My eyes dropped to the necklace around her throat.
“Like that?”
Selina covered it with her hand.
Phedra whispered, “I tried to sell it to pay for a consultation. She took it.”
I looked back at my wife.
“What illness?”
Her eyes filled.
“Cancer.”
For a few seconds, I heard nothing.
“How long?”
“Eleven months.”
Eleven months. Nearly a year of phone calls in which my wife had told me she was tired. Nearly a year of sending money home believing she was protected.
“How much treatment have you had?”
Phedra looked at Selina.
My mother answered first.
“We’ve taken her to doctors.”
“How many?”
“Damian, treatment is expensive.”
“How many?”
Phedra answered.
“Two appointments.”
I stood.
Over four years, I had transferred almost a hundred thousand dollars home. Everywhere I looked, I could see where it had gone. New flooring. Granite counters. Leather furniture. A television covering half a wall. Godfrey’s clothes. The SUV. His auto shop. Meanwhile my wife was wearing broken sandals and a blouse I remembered from six years earlier.
