's changed, you know? I mean she was never bad. She's always been one of the best humans I know. But she's... I don't know. She's done some growing." He slips his right hand inside the pocket where he keeps the ring before he drapes his left arm over her shoulder. "We all have," he adds as an afterthought. "I mean look at us, getting married and stuff."

So it seems that a random passerby has overheard the news. "Congratulations!" he exclaims.

"Thanks!" Eugene yells back, laughing when Elsa groans and covers her face in embarrassment. "Wait until I tell Rapunzel about this. She's gonna love it."

"Yes, please, go ahead. Stomp on my pride."

"But we're so close to June already," he says. "Soon you'll have your gay pride renewed same way the moon shines again every month. And you shall be here. And you shall be queer."

"Please shut up."

He laughs harder and doesn't let go of her when she tries to squirm away from under his arm. Instead, he steers her to the right, towards Fifth Avenue. "Come on. Let me buy you some cheap but tasty lunch. We still have a proposal to plan."


Elsa waits at the bottom of the stairs, watching Theo come down with the aid of her cane and a nurse. She keeps mumbling under her breath, grumbling and frowning, and Elsa doesn't catch the last thread of her spiel until she's closer to the landing.

"... could run from here to the station if I wanted to."

"Is she giving you a hard time, Gaby?" Elsa asks the nurse.

"She says she doesn't need my help," Gaby responds with a hint of amusement. "Says she doesn't need the cane and to stick the wheelchair up our—"

"Ass," Theo finishes. "Yes, I said that."

"How irreverent of you," Elsa says through a smile.

The elder rolls her eyes. She stomps the cane on the wooden floor despite still holding herself up with Gaby's support. "I have little left of my pride. I refuse to take the wheelchair."

"But it's a long trip," Gaby points out.

She lets go of the nurse, raises her arms up, takes a few steps forward, does a little dance. "I can handle myself," she states. "End of discussion."

"Maybe she can handle herself for the day," Elsa says, trying to ease everybody's mind. Gaby looks unconvinced. So she presses on. "If she gets tired or anything we'll just take a break. But I think it'll do her good to visit the city for real this time. What do you say, Theo?"

But Theo is already heading for the door.

Outside, the quiet of Queens' suburbs reigns. The morning birds still chirp overhead, the distant squeal of a kid penetrates the air, and Theo's enthusiastic, southern-tinted voice comes through: "So which way to the subway station?"

Elsa looks up from the ride she was about to order. "You don't want to take a cab like last time?"

"Three days ago I wasn't feelin' as alive as today, sugar." She begins walking west, which makes Elsa wonder if she knew all along which way the subway station was. "I want the full New Yorker experience this time," she throws over her shoulder.

Elsa chuckles, shakes her head in disbelief. She watches Theo tread the path for a couple of seconds, leaning only slightly on the cane with each step she takes. She's walking at a good, steady pace, given the on-and-off symptoms she tells her she's been having ever since she begrudgingly admitted to the nausea during Elsa's visit a week ago. It took almost half a day to convince her to get some tests done and Theo had only accepted because Elsa had promised she would go with her to each visit she required.

So here they were now, beginning a road trip to the city, with the hospital as their last destination. It was time to learn the results. Something that didn't seem to preoccupy Theo but which Elsa had been having a hard time not thinking about.

"Are you comin', slowpoke?"

Elsa starts in a run to catch up.

"Has anyone ever told you how stubborn you can be?"

"Oh, honey. If I had a dollar for every time someone told me that you would be payin' visits at a Manhattan condo."


They arrive to the city with a handful of hours to spare. They get off the M line, exit on Lexington Avenue. She allows time for Theo to look up at the grey towers, at the forgotten strands of sky between them. She looks up herself and wonders: will this feeling ever get old?

Walking with Theo by her side, Elsa has the sense that not a single person who resembles her age ever walks these streets. A city that won't pause even to shrug has no place for those unable to keep up with it. It seems to be a ludicrous concept, an unfathomable option. There is no time left in the ticking hours of the day to remember that a human is meant to reach the old age. No time to be reminded of the inevitable. New York City is a machine, and every rusty component within must be discarded.

The path that leads to the Rockefeller Center is leisurely trodden. One storefront, one street number, one glimpse of the Empire State Building incites a story out of Theo until she has almost forgotten she relies on a cane for support. The city breathes life into her just like Elsa thought—and hoped—it would.

They stop by Magnolia Bakery and buy a blueberry cake that they share sitting at the Channel Gardens of the skyscraper. It is here that Theo fully catches up on the happenings of Elsa's life. Her patients: the old man with the magnet, the young man with the heart disease that has no way of being saved. She tells him about Sasha and Rapunzel, about the status of Eugene's proposal plans. They discuss marriage and Theo's advise never to get married for comfort instead of love. They discuss divorce and Theo's advise to get a prenup. Elsa brings up nearly everything and everyone except for the one person she craves to talk about and the one single, seemingly inconsequential factor that binds them together right now: a text message.

But that had to be it right there. This craving. This endless need to bring Anna up that is constantly being ignited by the very same necessity to see her again. It is a vicious cycle that keeps getting smaller and smaller around her, darkening her line of vision, clouding her judgement. It left no room for herself. It needed to stop.

She takes Theo inside the Rockefeller so that she can look at the mural—the one not painted by Diego Rivera, the one that has no Lenin as its centerpiece. Again, there are no people anywhere near Theo's age crisscrossing on the polished floor of the lobby. Those who are can only possibly be found at the top, in secluded penthouses, wearing expensive suits and drinking expensive liquor. Most likely white. Most likely men. It occurs something to Elsa then: "Next time we come I'll take you to the Top of the Rock," she promises Theo, who gives her a look that is both thrilled and mischievous. There is a fragment in time where their visit to the doctor is nothing more than a forgotten destination.

From the Rockefeller to the Grand Central Library the way is south. Seven short blocks that tend to feel like three. This is why people walk everywhere here, Elsa thinks. This is why you find yourself one late night stroll reaching Chinatown when you could have sworn you'd just passed Greenwich.

They don't enter the library. Instead, they round the corner and head towards Bryant Park. They stop by a stand where a young black woman, her hair braided into cornrows dotted at the end with colored beads, sells sunglasses and headscarves. She wears a t-shirt with the word Queen imprinted fancily on its front, has a gold-framed tooth, calls Theo 'mama'. Elsa buys a headscarf with sunflowers on it and a pair of sky blue sunglasses. The scarf is for Theo, she says. In that case, the woman responds, I can style it up for you real good. Theo agrees without hesitation. The corner of 5th and 40th becomes an impromptu hair salon.

They find a free table in the park, under the shadows of large, lush trees. Elsa offers to buy something to drink while Theo sits down and rests, then crosses the street to the same coffee shop she always visits when she's in the area.

Inside and as she waits in line, what is almost an instinct by now drives Elsa to pull out her phone. Her thumb hovers over the screen, indecisive yet predictable in the quick succession of its moves. She opens her messages and goes straight to Anna's, the quicker the better, the less time she has to consider just how pathetic it is to still be analyzing a message she has yet to respond to. And how ironic, too, that she waited so long for this only to hesitate. Only to have it coincide with the one moment where she has finally questioned what self-worth truly meant.

I don't want this to be a 'life happens' kind of thing anymore, Anna wrote. That's what it had been, hadn't it? A 'got swept up by life' kind of thing. Blink and you might miss it. Where did the time go? one asks. It went nowhere. Like matter, it is not created or destroyed. It only changes its form. It is burnt away by one's actions and decisions, and its ashes are the memories that result from them.

Elsa orders a cucumber lemonade for herself and a sweet lemon iced for Theo, and waits. She becomes enthralled by the way the shop's window serves as a screen to the other side. She stares, suddenly wondering what she would do if she saw Anna walking across it right now. She feels like laughing but settles for an inward smile. She knows exactly what she would do, so much so that it all runs through her mind like a clear and perfect movie. She would run out of the shop, call out her name and stand with breathless expectation as she turns around. The breeze would pick up for a brief pause, the world would come to a standstill.

What would it be like to kiss Anna again, after all this time? What would it be like to shake her by the shoulders and ask, Why did we let life happen to us this way?

Her name is called out. The sharp, damp coldness of the plastic cups brings her back to the present. She asks for a tray.

Elsa crosses the busy street again, steps over the dirt and through the bushes rather than rounding for the designated path. She feels like a rebel. Theo is still sitting at the same table but now, she is writing. An open journal sits atop her crossed legs, the pen in her hand sweeps the page from left to right, left to right, leaving tiny footsteps made of ink on its wake. Elsa approaches slowly.

"Should I come back later?" she asks.

"Nonsense," Theo says as she finishes one last sentence, drops a period and closes her journal. She accepts the iced tea with a wide smile. "You're spoilin' me rotten today."

"Consider it payback for all the free therapy sessions you've given me," Elsa responds, making her laugh; a low, refrained sound, nothing like the way she used to laugh many months ago. "So what were you writing? If you don't mind sharing."

"Just jotting down little trinkets of my life."

"Like a memoir?"

"A memoir is somethin' you publish, isn't it?"

"I believe so," Elsa says.

Theo nods pensively, but keeps the answer to herself. She looks briefly away, her brown eyes slightly narrowed by the sunlight that cascades through the canopy of the trees. The headscarf fits her well, Elsa notices, like a crown.

"I was remembering what my momma always used to say," Theo recounts. "She was always sayin' how important it was that I had kids. 'Cause then when I got old I would have someone to look after me. 'Your kids will look after you and your grandkids will look after your kids,' she'd say. And I'd roll my eyes and say, 'Yes, momma.'"

Elsa smirks. "But you never listened."

She shakes her head. "I gave her a hard time 'til the very end."

"You really never wished you had kids?"

Theo places a hand on her journal, as if by touching it she would be able to draw the answer to Elsa's question. "Sometimes I wish I'd had a big family like my brothers and sisters. Same way I wish sometimes that I'd stayed in the south and same way I wish I'd stayed married to my dreary, old husband."

"So like wishful thinking."

She gives her a smile. "You don't ever consider the alternatives to your own life?"

Elsa kicks at the dirt with her shoe. "More often than I care to admit," she mutters. She's used to spending nights considering nothing but alternatives. What if Anna had spoken sooner, or Elsa pushed harder? What if the two of them had not allowed the gap of silence to separate them until it was too large to breach? What if Elsa had loved her any less? Would any of this had hurt as much? Or if Elsa had cared for herself some more, would she have spent three years carried away by her yearning for Anna's return?

She remembers those first months after their break up, how she would stare at herself in the mirror for minutes on end. How she had the look of someone who might wait forever.

"I keep thinking that I should focus on myself more," she tells Theo. "You know, work on self-worth and all that."

"Is that what you would'a done differently? Focused more on yourself?"

Elsa dwells on this. Is it? Would a touched up ego have changed anything? Perhaps not. Perhaps, she thinks, their egos never played a part at all.

Theo is watching her closely. "Self-worth don't always have to be found being alone, honey."

She looks up through her lashes. "You did it."

The elder gives another gentle smile. "I ain't the one fighting against the current, sugar."

"You think that's what I'm doing?"

"I think I've known you long enough to know when your mouth is sayin' one thing and your eyes another."

Elsa nods even if this isn't something she's happily ready to accept. She fiddles with the straw of her lemonade, twists it from side to side, making the liquid swirl and the ice chunks clink against each other. She imagines herself being taken away by the current. She imagines floating in a stream filled with time's ashes, reaching the river mouth and being carried into a sea of teal blue eyes.

A hand touches hers. Theo says: "Understanding comes with love, you know?"

"But I tried understanding for so long..."

"I don't mean you," she tells Elsa. "I mean her."

A question forms in her mind that doesn't need to leave her mouth. "You're already assuming she won't be able to understand what's goin' on in your mind," Theo says. "Give that girl the benefit of the doubt. She might surprise you."

Elsa doesn't respond. She looks away at the green lawn of the park, at the strangers who have decided to spend an afternoon soaking up the sun. In the distance, she sees a girl. Copper red hair over freckle-kissed shoulders. She is laughing at something someone else is saying, oblivious to the person who watches from afar. She is not Anna—doesn't quite look like her, either. But Elsa's lips are tugged at the corners, and the ghost of a smile has appeared on her face because, for a moment, Elsa wishes she were.


At the hospital, in the waiting room, Elsa makes her silent classifications. Patient. Parent. Friend. Distant relative. Doctor. Nurse. The adult patients are easy. They are the ones with slippers and reactionary, ill-fitting smiles. They smile to show there is nothing to worry about, that they themselves are not worried. The parents are easy too. Every dreary imagining has come upon them, and their eyes and lips are pinched by shock. Age has caught up, it has not been forgiving. The distant relatives and the friends are hard to tell apart, except that the relatives tread lightly, in circles, back and forth, while the friends take the burden of bringing cheer and teddies, watered down coffees from the cafeteria. Doctors wear their authority on their white coats and in their urgent strides, and they make Elsa wonder if she looks the same when she's on call. The nurses give out nods and brief, encouraging smiles that ignite in the parents a look of expectancy, as if they had remembered something to say; on the tip of their tongue and gone again.

"Ms. Jackson?"

Both Theo and Elsa turn to the call. Doctor Moore is standing by the door that leads to his consultation room. Elsa had only recognized him in passing before, a vague face in lectures, in the cafeteria, in the hallway that had solidified itself the first time they visited his office three days ago. He smiles at them when they approach and shakes each of their hands in a gesture that communicates nothing except for courtesy. Elsa begins fidgeting the moment they sit down.

"Okay," Doctor Moore says, "We have a lot to discuss. But first I would like to know, how have you been feeling, Ms. Jackson?"

"Feelin' fine, doc," Theo responds, patting at the wrinkles of her long floral skirt, touching lightly the base of the headscarf wrapped around her short, grayish hair. The corners of Elsa's mouth twitch. Flirt, she thinks to herself.

"No symptoms then? No nausea or vomiting? Any abdominal pain?"

She shakes her head proudly, which makes the doctor nod in response. For a fleeting moment Elsa catches in him a sign of hesitation as he rearranges himself in his chair, leaning closer to his desktop. It is as though she were hyperaware of every movement, every look that crosses his face, every breathing pause he takes. Like the weary sigh before a confession, the doctor's slight change in demeanor is causing dread to pulsate against her ribcage.

"Do you want to see the CT scans?" he asks Theo.

"Yes."

He brings up the images on the computer and Elsa quickly studies them before she does her best to conceal the breath she sucks in. Her stomach churns as the doctor points out each gray shape on the scan. The liver. The kidneys. The spine. He does so slowly in order to orient Theo while Elsa wishes she could accuse him of stalling. He then scrolls up to a less discernible smudge near the center of the scan and pauses.

"What's that?" Theo asks. Elsa's chest grows hollow.

"That is a tumor," he delivers gently, "growing at the head of your pancreas."

A hand searches blindly for Elsa's.

"Is it cancer?"

The nod of his head is so faint it is almost nonexistent, but it is enough for Theo to understand; to take a deep breath and lift her chin up. Her eyelids shut down for a moment, and another breath goes in, and another one goes out. Elsa watches her in silence. She feels sorrow hanging like a stone pendant within her throat, the cold, smooth mass preventing her from speaking. She swallows thickly. She wishes she could take this away from her, extract it from the palm, the fingertips, the knuckles she holds in her hands, crumple it and discard it dead on the floor. So that Theo won't have to worry about this ever again. So that she can live for many more years than the time she has left.

At last, Theo speaks. "So what's next?" Her voice is austere and sober. Steady as the trunk of an ancient oak.

"I would have to redirect you to an oncologist," he says. "Whenever you are ready."

"Ready for what, exactly?"

"To discuss your treatment options."

Suddenly, Theo turns to Elsa. "What do you think, honey?"

Elsa blinks, willing herself to keep her eyes from watering. She clears her throat. "I think the sooner we discuss your options, the sooner you'll know which one to choose."

She turns back to the doctor. "How bad is it?" she asks, reminding Elsa of all the patients who have asked her the same thing.

Doctor Moore opens and closes his mouth, visibly thrown off by the amount of information Theo is requesting with this much sobriety all at once. It almost makes Elsa want to chuckle, but her throat has been clenched tight again. "Unfortunately, it has spread to the liver and the peritoneum, which is the lining of your abdominal cavity."

Theo hums. She inhales and exhales deeply again, squeezes Elsa's hand with gentle force. "So it's bad."

"It has metastasized, yes."

She pauses. "Give me a few days, doc," she tells him with serenity.

There is not a lot left to say, not a lot that comes out of Theo's mouth except for a few monosyllabic answers to the remaining of the doctor's questions. They head for the elevator slowly, every step measured by the elder's pace who seems in need, once again, of her cane. Elsa forces herself to keep her tears at bay, for it is not the time for grieving. It should not have to be. Not today, nor tomorrow. Not like this. She tries to discern Theo's emotions so that she can know how to provide something that could be tantamount to comfort, but every time she steals a glance she is met with a soft and solemn expression.

Inside the elevator, Theo finally speaks. It is enough for Elsa's heart to shrink and swell, a mingled sensation of deep sadness and great, inexhaustible love.

"I didn't know it was possible to feel gratitude and regret at the same time."

Elsa squeezes the hand tucked inside her elbow until she feels it squeeze her back, and a single, lonely tear begin to make its way down her cheek.


The low sound of a radio station fills the warm air inside the car. The taxi driver lets out a quiet, humming sound from time to time, an agreeing nod here and then. A brown rosary hangs from the rear-view mirror, its cross dangling from side to side at the stops and the turns.

In the beginning, the radio speaks, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was in joints. Therefore, the most important work is of separation. It is of pulling apart the tangled threads. Of saying, 'This shall be separate from that. This shall be water, this shall be sky, and this shall be the line between them: the horizon.' Another hum comes from the driver. Elsa goes on listening without quite meaning to. What does it mean, then, that this world came into being at first through a blinding act, before, slowly, elements were set apart and infinitely fine lines were drawn? It means that to understand the world as God intended us to, one must understand first the act of separation.

Theo herself hums at this, while Elsa smiles at the realization that she had been listening as well. She watches her closely for a moment, shifting her focus away from the voice of the radio. A faint smile plays on Theo's lips like a pose of strength. The acceptance of a fate as inexorable as the tide.

"Do you know my options, honey?" Theo asks.

Elsa wrings her hands together. "Chemotherapy will most likely be the main option but we won't know for sure until we see an oncologist."

"No surgery?"

She looks down at the space between them. "Not when it has metastasized."

Theo nods her head slowly. "My brother Jimmy died of cancer," she says. "Lung cancer, I think. He said he'd taken one good look at those results and thought, Whatever that is is gonna kill me. He called it a ghost. And now I have my own. I got a ghost growin' inside of me."

Elsa feels as if something were pushing against her chest, beating nonstop, harder and harder until she is sure the only way for it to stop is if she screamed. Except that she can't. She won't. Because this fate belongs to Theo and all Elsa can do is walk by her side until they reach the point of separation.

"Is there anything I can do?" she asks her.

Theo twines and untwines her fingers together. "There is something..."

"Anything."

She faces away from the window so that she can fix her eyes on Elsa. There is in them that familiar glint that has always belonged to her, that usual flash of youthful spirit that has so often been unparalleled. The same unwavering support that has never deserted Elsa when she's needed it the most; the one that has always seemed to know best and that will always look out for her no matter where she goes.

It is this look which holds Elsa in place as Theo reaches across the seat, places her hand atop hers and finally asks: "Will you call Anna for me?"


The piece related by the radio speaker was extracted from the book Disobedience by Naomi Alderman