Page 75 of What You left in Me

Color rises under her makeup. Anger looks good on her; it makes her look alive. “You will fix this,” she says, very softly. “For Richard. For this family. We do not hand people knives and ask them to aim.”

“What if they already have one?” I ask. “What if I’m tired of pretending that I’m not bleeding?”

Her jaw sets. She takes one precise breath. “Go wash your face,” she says. “You look… flushed.”

I could punch a wall. I could cry. I could laugh and laugh. Instead, I nod, because that’s the muscle memory. I stand and head toward the restrooms, past Finn, who hasn’t moved from the window. He watches me the way lightning watches the ground.

The restroom is mercifully empty. I splash water on my face and pat it dry with paper towels that disintegrate like promises. In the mirror, I look like myself, but slightly off, a portrait hung crooked. I put my fingers against my throat where my pulse jumps. It feels like I’m late for something I can’t name.

When I come back out, the surgeon is there, mask under his chin, eyes tired but not defeated. Mom and I move at once. Finn steps up on my other side, his sleeve brushing my shoulder. I don’t look at him, but my skin buzzes with awareness of the proximity.

“Family of Richard Warner?” the surgeon asks.

“Yes,” we say, a rough chorus.

“Everything went as planned,” he says, and the floor rights itself under my feet like a plane smoothing after turbulence. “He’s stable. We’ll be monitoring him closely over the next twenty-four hours.”

I sag hard enough that Finn’s hand hovers near my elbow before he thinks better of it. Mom exhales, measured. She slotsthe correct expression onto her face: relieved, dignified, nothing so vulgar as joy.

“Can we see him?” I ask.

“In a little while,” the surgeon says. “He’s still coming out of anesthesia.”

“Thank you,” I tell him, and I mean it so much I’m surprised I don’t cry. He nods and moves on to the next family knitting and unravelling in the corner.

We drift back to our patch of waiting room like astronauts to a tether. Mom turns to me with glassy eyes. This is the part where love steps forward for her, halting, awkward, astonishing.

“He’s okay,” she says, and for once she’s not performing. She reaches for my hand, squeezes. There’s a beat where we’re just two women scared of the same thing.

A nurse calls out that we can see Richard in ten minutes, two at a time. Just like that, Mom is already straightening, smoothing, preparing herself to be seen. I drag my eyes away from Finn and back to the stage where we live.

“I should…” I gesture vaguely, the international sign forI have to go be a good daughter now.

He dips his chin. “I know.”

“Don’t…” I stop.Don’t what,Ariane? Don’t look at me like that? Don’t let me walk away? Don’t make this easier by being patient? “Don’t disappear.”

Surprise flashes across his face, quick and bright, then gone. “I won’t.”

I fix my eyes on the doorway to the recovery hall and hold very still, like a child playing statue, like if I’m quiet enough the next good thing will come out and see me. My heart does its thud, thud, thud, stubborn and loud as ever.

How am I supposed to sit here and wait for Richard to come back to us, when part of me already knows I’ve crossed a line I can’t uncross? When every time I promise myself I won’t think of Finn, I think of Finn. When the person I am with him—messy, furious, alive—feels more honest than any version of me that wears a ring and smiles on command.

Chapter 23 – Finn - Ghosts That Don’t Stay Buried

The machines make a fucking liturgy out of the room, steady beeps, soft whoosh of ventilators, the little pings like someone dropping a spoon against porcelain. I stand in the doorway and watch the man who used to tower over every room in this house reduced to tubes and a hospital gown. Dad looks small, like someone left a great statue in a rainstorm and now all the gold leaf has flaked away.

Mortality is such a violent little thief. Just machines pretending to hold you together while the rest of you unthreads. I want to smash something. Preferably something expensive.

Dad’s eyelids flutter. His mouth works around words he doesn’t have the strength to form yet. He finds me anyway. “You’re still here,” he whispers, and there’s a softness in that sentence that almost makes me sick.

“Didn’t exactly give me a choice, did you?” I answer flat. It’s devoid of flourishing or blubbering sentimentality. The truth is, I would have come sooner if I thought theatrics might save him. But theatrics aren’t my currency. I trade in outcomes.

He laughs, weak, a cough in the middle of it. “Family has a way of doing that.”

Saying family like it’s a commodity, like a trademark. We are all so noble when someone else is breathing with machines. He reaches out with one gnarled hand that used to point orders and open doors and knock heads together. I sit on the edge of the bed because chairs feel like compromises. His fingers close around mine, a squeeze that belongs to decades of breakfasts,boardroom walk-throughs, long silences at the head of holiday tables.

“Look after them… even if you hate it.” He says it like a favor, like a last small indulgence.