Urban God of Rebate: Infinite Returns Of Women And Powers

”How long did they say,” said Sean.

”Four to six hours,” said Max. ”So somewhere between two and four left.” He paused. ”They almost moved it again. Two days ago her oxygen levels dropped and they thought they were going to have to push it back another week.”

”But they didn’t,” said Sean.

”She stabilized yesterday morning,” said Max. ”Enough that the surgical team felt confident going ahead today.” He looked at his hands. ”They’ve been waiting for a stable window for a month.”

”Have you eaten,” said Sean.

”I’m fine,” said Max.

”That’s not what I asked,” said Sean.

Max looked at him. ”No. I haven’t eaten.”

Sean stood up, found the vending machine he’d noticed down the hall when he came in, and came back two minutes later with two coffees and something that described itself as a breakfast sandwich in the specific hopeful way vending machine food described itself.

Max looked at the coffee and the sandwich.

”The sandwich is terrible,” said Sean. ”The coffee is also terrible. But it’s better than nothing.”

”But eat the sandwich, you haven’t eaten anything today” said Sean.

Max ate the sandwich. It was indeed terrible. He ate the whole thing without comment and drank the coffee the same way, and Sean sat beside him and drank his own coffee and they watched the morning news program on the muted television for a while.

—------

Time in hospital waiting rooms had its own specific mechanics. It moved differently from time everywhere else, slower in the obvious ways and faster in the ones that mattered, the kind of time that made people say things they wouldn’t say somewhere else simply because the alternative was sitting in silence with nothing between them and whatever they were actually feeling.

About forty minutes in, Max said, ”She was fourteen when they diagnosed her.”

Sean didn’t say anything. Just listened.

”My parents didn’t tell me right away,” said Max. ”I was sixteen. They thought they were protecting me.” He looked at his empty coffee cup. ”By the time they told me, Amara had already had two hospitalizations. I’d thought she just had a bad cold both times.” He paused. ”I remember sitting in my room after they finally told me and doing the math. Two hospitalizations I hadn’t known about. Multiple doctor appointments I’d thought were just routine checkups. Months of her being in pain that I’d completely missed because nobody told me.”

”You were sixteen,” said Sean.

”I know,” said Max. ”That’s not the point. The point is that from that day forward I decided I was going to pay attention. To everything. That I was never going to be the person in the room who didn’t know what was actually happening.” He looked at the floor. ”That’s why I do what I do. Not because I’m naturally good with computers. Because I decided at sixteen that information was the only thing that protected people and I was going to have as much of it as possible.”

Sean sat with that for a moment.

”She was in the hospital for my high school graduation,” said Max. ”And for the first semester of college. I visited every weekend. Drove two hours each way.” He paused. ”She felt guilty about it. She kept telling me to stop coming so much, that I was falling behind in my coursework. I told her my coursework was fine.” Another pause. ”My coursework was not fine.”

”How bad,” said Sean.

”I passed,” said Max. ”That’s the most that can be said about it.” Something that might have been the beginning of a smile crossed his face briefly. ”She sent me a card when my grades came in. It said, and I’m quoting directly, ’next semester try actually studying instead of visiting me, you absolute idiot.’”

Sean almost smiled.

”She’s very direct,” said Max. ”She gets it from our mother.” He was quiet for a moment. ”She’s also the smartest person I know. She reads everything. She started reading financial news from her hospital bed because she said she needed something to think about that wasn’t her own situation.” He paused. ”Romance novels too. She goes through about three a week. She has very specific opinions about them. She has told me more about fictional billionaires than any person should know.”

Sean looked at him. ”Fictional billionaires.”

”She has a type,” said Max, completely flat. ”Apparently the genre she prefers features very wealthy protagonists who are secretly good people underneath the money.” He paused. ”I may have mentioned you in passing during one of my visits.”

Sean looked at the television. ”What exactly did you mention?”

”That you were eighteen and owned a Rolls Royce and had paid off a two-hundred-and-eighty-thousand-dollar debt for someone you barely knew,” said Max. ”She asked me approximately forty follow-up questions.”

Sean was quiet for a moment. ”And then what.”

”And then she told me to bring you next time I visited,” said Max, completely without expression. ”I told her you were busy. She told me that was not an acceptable answer.”

The waiting room was quiet except for the muted television.

”The bone marrow,” said Max, after a moment. His voice had changed again, quieter, more careful.

Sean waited.

”The surgery she’s having today requires a marrow transplant,” said Max. ”I’m the donor. I had the procedure done last week.” He looked at his hands. ”Outpatient. It wasn’t as bad as I expected.”

Sean looked at him. ”You donated bone marrow last week and you’ve been running on no sleep digging into Vivian Castellan’s corporate structure at the same time.”

”The two things are not mutually exclusive,” said Max.

”Max.”

”I was fine,” said Max. ”I’m fine. It’s not as dramatic as it sounds.” A pause. ”They couldn’t proceed with the transplant immediately because Amara’s condition wasn’t stable enough to receive it. She had a respiratory complication the week I donated. They had to wait for her levels to normalize before they could move forward.” He looked at the closed surgical door. ”She knew I’d done the donation.