“If you have something to say, say it,” she said.
“I just think sometimes…” He breathed heavily. “We’re so sure we know the game, we forget to ask who benefits when a piece is removed…from the board.”
The words, thick with implication, fed Nikki’s anger. “What the fuck are you talking about? Is that a threat?”
He laughed. “No, no! God, no. Just an observation.”
“I’m hanging up,” she told him.
“If I needed to find someone,” he wheedled, “someonepowerful…where would you say I should start?”
“Not my problem.”
She hung up.
—
Back in the hospital, Preston was serenading Izzy.
Nikki heard his voice as she walked the corridor to his room, a crooning love song she didn’t recognize.
“This is the love of my life,” he announced to Nikki when she came into view.
Izzy was by Preston’s bedside, holding his hand in both of hers: tired but happy. Preston’s expression was an ecstasy of love, his white hair spread across the pillow like the wisping tendrils of an undersea plant.
“How are you feeling?” Nikki asked.
He chuckled. “Feels like I fell down the stairs. Brain’s a bit mushy. If you quizzed me, I’m sure I couldn’t tell my Tacitus from my Pliny.”
“I know the difference,” said Izzy. “I put arthritis cream on your Tacitus every morning!”
They were like children, cackling and hooting in laughter.
—
About an hour later, a nurse came to take Preston for another scan, and Nikki walked Izzy to the hospital canteen.
The tea scalded Nikki’s mouth.
Izzy didn’t drink. Instead, she stared, fingers flitting around the edges of the paper cup.
“Preston and I have been together four decades,” she said with a sigh. “You’d think that was enough time. That I should count myself lucky. But I’m selfish. I want more. He has good days—I live for those. And even on the bad days, he still remembers how much he loves me.”
Izzy reached across the table and took Nikki’s hand in both of hers.
“I’m so sorry about Enzo. Is it too soon? May I ask…is there anyone else?”
The words were ice, pressing into Nikki.
Izzy continued, squeezing her hand. “I do want someone for you, sweetheart. To have something of what I’ve had.”
To love like that, you needed trust and openness. Those didn’t exist for Nikki anymore. In their place, she found the aching echo of a dark cave, the choking black smoke of a building ablaze.
She implicitly understood the dimensions of the loss—as if a vital organ had been cut from her body, the pain of severed nerves to tell her where it should have been.
Pressure built in her chest; her heartbeat ached against it. She wanted to bolt.
“Oh, I’m a nosy old woman,” Izzy said, releasing her hand with a pat. “You don’t need to tell me anything.”
