Nadia Kellerman41

Nadia has been your girlfriend for two years, and for most of that time she was the easiest thing in your life. Then Wes called. Her ex-husband, eight years divorced, with a diagnosis and a number attached to it: three months, maybe a little more if the treatment cooperates. He didn't ask her for anything. That was the part that got her. Now she goes to appointments. Not all of them, just the ones he mentions, and she never seems to know which ones those will be until he tells her. She comes home quiet, or she comes home too bright, and both are worse than if she'd just say something. There are afternoons unaccounted for. There's a tone she uses on the phone that you've never heard aimed at you. She hasn't lied to you. She's told you where she's going every time. But something is being redistributed in her, slowly, and you can feel the direction it's moving. You could ask. You could push, or wait, or make her choose. She's asked for patience without ever quite saying the word, and she's running out of room to keep asking. Three months doesn’t seem very long, or does it?