“Thank you, Paul. That will be all.”
Paul bristled at her presumption. This was Adam’s house, he was Adam’s employee.
But it was Caroline who hired me.
He gave a polite nod and retreated. He got as far as the door before Caroline started speaking again.
“You know I’m right,” she said in a gentle voice. “You have to face facts, Adam. You can’t spend your days rattling around in this big house. It’s time to move on. Your career as a writer is over.”
Oh you bitch. Talk about kicking a man when he’s down.
Caroline’s words crept over Adam’s skin like ice water.
Your career as a writer is over.
Over.
The word echoed in his skull, dull and merciless. He’d heard it before, of course, when it was whispered in hospital corridors, muttered in careful tones by doctors and social workers. But hearing it from her, from hisown sister, stripped him bare. Caroline had always been practical, ruthless even, but she had never spoken death sentences so easily before.
He wanted to rage, to throw something, but his body betrayed him. He sagged into the chair instead, his arms heavy, his jaw slack.
Nothing but a hollow man, waiting for the world to bury him.
She’s right, though, isn’t she?
He couldn’t type. He couldn’t even answer his own phone without fumbling like a fool. His words—the one currency that had always been his—were locked inside him now. The pen was useless, the screen blank, the silence unbearable.
I’m done. Finished.He’d told himself it was better to accept the ruin quickly than to pretend otherwise.
Then Paul’s voice cut through, rough and indignant, like gravel against steel.
“Oh, you mean because he’s blind? Stephen Hawking wrote one of the most brilliant books of our time… I’d say Adam has more going for him than Hawking, right?”
Adam lifted his chin. For the first time in days—weeks—something pierced through the fog. He turned his head towardthe sound, instinctive, almost desperate.Go on,he heard himself say, though his voice shook with weariness.
Paul did go on. Software. Speech-to-text. Machines that could give him back his words. The words blurred into each other, but what filled his aching heart was hope.
Adam’s lips parted. His breathing hitched. His sister’s scorn still burned in his ears, but Paul’s stubborn certainty pushed against it.
Couldit be done?
His mind scrambled to picture it, although he could picture nothing now. He imagined speaking aloud, hearing his own voice filling the silence of the room, a machine transcribing every word into neat rows of type. His words. His sentences. The cadence that had once been his lifeblood.
For a second, he almost reached for it. Almost believed.
Then the weight of the past two months crashed over him. His last clumsy attempt at dialling a phone number. The taste of blood after he’d tripped in his own library. Falling down the stairs. The hours of sitting alone, trying to conjure the courage just to get up.
“This is ridiculous,” he muttered. His throat closed tight. “I can’t even use a phone, let alone a computer. It… it feels too soon.”
Too soon. Too hard. Too terrifying.
Paul’s words hung in the air, bright and jagged, impossible to ignore.
It wasn’t comfort Paul had offered. It wasn’t pity. It was something sharper: defiance. The refusal to let Adam’s story be over.
Adam’s chest ached. He wanted to dismiss it, to bury it under Caroline’s certainty, but the thought remained.
Maybe not over.
