Part 4
For six days, Nora did not call.
She withdrew the lease and education papers, authorized payment of Gabriel’s back wages as an estate debt, and told the attorney to send him only the calculation. Then she returned to Harborlight’s inventory. The office felt larger without Maisie’s backpack against the radiator. In Room Six, four shallow dents remained in the towels where the kittens had slept.
Her own work became harder to conceal. During a video meeting, the word cornice vanished while Nora was describing a roof repair. She substituted edge, then thing, then pointed above her own head as if the project team could see what she meant. Elise finished the sentence and ended the call.
“You transfer the courthouse project to me today,” she said.
“The senior architect can manage the site reports.”
“She reports to you, and you change her decisions after midnight. Today.”
The old argument rose automatically: Nora had founded the firm, brought in the client, knew the building. She also knew she had read the same paragraph four times that morning. She opened the project directory, changed the approval chain, and entered Elise’s name where her own had been.
Elise watched the screen. “All of it.”
Nora transferred signing authority for the remaining active work. It took seven minutes. An automated confirmation reached her inbox before she had closed the file.
That evening Gabriel called.
“I should’ve told you about Calvin before we signed,” he said. “I wanted to see what you’d do. I didn’t admit that Maisie’s home was part of it. I’m sorry.”
Nora looked at the empty leather case beside her chair. “The heat was still my decision.”
“Yes.” He paused. “Maisie has been asking for you. If you can come without a folder, come Saturday.”
From farther inside the duplex, Maisie shouted, “And tell her Blue moved Cricket behind the toilet.”
“I heard,” Nora said. “I’ll come.”
The duplex stood on a narrow street three blocks from Maisie’s school. Its stairs listed slightly toward the alley, and the living-room windows had been painted shut at least twice. Gabriel had rented it anyway because the landlord allowed cats and the hospital bus stopped at the corner.
Gabriel opened the door and stepped aside. “She’s been asking every day.”
“So have I,” Maisie called from the bathroom.
Blue had placed the litter behind the toilet exactly as reported. Cricket climbed Nora’s sleeve while Maisie showed her the new feeding chart and the family copy of the school pickup card, still in its clear sleeve, clipped to the refrigerator. AUNT now filled the relationship box beside NORA VALE.
Gabriel made coffee. When Maisie carried the kittens into her bedroom for supervised play, he set Nora’s cup down and stayed standing.
“I withdrew the lease,” Nora said. “Not because you refused it. I drafted security before asking what you had already built for yourself. Part of it was Calvin’s debt. The rest was my fear.”
“The attorney sent only the wage calculation,” Gabriel said. “I noticed.”
“She thinks your spells are from headaches.”
“They are related.”
“That isn’t really an answer, and you know it.”
Nora wrapped both hands around the cup. “I do not know what my doctor will recommend next.”
“You know enough.”
“Enough to frighten her.”
“Ana left for work one morning and died before dinner. Maisie spent months asking me which ordinary sentence had been the goodbye.” Gabriel’s voice stayed level, which made the strain in it more visible. “I won’t help you become another adult she loses after everybody acted normal.”
“I am not her mother.”
“No. You’re the aunt she put on the pickup card.”
Nora looked at the card under the refrigerator magnet. It held only two local names. The clear sleeve bore four small tooth marks where Blue had tried to pull it down.
“Will you stay while I tell her?” Nora asked.
Gabriel sat down.
Maisie came to the table with Cricket sitting in the pouch of her sweatshirt, supported by one hand. Nora explained that she had cancer in her brain, that the doctors had treated it, and that the latest treatment was no longer stopping it. She did not call it a battle. She did not say they would beat anything.
Maisie kept one hand around the kitten. “Are you going to die?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel’s fingers closed against the table edge.
“When?”
“I don’t know. My doctor thinks I have months, not years, but she cannot give me a day.”
Maisie looked toward her father’s hands, then back at Nora. “Did you know when you said we could stay until March?”
“I knew I was sick. The week before we met, I learned the medicine had stopped working.”
“But you knew March first for us,” Maisie said. “How come you don’t know yours?”
“Because the agreement had a deadline. My doctor couldn’t give me one. And I was scared to tell you.”
Maisie pressed her face briefly into Cricket’s fur. “Don’t say maybe when you mean no. Dad does that about the zoo if he doesn’t have money.”
“I do not,” Gabriel said.
“You say we’ll see.”
“That is different.”
Maisie gave him a look inherited from neither known side of the family. Then she said to Nora, “If you’re too sick to come, say too sick. I can be mad at that.”
“All right.”
“And don’t make Dad take the motel.”
Gabriel closed his eyes once. Nora almost asked whether he had coached her, but Maisie’s expression answered first.
“All right,” Nora said again.
By then Calvin’s estate had paid Gabriel’s wage claim and distributed Harborlight to Nora.
The next scan showed further growth. Dr. Shah explained that another treatment might slow the disease for a short time, but it was also likely to worsen Nora’s fatigue and confusion. Comfort-focused care was now a reasonable choice. Nora listened, asked about symptoms and support, and did not ask how long she could keep working.
From the clinic parking lot, she called Gabriel herself.
“I have a hospice meeting on Monday,” she said. “I want you there, if you can come.”
He was quiet long enough that Nora checked the screen to see whether the call had dropped.
“What time?” he asked…
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