His First Love, My Last Goodbye novel · Chapter 9 of 24
Chapter 9: Harbor House
She called him from the back of the cab, with the heater ticking.
"It's a no," Ezra said, before she could speak.
The cab turned onto Beacon Street, and the lamps slid over her gloves.
"What did they say?"
"Esme."
"Read me the line."
He was quiet a moment.
She heard paper.
"Two of the reviewers marked it a maybe. The surgeon wrote a single word and a recommendation."
"Which word?"
"Futile. Recommend palliative." His voice cracked on the second word, which she had never heard it do. "The other two deferred to him. It's the surgeon's call on eligibility, and he was in the chair that week."
"Who was he?"
"I don't know. Names are blind, and I never thought to ask whose week it was. I'm so sorry."
Esme looked out at the Public Garden, black and gold under the lamps.
Futile.
She tried the word on, and it fit.
"Somebody read my scans and decided I wasn't worth the slot," she said.
"Somebody read twenty-nine, stage four, and followed a rule."
"That's what they do."
"That's what they do," he said grimly. "I'm already calling New York. There's another door, I promise you. I'll find it."
"I know you will."
"Where are you going?"
"Marlborough Street. Then wherever you're willing to drive me."
"Rockport," Ezra said. "Tonight. I'll be there in twenty minutes."
The brownstone was dark.
Matthias and Clarissa had not come home from the party.
On the hall table sat the violin case, closed, shining.
Esme looked at it for one second.
Then she went upstairs and pulled the suitcase from under the bed.
It held what she had packed three nights ago.
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