Ifeoma had severe aplastic anemia.

Her bone marrow had all but stopped producing blood cells; the current treatment cycle was failing; she needed a stem-cell transplant, and tonight a sudden fever from an opportunistic infection was threatening to overrun a body with almost nothing left to fight it.

“She specifically asked for you to stay,” the doctor said quietly, and something in the way she said it — you, the stranger, the wrong number — told Emeka how alone this woman must be.

He went back inside.

He had a choice, standing in that hallway, and he was aware of it.

He had done the decent thing already; he had come, he had sat, she had made it through the frightening part of the night.