An hour later, Phedra was in a bed in a top-tier oncology pavilion, and for the first time in eleven months, someone was actually taking care of her.

The staff moved fast.

They got her onto an IV, got fluids and real nutrition into her, ordered a full battery of scans for the morning.

I stood in the doorway and watched competent, gentle hands do for my wife the things that a hundred thousand dollars was supposed to have paid for all along, and I had to step out into the hall so she would not see my face.

When I had myself in hand again, I went to a small consultation room down the corridor, where a man was waiting for me — an estate and corporate litigation attorney I had called from the airport the moment I’d landed and read that email, before I even knew what I would need him for.