Chapter 5 - Phedra's Scan
Six months later, we waited for scan results.
Nothing about fraud mattered in that room.
Nothing about Selina.
Nothing about Godfrey.
Just a doctor opening a file.
Phedra held my hand.
The oncologist smiled cautiously.
“The treatment is working.”
I stopped breathing.
Tumors had shrunk.
Significantly.
Not gone.
Not cured.
But responding.
Phedra cried.
I cried harder.
The doctor reminded us there was still a long road.
We understood.
But for the first time, the road existed.
We celebrated with terrible hospital coffee.
Phedra drank half a cup.
Then said:
“I want chicken.”
“What kind?”
“Fried.”
“I'll get it.”
“And mashed potatoes.”
“Yes.”
“And cake.”
“Anything.”
She smiled.
“Careful. I might become expensive.”
I laughed so loudly a nurse looked in.
That joke meant everything.
Food had been used to punish her.
Now asking for more became freedom.
I bought too much.
She ate six bites.
Perfect.
Her hair eventually began growing back.
Soft at first.
She kept touching it.
One morning, she stood in front of the mirror.
“It's ugly.”
I wrapped my arms around her.
“Terrible.”
She elbowed me.
“Liar.”
We laughed.
She didn't cover her head anymore.
Not because baldness was shameful.
Because the shaved head had been imposed on her.
Growing it back became hers.
We rented a small apartment.
I refused to live in Selina's house.
Even after legal proceedings determined parts of the property had been improved using my funds.
I didn't want it.
Eventually, the court ordered restitution.
Godfrey's auto shop was sold.
The SUV too.
Other assets liquidated.
I recovered a fraction.
Enough.
People expected me to be obsessed with getting everything back.
I wasn't.
Money could be earned again.
Four years with Phedra couldn't.
That was the loss I couldn't recover.
So I stopped trying to recover it.
We built new years.
Phedra's health improved.
She joined a cancer support group.
At first, she barely spoke.
Then one day she came home angry.
“What happened?”
“A woman said her husband controls all her money because she's sick.”
I waited.
Phedra looked at me.
“I told her sickness doesn't cancel adulthood.”
I smiled.
“Good.”
“I talked for twenty minutes.”
“Poor woman.”
Phedra threw a pillow at me.
Eventually, she began volunteering with patients experiencing financial abuse during illness.
Her experience had language now.
Coercive control.
Financial abuse.
Medical neglect.
Isolation.
Terms mattered.
For years, Selina had called it family decisions.
Now Phedra could name it accurately.
Then, eighteen months after I came home, we received another scan.
The doctor looked at us.
“No evidence of active disease.”
Phedra stared.
“What?”
The doctor repeated it carefully.
Remission.
Not a promise forever.
But remission.
Phedra started laughing.
Then crying.
Then laughing again.
I held her.
For eleven months, my mother treated Phedra's illness like a reason to stop investing in her future.
Phedra had one anyway.
That night, we bought cake.
A ridiculous one.
Three layers.
Phedra wrote something across the top herself.
May you like
STILL EXPENSIVE.
I loved her more than I knew was possible.
