Chapter 3: What Was Written at the Bottom
The line Alice was pointing at was a name.
Not a stranger's name.
Not a nurse from another floor.
It was the name of Alice's favorite superhero actor.
The one she had watched in every film, whose poster was taped above her bed at home, whose action figure she had clipped to her IV pole that very morning.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
"How," I started.
I couldn't finish the sentence.
Her oncologist stood up slowly.
He was still wearing the Superman cape, and somehow that made the whole moment feel even more surreal.
"One of our nurses has a connection," he said.
"She reached out three weeks ago.
She didn't tell anyone because she wasn't sure it would work."
A nurse near the door — the one dressed as Wonder Woman — raised her hand slightly.
Her eyes were red.
"I didn't want Alice to be disappointed if it fell through," she said.
"So I just kept it quiet."
Alice was staring at the card.
She hadn't moved.
"He wrote that himself?" she asked.
"He did," the nurse said.
"And he recorded something too."
The room went very still.
Alice looked up from the card.
"Recorded what?"
The nurse pulled out her phone.
Her hands weren't entirely steady.
She walked to the foot of Alice's bed and held the screen so Alice could see it clearly.
The video was thirty-seven seconds long.
He was sitting in what looked like a dressing room, still in costume from whatever project he was filming.
He looked directly into the camera.
"Hey, Alice," he said.
"I heard you've been pretty brave lately.
Like, genuinely superhero-level brave.
And I just wanted you to know — the whole team knows your name."
Alice made a sound I had never heard from her before.
Not crying.
Not laughing.
Something in between that had no name.
He kept talking.
He told her that real superheroes weren't the ones with the capes.
He said the ones who showed up every day when things were hard — those were the ones who actually saved people.
"That's you," he said.
"That's exactly you."
The video ended.
Nobody in the room spoke for a moment.
Then Alice turned to her oncologist, very seriously, the way she does when she has made a decision.
"Dr.
Reeves," she said.
"You're still my favorite Superman."
He laughed.
It was the kind of laugh that comes out when you're trying not to cry.
"I'll take it," he said.
I sat down on the edge of her bed because my legs had decided they were done holding me up.
Alice leaned into my side.
The superhero figures were still lined up on the windowsill.
The chemo buddy — a small Iron Man — was still clipped to her IV pole.
The nurse who had made the call was still standing near the door.
I looked at her across the room.
"Three weeks," I said.
"You carried that for three weeks without saying anything."
She shrugged, but her chin was trembling.
"I just wanted it to be a good day for her."
Alice lifted her head from my shoulder.
"It's the best day," she said.
"It's the best day I've ever had."
I pulled her close and pressed my face into her hair and let myself fall apart just a little, quietly, where she couldn't quite see.
But then she said something else.
May you like
Something soft, almost to herself.
And when I heard it, I went completely still.
