He kept a notebook with medication names because my father panicked around medical terms and my mother cried whenever side effects were listed.
He learned when to joke and when to shut up.
That mattered.
People underestimate silence.
Good silence can hold a person together.
Bad silence abandons them.
Owen’s silence stayed in the room.
Caleb sent flowers after my first treatment.
I threw them away.
Then he sent a letter.
I did not open it.
Then he showed up at my parents’ house one afternoon while Owen was helping my father fix a loose cabinet door.
I was on the couch under a blanket, bald under a soft blue scarf, nauseous and furious at my own weakness.
My mother opened the door.
Her voice turned cold.
“She is resting.”
“I need to see her,” Caleb said.
Owen came into the hallway.
Caleb saw him and stiffened.
“You’re still here?”
Owen wiped his hands on a towel.
“Yes.”
“What, are you living here now?”
“No.”
“He’s helping,” my mother snapped.
Caleb looked past them and saw me.
His face changed.
Not love.
Shock.
Pity.
I saw myself through his eyes.
Thin.
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