Axel
It took him two more weeks, a favor from a friend who worked at the hospital records desk that he was not proud of calling in, and a great deal of driving past hotels on the outskirts of town before he finally found her.
She was staying at a place called the Harmon Suites, a long-stay hotel favored by traveling nurses and people between houses, unglamorous and quiet, the kind of place nobody chose unless they had private reasons for wanting to be forgettable.
He parked across the street a little before six, killed the engine, and did not get out of the truck.
He saw her come out once, a little before seven, walking slowly to a bench near the entrance with a cardigan pulled tight around her despite the mild weather. She looked smaller than he remembered. Not just thinner: she moved with a carefulness, as though her body had become something she had to negotiate with.
He almost got out of the truck. His hand was on the door handle, his whole body already leaning toward crossing that street, when a nurse in scrubs came out of the hotel behind her, sat down on the bench beside Georgia with the easy, unhurried familiarity of someone who did this regularly, and said something Axel couldn’t hear from that distance. Georgia laughed, a small, tired laugh, but a real one, and put her hand briefly over the nurse’s.
A nurse, Axel thought, sitting very still in his truck, watching. She has a nurse who checks on her at her hotel.
He thought about crossing the street anyway, hand back on the door handle. Then he thought about the way she had vanished: the sister sworn to silence, the empty house, no note, no door left open for him to follow her through.
She made her choice, he told himself, starting the engine at last, driving away without ever crossing the street. If she wanted me there, she would have asked.
He believed this, or said he did, for exactly four more days, which he spent answering customers, finishing quotes, driving home each night to a house quieter than it had ever been before he met her.
On the fifth day, he called the main hospital switchboard, gave a name he had no legal right to be asking about, and was transferred, after some hesitation on the other end of the line, to an oncology scheduling desk, where a tired, kind receptionist, assuming from the confidence in his voice that he must already know, confirmed the only two facts he needed.
Ovarian cancer. Stage four.
He did not remember hanging up the phone.