Onscreen Wade answered, “Knowing somebody for thirty-five years doesn’t mean you get to predict every choice they’ll make.”
Randall leaned toward the steering wheel, coughing into the crook of his arm. The cough deepened, tearing at him until his shoulders curled. Even through the cheap camera microphone I heard the wetness in it, the strain. When he straightened, he wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and folded it quickly before the lens could show what was on it.
“I watched her nurse her mother,” he said. “You remember that.”
Wade’s recorded voice quieted. “I remember.”
“She missed work. She stopped sleeping. She forgot meals. She sat beside that bed until half an hour before June died because she thought if she went home, it would mean she was giving up.” Randall looked toward our bedroom window again. “You think she’ll take chemotherapy in the morning and leave me vomiting alone in a hospice room that afternoon? You think she’ll do that?”
