Chapter 11: Not My Patient

I took a photo of the tablet screen with my own phone before my mother's footsteps came back down the hall.

Then I set the tablet beside the bread basket, face up, exactly where it had been.

"Cosima, I'm so sorry, she was just upset," my mother said, coming in with the phone still in her hand. "She misses you. Eat, eat."

"I'm not feeling well, Mom."

"You've barely touched it."

"I know. I'll call you."

She followed me to the door with the foil already coming off a plate.

I let her put it in my hands. I drove to the end of the block, parked, and sat with the engine off.

The picture was on my phone.

It was still there when I looked a third time.

On Monday night at eight, I sat across from Justin at a table with a white cloth, in a restaurant where the waiter did not hand out menus.

"I ordered for you," Justin said. "Don't be alarmed."

"I'm a little alarmed."

"I asked what you liked and nobody knew. So I ordered everything."

He was in a dark jacket and no tie, and there were two small candles between us.

I waited until the waiter set down the bread.

Then I slid my phone across the cloth.

He read it once, slowly. Then he read the caption, and I watched his face change.

"She knew," he said.

"She knew before the surgery. She knew before she let them call me a coward on the news."

"Cosima."

"She said I refused in front of everyone, when she knew exactly what I had done. And she took it anyway."

His hand closed around the phone so hard his knuckles showed.

"I'd like to say something unprofessional," he said.

"Please."

"I would like to take this to every person in her life and read the caption aloud."

"Not yet."

"I know. You want it public. You want them to hear it from her."

"I want her to say it with them watching."

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