Chapter 8: Terms

He was on my landing at seven the next morning with two coffees.

"Her films were clean," Graham said.

I stood in the door on my crutches and did not move out of the way.

"Clean how?"

"A mild muscle strain. Nothing that would put her on a stage floor."

He looked at the cups in his hands.

"I sat in the ER for four hours. She said it comes and goes."

"And you believed that?"

"I've been her friend for eleven years, Jo. I've never read her chart. It wasn't allowed."

"And now?"

"Now I read your list."

He took out his phone.

The note called Reasons was on the screen, in my own typing. I had sent it to him at two in the morning without knowing why.

"Every line has a date," he said. "I know how many I got wrong."

"Nineteen."

He closed his eyes for a second.

"I want to earn this back," he said. "I don't want the speech. I want the work."

"What work?"

"Tell me."

I let him in.

I sat on the couch with my leg up and he took the chair.

"Rules," I said.

"Okay."

"One dinner a week. I pick the place."

"Okay."

"You put your phone in a bag by the door when we get there. Not in your pocket. In a bag."

"Okay."

"You don't cancel. Not for a patient. Not for the chief. Not for a friend with a back."

His mouth moved.

"What if it's real?"

"Then you tell me, and we do it again. But you don't cancel."

"Okay."

"And Daphne is never at the table."

"Never," he said.

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