Chapter 2

I dragged my legs home, heavy as if they'd been poured full of lead.

I pushed open the door and a thick smell of herbal medicine, mixed with stale, heavy air, hit me in the face.

Old Tim, Timothy Chavez, lay on the sofa bed in the living room.

To make it easier to care for him, and to keep the medicine smell out of the bedding, we'd been getting by like this for almost two months.

He'd wasted away past recognition. He used to be a big man, six feet tall, and now he curled up on the sofa like a leaf the wind had dried out.

His face was a waxy yellow, his lips pale, and the eyes that had once been so bright had gone cloudy and dull.

Hearing me open the door, his eyelids twitched, and he turned his head toward me with effort.

"You're back?"

His voice was as hoarse as a cracked gong.

"Mm."

I set my bag down, walked over, and out of habit reached out to feel his forehead.

"How do you feel today? Are your legs still swollen?"

He didn't answer my question. His cloudy eyes stared straight at me.

"What did the doctor say?"

My heart clenched.

I forced out a smile.

"Nothing new. Same as always. He just wants you to cooperate with the treatment."

"And the money?"

He pressed, and something I knew well flashed in his eyes, that stubbornness and shrewdness that was pure Timothy Chavez.

"How much is it?"

My throat closed up, and I couldn't get a word out.

He looked at the expression on my face and understood everything.

He gave a bitter smile, one that was uglier than crying.

"A lot, isn't it?"

He slowly pushed himself up, leaned back against the sofa, and drew a few ragged breaths.

The living room was terrifyingly quiet, only the ancient wall clock going tick, tock, tick, tock, each sound like a summons for the dying.

"Regina... Regina Fox..."

He suddenly said my name, his tone strangely calm.

"Let's stop the treatment."

"What are you talking about!"

Anger flared in me, and my voice rose all at once.

"I'm not talking nonsense."

He looked at me, and in his eyes was a clarity and resolve I'd never seen before.

"I know my own body. It's a bottomless pit. There's no filling it. Just now... I heard everything."

My heart lurched.

"Stephen and Lorna were on the phone downstairs just now. I heard them."

He spoke slowly.

"Selling the house... aren't they?"

I opened my mouth, but not a single word came out.

"I, Timothy Chavez, have been a useless coward my whole life, never gave you a good life. And now, at the very end, I can't burn through the last place you have to live too."

His eyes went red, and his voice began to tremble along with them.

"This house is our home. It's our root. When I'm dead, you'll still have something to hold on to, a place that keeps the wind and rain off. If you sell our home for a useless man like me, I won't be able to close my eyes even when I'm down below."

The more he talked the more worked up he got, gripping my hand, his withered fingers cold as ice, yet holding on with all the strength in the world.

"Listen to me, Regina. No more treatment. Let me go in peace. Stop putting yourself through this, all right? I'm begging you!"

"No!"

I threw off his hand, and the tears I couldn't hold back any longer came crashing down in great heavy drops.

"Timothy Chavez, you listen to me! As long as you live, this family lives! If you die, what good is that run-down house to me? Am I supposed to sit in it for the rest of my life? Don't you worry about the money. Even if I have to go out and beg, I will get every dollar of that surgery together for you! You say one word about dying, and I... I'll go right along with you!"

I cried myself hoarse, roaring out all the grievance, fear, and rage of these past days.

Old Tim cried too, a grown man in his fifties, weeping in front of me like a child, his face a mess of tears and snot.

And so the two of us wept, saying nothing, with only a coffee table between us.

Despair was an airtight net, and it had dropped down over the two of us and pulled tight.

Just then, the old landline in the living room went off with a shrill, jangling ring.

In an age when everyone used a cell phone, that phone had all but become a decoration, catching nothing but the odd sales call.

I wiped my face, walked over, and picked it up, my voice still thick and stuffy from crying.

"Hello?"

The other end was silent for a few seconds, and then a hoarse, unfamiliar man's voice, like it had been rubbed raw with sandpaper, came through.

"Is this... Mrs. Fox?"

"Speaking. Who is this?"

I was a little impatient.

"Who I am doesn't matter."

The voice paused, as if choosing its words.

"I heard... your Tim's fallen sick, ma'am, and he needs a lot of money?"

My heart shot up into my throat, and I asked warily.

"Who are you? How do you know that?"

"Don't worry about how I know."

The voice didn't sound like it meant any harm. If anything, it carried a strange weariness, and... concern?

"Do you still remember, ma'am, the winter of '95, that heavy snow, when you were at the bus station and gave two hot steamed buns to a little beggar boy who was near freezing to death?"

Ninety-five, the heavy snow, the bus station, a little beggar boy...

A memory sealed away for almost thirty years split open like a gash cut by lightning and came flooding into my head all at once.

Before I could answer, the voice on the other end went on, with a certainty that left no room for doubt.

"Afterward he pushed a bowl into your hands. That bowl, you've still kept it, haven't you?"

I froze.

"Thirty years, ma'am."

The voice said, low and heavy.

"That bowl. It's time to sell it."

Click.

The line went dead.

I stood there holding the cold receiver, rooted to the spot, my mind gone blank.

Outside the window the sky had turned completely dark, with only scattered lights flickering in the distance.

I turned to look at Old Tim on the sofa. He was watching me, his face full of confusion.

That bowl...

That chipped, worn-out black ceramic bowl I'd shoved into the corner of the storeroom and all but forgotten existed.