RAPHAEL
Three days after going to the doctor, I had learned two things. First, Belle was a deeply unreliable narrator when it came to her own pain. Second, physical therapists are terrifyingly cheerful. We had just finished her first appointment. She had insisted she did not require assistance walking in, and then accepted my arm without comment when we walked back out. Progress, I suppose.
We’d had a surprisingly good couple of days. They’d been domestic in a way I had not anticipated. I found I enjoyed taking care of someone else. The realization unsettled me at first. I had not needed to take care of anyone in a long time. I barely took care of myself. Geoffrey managed my calendar, my meals, and the logistics of my existence with ruthless efficiency. I had grown accustomed to functioning at a distance from my own needs.
Now I was tracking icing intervals and medication timing. I drove her to physical therapy. And I did not resent it. If anything, I felt . . . useful.
Belle did not make it easy. She resisted assistance on principle. She argued about compression schedules. She accused me of hovering. But she allowed me to adjust the brace.She accepted my arm when she needed balance. She followed through on the exercises.
Last night we sat on the couch for hours after dinner. No agenda. No contracts. No negotiations. Just conversation.
She was quick-witted in a way I found irresistible. Her mind moved fast and sideways. She could pivot from sarcasm to sincerity without losing rhythm. I had forgotten that kind of exchange without strategy.
It was easy. I couldn’t remember the last time a connection had felt that effortless. She laughed when she caught me color-coding her therapy schedule, and she pretended not to enjoy being looked after. She was beautiful in a way I couldn’t stop looking at. The way she carried her strength so naturally that it seemed unfair that injury had slowed her.
Yes, she was physically striking. Curvy and powerful in a way that commanded attention without apology. Brick House could have been written about her. But it was not just her body. It was her wit. Her stubbornness.
Now I sat in my car outside Long Creek Memory Care Facility, engine off, watching the automatic doors through the windshield. She had insisted I remain here.
“It’ll confuse him,” she’d said. “Too many changes, and he spirals. Let me handle it.”
But she had been steadier on the crutches today, so I honored her request and stayed in the vehicle.
The building was modest. It had a clean brick exterior with trimmed hedges. A sign attempting warmth through soft lettering and muted colors read memory care. It was a neutral phrase for something profoundly unneutral.
I watched a nurse escort an elderly man toward the front doors. He paused midway, distracted by something only he could see. The nurse waited patiently. Patience, that seemed to be the unspoken currency here.
I checked the time. Thirty-four minutes. I told myself that was reasonable. I did not like that Belle was inside alone. I understood her reasoning. I did not contest it. I did not like it. I imagined her navigating the hallway. I could hear the change in her voice when she adjusted to whatever version of her father she encountered that day. I’d heard her practiced gentleness many times. I did not like that she carried that by herself.
The doors opened again.
And then I saw her.
I was out of the car before I consciously decided to move.
Belle emerged slowly, crutches steady beneath her arms, brace visible beneath the hem of her shorts. She adjusted to the sunlight with a slight squint.
I stepped forward instinctively, but stopped.
A man approached her from the side. He moved with the kind of familiarity that suggested prior contact. He didn’t look like staff and appeared to be in his mid-thirties, perhaps. He was well dressed with a crisp button-down shirt and expensive shoes. There was an arrogant air about him that I did not like. Something about him tugged at recognition, but I could not immediately place it.
I waited for Belle’s spine to straighten and for her chin to lift. For the sharp, dismissive edge I knew so well to appear.
It did not. She faltered. Her shoulders curved inward. Her posture tightened. Her expression shifted into something I had not seen before.
She cowered.
The reaction was immediate and visceral. I was moving before I consciously decided to. Halfway across the pavement, she looked up and saw me.
Her eyes widened in warning.
She raised one finger, holding me off. Stop. The command was silent. I stopped. Every instinct resisted it, but I stopped.
The man spoke to her briefly, close enough that I could see the tension in her jaw from where I stood. His posture was relaxed and familiar in a way that implied assumption.
Then he turned and walked inside without another glance.
I closed the distance immediately.
