You Can't Buy Your Way Back

By Thursday morning, I had arranged a furnished apartment near the hospital, a driver, a security detail, and a private nurse for whenever Elena's doctors approved discharge.

I had also managed to make Sofia furious.

She found the apartment photographs in a folder Marco left beside my coffee.

"What's this?"

"Somewhere you can stay."

"I have somewhere."

"A guest room with a shared bathroom. This has more space."

"Did you ask me whether I wanted more space?"

"I'm trying to make things easier."

She looked through the folder. "And the driver?"

"For appointments."

"And these men?"

"Security."

Her mouth tightened.

"You arranged people to follow me without asking."

"After what happened to Elena, you can't expect me to—"

She put the folder on the table.

I stopped.

There was no shouting. That was what made it so painfully familiar.

"To what?" she asked. "Let me decide where I live? Explain my options instead of issuing instructions?"

"They're not instructions."

"You signed a lease."

I looked at the signature page.

She waited.

"I shouldn't have done that."

"No. You shouldn't."

I told Marco to cancel the arrangements. He didn't look surprised, which made me wonder how many people understood me better than I did.

Then I sat across from Sofia.

"What do you need?"

She stared at me for a moment.

"A charger. Mine broke. And something to eat that isn't crackers."

It was humiliating how relieved I felt to receive an instruction I could follow.

I brought a charger and soup. She inspected the bag.

"Did you buy the restaurant?"

"No."

"Good."

I almost laughed. She almost did too.

Elena was moved out of intensive care the next day. She complained about the pillows, which Hannah called encouraging.

My donation had been accepted through the blood service. Hannah later told me the screened, appropriately processed blood had been used during Elena's continuing treatment. I didn't ask the girl to be grateful for it. She had enough people explaining things to her already.

On Friday afternoon, I brought a tablet, expensive headphones, and a bag of books selected by someone who assured me teenagers loved them.

Elena inspected the first cover.

"Did anyone ask what I read?"

"Not you," I admitted.

She handed it back. "Then they guessed wrong."

I put the bag beneath my chair.

"What do you read?"

"Mysteries. Books where people stop withholding obvious information after the first fifty pages."

Sofia turned toward the window. Her shoulders moved.

"Are you laughing?" I asked.

"No."

"You're a terrible liar."

"I used to be. I've had practice."

The joke ended gently, without quite disappearing.

Elena tapped the blanket. "You don't have to bring things every time."

"What should I bring?"

"Yourself. If you want."

I looked at her.

"I want."

She nodded toward a note on her tray. "The doctor is explaining the recovery plan tomorrow. Mom says I should ask questions. I don't always remember them afterward."

"Would you like me there?"

"If you listen. Don't argue with him because he won't let me go home yet."

"I can do that."

"Grandma says you're not good at it."

"Your grandmother has opinions."

"Usually accurate ones," Sofia said.

The next morning I arrived without gifts. I sat where Elena pointed, took notes when she asked, and kept my mouth shut while the doctor explained restrictions. When I wanted to ask about a private facility, I looked at her first.

She shook her head.

I left the question unasked.

Afterward she took my notebook.

"Your handwriting is awful."

"That's why I employ people."

"I'll type it up."

"You're supposed to rest."

"Then you type it."

I did.

Sofia stayed beside Elena most of the day. By evening she fell asleep in the visitor's chair, one hand still resting near her daughter's blanket.

I laid my coat over her shoulders.

When she woke, she caught my wrist before she was fully aware of where she was.

"You haven't eaten," she murmured.

"Neither have you."

She looked up at me, her fingers still around my wrist.

For a second I saw the woman who used to drag me away from my desk because she refused to have dinner alone.

Then she released me.

"You should go home."

"I don't want to."

"Luca."

I sat in the other chair.

"I know you said we're over. I heard you. But I don't know how to sit three feet from you and pretend I don't want to touch you."

Her breath changed.

"You don't have to pretend. You have to accept that wanting doesn't settle it."

"Could it ever?"

"I don't know."

It was the first answer that wasn't no. I felt hope so quickly that I almost spoiled it by asking for more.

Sofia rubbed her eyes.

"I built a life," she said. "It wasn't the one I thought I'd have. But it's mine. I can't lose it because being near you makes me remember being twenty-one."

"I'm not asking you to lose anything."

"You never thought you were."

I watched her fold my coat and place it between us.

"What would you need to believe me?"

She looked at me for a long time.

"More than one week."

"You can have that."

"Don't say it like you're giving me something."

I nodded, slowly.

She leaned back against the chair, exhausted again.

"I don't have another seventeen years to lose, Luca."

The next afternoon she called while I was visiting Enzo.

"Elena wants you," she said. "Not urgently. She's arguing with me about the exercises the physiotherapist gave her."

"You want me to make her do them?"

"I want you to come here. She thinks you'll take her side."

I found Elena scowling at a sheet of instructions. She asked whether I could get the therapist fired.

"No," I said.

"You didn't even think about it."

"Your mother told me not to argue with the people getting you well."

Sofia looked at me across the bed.

Elena sighed. "So that's how it's going to be."

I sat beside her and read the instructions aloud. She complained through every approved movement, then asked me to stay while she rested.

Later, Sofia found me in the hallway.

"Thank you," she said.

"I didn't do much."

"You did what I asked."

She touched my sleeve briefly and walked away. I stood there longer than the gesture required.