Chapter 3: What Diane Never Said Out Loud
Diane looked at Julian and Clara for a long moment.
Then she turned to me.
"Can we step outside?"
I followed her into the corridor.
The hallway was quiet — just the low hum of machines and the distant sound of a cart being wheeled somewhere further down the ward.
Diane walked until she found a small waiting alcove with two chairs.
She sat down heavily, like her legs had decided before the rest of her.
I sat across from her.
She stared at her hands.
"Clara's c@nc3r isn't the first time."
I went still.
"She was nine," Diane said.
"Leukemia.
We caught it early, treated it, and she went into remission.
For eight years she was fine.
Completely fine." She pressed her lips together.
"When the diagnosis came back this time, the doctors told us it was a different type.
Unrelated to the first.
Just — terrible luck."
"Diane.
I had no idea."
"I know." She finally looked up.
"I didn't tell anyone.
Not even you.
I didn't want Clara defined by it.
She worked so hard to just be a normal kid." Her voice dropped.
"And she was.
She really was."
I reached over and put my hand on hers.
She didn't pull away.
"But that's not the only thing," she said.
I waited.
"Clara's father — Martin — he left when she relapsed the first time.
She was nine years old and in a hospital bed, and he packed a bag and said he couldn't handle it." Diane's jaw tightened.
"He called it a mental health crisis.
His own.
He needed space to heal." The word came out flat and cold.
"Space."
"Where is he now?"
"He remarried.
Lives in Phoenix.
Sends a card at Christmas." She exhaled slowly.
"Clara hasn't heard from him since the new diagnosis.
Not a call.
Not a message.
Nothing."
The corridor felt very quiet.
"She hasn't said anything about it," Diane continued.
"But I see it.
Every time her phone lights up and it's not him.
Every time she looks at Julian and sees someone who actually stayed." Her voice cracked on the last word.
"She's seventeen years old and she already knows who shows up and who doesn't."
I thought about Julian sitting beside that hospital bed.
His shaved head.
His hand holding hers.
"He doesn't know any of this," I said.
"No." Diane shook her head.
"And I don't want him to feel like he has to be something.
He's already being everything." She looked back toward Clara's room.
"That's what I wasn't ready for.
When I walked in this morning and saw what he'd done — I just stood there.
Because Martin never once—" She stopped.
She didn't finish the sentence.
She didn't need to.
We sat there for a moment without speaking.
Down the hall, I could hear Clara laugh at something Julian said — a real laugh, bright and sudden, the kind that catches you off guard.
Diane closed her eyes when she heard it.
"She hasn't laughed like that in three months," she said quietly.
I didn't say anything.
There wasn't anything to say that would have been better than just letting her hear it.
Then her phone buzzed again.
She looked at the screen.
This time, her expression didn't go still — it went hard.
She stood up.
"It's Martin," she said.
May you like
"He's here.
In the building."
