The Thief and the Globetrotter

Chapter Eleven: The Hospital

In any case, he would've guessed Gwen preferred to be alone in her grief where no one could see her fracture.

"You want me there?" he asked unsteadily. The night before was a lot of things. Fierce, hungry, passionate... not what Baz considered intimate. Waking up in her bed didn't equate trust. If anything, it left Baz more lost than he'd been before partaking in Gwen's poison of choice.

"Don't you want to be?" Gwen raised an eyebrow, "it's the first place Rei would turn up."

Baz nodded slowly, his stomach unsettled. Was it caused by the wine or Gwen's eerie detachment?

"Can you drive a stick?" Gwen asked. "There's a Cadillac in the garage that's not too intimidating."

That might've sent another man into a frenzy, but the offer of a Cadillac didn't do much for Baz.

"I can't drive at all," Baz replied. If he could, maybe the possibility of rolling around in a sports car would be more exciting.

Gwen stared at him. "You can't drive at all?" she repeated, like she thought she might have heard him wrong.

Baz shrugged. He never had much need for it. Temperance, despite its hills, was very cycling-friendly. Transit wasn't bad. That—and one summer of driving lessons with his father—had left Baz utterly uninterested in spending any more time behind the wheel.

"I hate driving in heels," Gwen muttered to herself.

***

The phone rang a second time. Staring at it on the side table didn't make it stop. The dread came in a wave, like a chill running up her spine, until Rei finally reached for it, ignoring the blinking light of an unheard voicemail.

The receiver was awkward and too big in her hands, the cord tangling into itself. How strange now for a phone to serve only one purpose, no screen or 3G connection. Just a phone, just for calls. More particularly, just for this call.

"Hello?" Rei said. The ringing stopped, but it somehow still existed in her mind, rattling around in her ears.

"Hello, is Rei there?" the voice on the other end even sounded medical. She must've been one of the many nurses and doctors Rei spoke to at the hospital during Angelo's first night there.

They explained to her the diagnosis, how Angelo was in stable condition but would need to remain at the hospital. The lawyers came and informed her of Angelo's living will and how he'd granted her power of attorney. They all ignored the fact she spent the night in the waiting room still dressed in a floral cheongsam dress and her mother's Chinese hairpin, a tad overdressed for the evening she ended up having.

"Yes, speaking," Rei said. Her stomach tied itself into knots, waiting to hear news she was in no way ready for. All around her were reminders of Angelo. The whole apartment was one big reminder, the entire building under his ownership. The books and the art were all memories, relics of trips Rei heard so many stories about, it was like she'd gone herself. He brought back the butterflies, pinned in frames, until she had the chance to see them for herself in person.

"I'm Barbara Hurst calling from Seaside General Hospital. I understand you have power of attorney for Mr. Angelo Ferrero," the nurse said.

"Yes," Rei said. She couldn't deny it. She couldn't hide from the responsibility of it, the hard choices that were inevitable when someone was dying. It wasn't the kind of problem that would go away if she just ignored it.

"I have his living will here. Today is the deadline for any intrusive procedures, according to the document. You are granted power to overturn the directive," the nurse said.