Marcus Webb stands outside the apartment door for a full minute before he knocks. He can hear the TV inside. A commercial. Then silence. Then the TV again. He knocks three times.
Eli opens the door. He's wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt with a stain down the front. His hair sticks up on one side. The scar above his eyebrow looks darker than usual against his pale skin. He hasn't shaved in days.
"Marcus," Eli says. His voice is flat. "What do you want?"
"Can I come in?"
Eli steps aside. Marcus walks into the living room and stops. Empty beer bottles cover the coffee table. Three whiskey glasses sit on the floor. The curtains are drawn. The air smells stale.
"Jesus, Eli."
"Say what you came to say," Eli says. He doesn't sit down. He just stands there with his arms crossed.
Marcus sets his briefcase on the chair. "The board meeting is tomorrow. You need to be there."
"I know."
"Do you?" Marcus looks at him. "Because you've missed the last two calls. Paloma's been covering for you. But people are starting to ask questions."
Eli laughs. It's a short, bitter sound. "Paloma. Right. My wife."
"She is your wife," Marcus says quietly. "That was the deal."
"The deal," Eli repeats. He walks to the window and pulls the curtain back an inch. Light cuts across his face. "You mean the deal where I sold the only real thing I ever had so we could close a funding round?"
Marcus doesn't answer right away. He's known about Kiara since the beginning. He met her once, two years ago, when Eli brought her to a company dinner. She didn't say much. She sat next to Eli and folded her napkin into perfect squares. When someone asked her a question, she answered in short, careful sentences. Eli had watched her the entire night like she was the only person in the room.
Marcus had gone home that night and told his wife he felt sick.
"The company is performing well," Marcus says now. "Revenue is up. User growth is exceeding projections. The Gibson investment made all of that possible."
"Good," Eli says. He drops the curtain. "Then you don't need me."
"Eli—"
"She won't answer my calls." Eli's voice cracks. "I've tried everything. New number. Email. I went to the shop. She wasn't there. I asked the woman at the counter where she was. The woman said Kiara doesn't work Tuesdays anymore. But Kiara always works Tuesdays. She's worked Tuesdays for ten years."
Marcus looks at the bottles on the table. "You need to pull yourself together."
"Why?" Eli turns around. His eyes are red. "So I can go sit in a boardroom and pretend I didn't destroy the only person who ever loved me? So I can smile at Paloma across a conference table and act like we're a team?"
"Yes," Marcus says. "That's exactly what you need to do. Because that's what you agreed to."
Eli picks up one of the whiskey glasses from the floor. He looks at it for a long moment. Then he throws it at the wall. It shatters. Glass sprays across the hardwood.
"Get out," Eli says.
Marcus doesn't move. "Eli—"
"Get out!"
Marcus picks up his briefcase. He walks to the door. He stops with his hand on the knob. "I'm sorry," he says quietly. "I knew what this would cost. I should have said something."
Eli doesn't respond. Marcus leaves. The door clicks shut behind him.
Eli stands in the middle of the living room. The TV is still on. A woman in the commercial is laughing. He picks up the remote and throws it. The screen goes black.
Then he sits down on the couch and puts his head in his hands.
---
Dara Osei pushes through the door of the dumpling shop at eleven-thirty. The bell chimes. Kiara is at the prep counter. Her ingredients are arranged in a perfect line. Flour. Water. Salt. Filling. Everything in its place.
"Hey," Dara says.
Kiara looks up. "Hi."
Dara sits at her usual table. She watches Kiara work. The dough comes together in smooth, practiced motions. Fold. Pinch. Set aside. Fold. Pinch. Set aside. Kiara's face doesn't change. Her hands don't slow.
Dara has been coming here for three years. She knows Kiara doesn't do small talk. She knows Kiara measures her words the way she measures flour. But today something is different. Kiara is quieter than usual. More precise. Like she's holding herself together through the rhythm of the work.
Dara doesn't ask. She just orders her usual bowl and waits.
When the dumplings come, they're perfect. They're always perfect. Dara eats slowly. She refills her tea twice. When she finishes, she doesn't leave. She just sits there.
Kiara wipes down the counter. She sweeps the floor. She checks the steamer. She moves through her closing routine with the same careful precision.
"You okay?" Dara asks finally.
Kiara pauses. Her hand rests on the edge of the sink. She doesn't look up. "Yes."
Dara nods. She doesn't push. She stays another hour. She doesn't say much. She just sits at the table and scrolls through her phone and drinks tea.
When she finally leaves, she squeezes Kiara's shoulder once on her way out. Kiara doesn't pull away.
The next day, Dara comes back. And the day after that.
---
Six weeks later, Eli collapses in his office bathroom. His assistant finds him on the floor. She calls 911. The ambulance takes him to Seattle General.
The oncologist is a woman in her fifties with gray hair and steady hands. She sits across from Eli in the hospital room. Paloma sits in the chair by the window. Her posture is perfect. Her hands rest in her lap.
"Stage-four stomach cancer," the oncologist says. "It's advanced. Metastasized to the liver and lymph nodes."
Eli stares at her. "What does that mean?"
"It means we can manage your symptoms. We can try chemotherapy. But the prognosis is poor."
"How long?" Paloma asks. Her voice is calm. Clinical.
The oncologist looks at Eli. "Four to six months. Maybe less."
Eli doesn't say anything. He just looks at his hands. They're shaking.
Paloma stands. "Thank you, doctor." She walks into the hallway. The oncologist follows. The door closes behind them.
Eli sits on the edge of the hospital bed. The fluorescent light hums above him. He thinks about Kiara's face in the hotel lobby. The way she dropped the bracelet on the table. The way she walked away without looking back.
He thinks about the note he wrote when he was ten. *I'm going to marry Kiara when we grow up.*
He wonders if she still has it.
He wonders if it matters.
In the hallway, Paloma leans against the wall. She pulls out her phone. She stares at the screen for a long time. Then she puts it away. She doesn't cry. She just stands there, recalculating.
