Ten years of marriage to Lionel Dickerson.
Our only communication was bank transfers.
Fifty thousand dollars meant he wouldn't be home tonight.
Two hundred thousand meant a three-day business trip.
I kept telling myself it was normal. He was a top surgeon,
held people's lives in his hands. Of course he'd be cold.
The day I was diagnosed with late-stage stomach cancer, I swallowed the pain and asked if he could have dinner with me.
This time, it wasn't a transfer.
It was a photo.
"Hey sis, Dr. Dickerson's hands are just as steady with bra clasps as they are with a scalpel."
"You take care of his paralyzed parents, I take care of his stress. Fair trade, right?"
I choked back the blood rising in my throat and took a cab to Lionel's private hospital.
Through the crack in the door, I saw him, a man so fastidious he couldn't stand a crease in his coat, burying his face in a female intern's neck.
Wet sounds and heavy breathing tangled together, and every one of them burned through me like acid.
I stood there for a long time. Then I slid my diagnosis report through the gap in the door.
——
I stumbled away, half-blind with shock.
And ran straight into Drew James at the corner. Lionel's best friend.
He took one look at my ashen face and, meaning well, steered me into Lionel's office.
Lionel's reaction was instant. He pulled the woman into his arms, shielding her behind him.
Then he grabbed the photo frame off his desk and hurled it at us, his expression black with rage.
"Get out!"
Drew winced and pulled me back through the door.
I had no room to notice the words stuck on the tip of his tongue.
All I could see was the shattered photo on the floor.
It was our first picture together, Lionel's and mine.
That day, he'd braved all the gossip to confess his feelings to me, right by the lake on campus. Drew had taken the photo for us.
Lionel had treasured it ever since.
No matter which office he moved to, that photo always sat in the upper right corner of his desk.
Now he'd smashed it to pieces. For an intern.
The chime of my phone dragged me back.
I unlocked the screen. Another transfer.
Five hundred thousand.
That meant sorry.
The office door opened at the same moment.
When his eyes met my reddened ones, something flickered across Lionel's dark expression. A crack, just for an instant.
He called my name.
"Moira Swanson, go hit the shops with a friend or something before you head home. I'll have your sister come watch Mom and Dad. Take the day off."
No explanation.
Just a day off he'd decided to grant me, like loose change tossed on a counter.
I didn't answer. My gaze stayed locked on the door behind him.
"You're not going to explain?"
He stepped into my line of sight and dropped his voice to a warning.
"Moira, this is a hospital. Don't make a scene."
The tears broke before I could stop them, and ten years of swallowed grievances came pouring out in words I couldn't control:
"You know damn well this is a hospital, Lionel! Where was all that decency when you were rolling around with that tramp in there?!"
Crack.
Before the last word left my mouth, his palm connected with my face.
He didn't hold back.
Heat bloomed in my nose, and the taste of iron flooded my mouth.
Lionel's pupils contracted. The hand hanging at his side wouldn't stop shaking.
"Moira, you... Don't you ever talk about her like that!"
There was a time Lionel had protected me the same way.
The second year of our marriage, both his parents were paralyzed in quick succession, and I became their punching bag.
They said I was a freeloader. Said I was dragging Lionel down.
The cruelty came down like a monsoon, and every word stung.
Lionel had covered my ears with his hands, gentle and firm. It was the first time he'd ever raised his voice at his parents. He threatened to cut them off, swore he'd move us out.
For ten full years, every time they came at me, he stood between us.
But my memory must have been lying to me.
The man who once shielded me now stood on the other side, shielding someone else.
I wiped the blood from my nose with the back of my hand, shoved Lionel aside, and walked into the office.
