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My mind hadn’t connected the dots in a way that could lead me to believe they were all related to one thing. I wanted to attribute those symptoms to his job, and I had. I’d swept them under the rug and choked down Lucian’s assurances that everything was fine. But when I looked at my little sister, it occurred to me that he wasn’t fine. In my gut, I knew it before Birdie even dropped the next bombshell.
“I didn’t want to do this,” she said with a gentleness uncharacteristic of her. “Believe me when I say I didn’t want to do this.”
She pulled something else from the bottom of the safe. A plain green file folder I didn’t want to open.
I wrapped my arms around myself. “I can’t. I can’t look.”
I felt like I was going to throw up, and Birdie took pity on me. She helped me back to the bed and let me sit down for a few minutes to process my wild thoughts. Logically, I knew there was no getting out of it. But logic no longer ruled my heart. Logic didn’t dictate the way I felt about Lucian and his presence in my life. I was carrying his baby. And now, the universe was about to deliver up another cruel slice of life.
“What is it?” I blurted. “Just tell me, B.”
She hesitated before sitting down beside me and staring at the file in her hands. “Hodgkin’s lymphoma.”
I didn’t know what that was. Or at least, exactly what that was. From what little I’d heard on TV, I knew it was a type of cancer , but I wasn’t ready to accept that.
I pulled the file from Birdie’s hands and began to tear through the pages frantically, seeking out some other possibility. Maybe she’d read it wrong. Maybe this wasn’t his. I had a plethora excuses at the ready, but with every page I turned, my reality grew smaller and darker.
“This says he was diagnosed two years ago.” My hands trembled, and tears leaked down my face before I could catch them. I wasn’t in the habit of letting Birdie see me cry, but it was too late now.
She placed a tentative hand on my back and rubbed in small, soft circles the way that I used to when she was a child. “It also said he refused treatment.”
A sob erupted from my chest just before I lunged from the bed and ran to the bathroom, scattering the papers everywhere as I vomited up my lunch in the toilet. When I was done, Birdie was beside me, sitting cross-legged on the tiled floor as she picked up the papers and tucked them away from my sight.
I hung my head against the seat and cried some more. It was uncontrollable at this point, and I didn’t care if Birdie saw anymore. Maybe it was about time she learned I was all show, and that deep inside, I was weak.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll get through this together. I promise you.”
Her words pulled me back to reality, and I straightened up, wiping the tears from my eyes.
“No.” I stood and adjusted my shirt in the mirror. “You need to go back to Washington, B. You need to focus on your studies, and I need to deal with this situation on my own.”
“I’m not leaving you alone,” Birdie argued.
“You have to,” I told her. “If you love me, then you will let me do this on my own.”
MY PHONE VIBRATED AGAINST THE desk, pulling my attention from the documents in front of me. I hadn’t checked my messages all day because Emmanuel’s trial was starting tomorrow, and I couldn’t afford any distractions. But this was the third time it rang in under ten minutes, and it prompted me to check the screen. I frowned when I saw the number, recognizing immediately who it belonged to.
“Warden,” I answered. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m sorry for the late hour,” he replied. “But I thought that you should hear it from me rather than the chaplain.”
My gaze skittered across the room, blurry, as I tried to shake off the exhaustion that had seemed to permanently fog my brain over the past two months. “What is it?”
“Emmanuel Morales had you listed as an emergency contact on his records.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“I regret to inform you that this morning, he hanged himself in his cell with a bedsheet.”
My grip went lax around the phone, and it almost fell from my hand as I tried to come to terms with what he was telling me.
I didn’t want it to be true. We’d worked so hard. Tomorrow, I was ready for the chance to prove his innocence at trial. I’d been working on nothing else. This was it. My last case. My last chance to help someone. And just like that, Emmanuel had given up on me.
