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“You’re injured. You’re rehabbing. Go.”

“I could double down and go back, or take my money and figure something else. I set up a training schedule.”

“You were going back?” I didn’t know this.

She sips her Chardonnay. “I tend to want to conquer things. It was my way of taking care of myself. I need forward motion. Sitting still kills me.”

I bob my head forward. “We created Extended within a month of me walking out of the Russell Building. I sat around for a week, drank, and hung out with my girlfriend. Then I went to work. Couldn’t handle more than a week of nothing. She left when I went full tilt Extended. She popped back up when the Pod started becoming successful.”

“Interesting.”

I raise my eyebrows at Tess and say, “We screwed and thought we’d try it again. Then I did my version of ghosting. I locked the five of us into our offices for a brainstorming/business plan weekend. We only emerged once we had a marketing plan, dream hire list, outlines of the next six pods, and a five-year launch plan. I didn’t come home or call for two days. She left.” I shift in my seat and shrug. Tess laughs. Extended is all that matters: the mission, the work, the brand, the job, and the company.

She says, “I’m glad she’s gone.” I take her hand across the table.

“Why didn’t you go back to tennis?” Her eyes steel over. She releases my hand while sitting back.

She crosses her arms over her chest and says, “Ready for a wild story about how I blew 2.7 million dollars between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-five?”

“Pharma problem?” She laughs. That’s good.

“In a way. As I got up, my mom went down.”

“You don’t have to tell me this, beautiful.” I lean in.

She sips her chard and plays with the buttons on her sweater. I motion for more wine. “I was already in Florida. My brothers came often, but it was all me. Kyle’s kids were little, and Alan was a newlywed. It was me: the chemo and appointments. Her care. My dad helped as much as possible. My stepmom cleaned the house when we’d be at the doctor's. I used my quarterfinal money and Wimbledon settlement.”

I take her hand back, and a little life flickers back into her aqua eyes. I say to her, “You were too young to have that responsibility and to give up tennis. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s the one thing I don’t regret. If you believe everything happens for a reason, tennis let me pay her bills. She changed jobs and got diagnosed three months later. The insurance company found a loophole. They proved her cancer existed when she got hired, so it got classified as pre-existing.”

“But—”

“It was before it changed.”

I’m outraged. “You’re telling me you paid out of pocket for chemo and all the hospital visits.”

“I did. Lots of people go into debt or take out medical loans. Go Fund me accounts, etc., but tennis let me do this for her. I paid off her house. I thought she’d recover. It’s a little beach shack that’s still mine. The chemo ran about $30k a month. The drugs ranged from $4500 to $12,000.”

And now I’m fucking amped. “Fuck. Our medical system is so screwed up. No matter who’s been in charge, we still haven’t figured it out. There’s this state senator in Oregon who’s on the verge of getting—”

She claps at me. “Focus, Alex. No politics, please.”

I shake my head. She right. “Shit. Sorry. I swear, I’m listening.”

“The insidiousness of cancer treatment is it’s a series of frustrating educated guesses. Some of the drugs caused seizures. Others made her too spacey or did nothing at all. Then we’d be stuck with the old meds and have to purchase a whole new round of something else.”

“I didn’t know that. I thought there was one path of treatment for each type of cancer.”

“For each type of cancer and each individual. Chemo works on certain types of people and not others. Gamma knives and transplants. Mixing up radiation with a different infusion cocktail. It’s all test and adjust and hope.”

“That pharma thing should be illegal.”

She sighs resolutely. “Her doctors worked with us putting some tests under routine as often as possible, so insurance paid something. They’d give us sample meds as often as possible. I paid: $270k for the house, a minivan for her wheelchair, a wheelchair, around $150,0000 for eighteen months of drugs, chemo was $670,000. The emergency room visits, ambulances, the hospital stays, then hospice, the equipment we needed all racked it up another $800,000. Then the funeral costs. I kicked in for all my brothers’ family’s plane tickets. I bought my father a new car because he’d been wearing his out, traveling two hours between his house and my mom’s. My brother, Alan, paid all the bills and handled my finances. He’d know the exact numbers.”

I’m humbled. “You’re remarkable,” I compliment with all my being.

She looks away from the table, and I give her a moment.