Too Late to Kneel

Claire's POV

I slept in the guest room that night, curled on my good side, one hand pressed over my stitches like I could hold myself together.

By morning, the master bedroom no longer smelled like us.

The lavender sachets I kept on the dresser were gone. A crystal vase of white roses sat on my nightstand, the kind Audrey had carried to every one of Ethan's birthday parties since high school. The petals were still beaded with water.

Audrey sat on the edge of our bed in my silk robe.

Ivory, with *Claire* stitched in pale blue thread along the inside of the collar. My mother had embroidered it the winter before she got sick, squinting at the needle by the window because she refused to wear her glasses. I could see the tail of the C peeking out against Audrey's neck.

Our wedding album lay open across her knees.

"Oh. Claire." She smiled up at me and turned another page without hurrying. "Ethan says I should sleep here while I recover. You understand, don't you?"

Ethan stood by the window with a mug of coffee, already dressed for the office.

"She just had major surgery," he said. "She needs the best bed in the house and somewhere quiet. The guest room gets the street noise."

"I had major surgery too."

He sighed like I'd brought up the weather again. "Not this. Not today."

The day I was discharged, I'd waited in the hospital lobby for two hours with my bag between my feet. Then his text came. *Swamped at the office. Take a cab.* I'd sat in the back of that cab clutching a pillow against my stomach at every pothole, telling myself he'd just had a transplant, that he needed rest more than I needed him.

I walked to the nightstand and opened the drawer.

My post-op meds weren't on top where I'd left them. I dug down and found them crammed in the very bottom, the painkiller bottle wedged under a pack of gauze and tape. On top of everything sat a quilted pink makeup bag, heavy and unzipped, a tube of lip gloss leaking onto my dressing pads.

I lifted it out and set it on the bed beside her.

"Careful," Audrey said. "That's Dior."

Ethan's tablet lay face up on the dresser. As I reached past it for my pill bottle, the screen lit with a notification.

*Thank you for your stay at The Halcyon. Your points for March 4–7 have been posted.*

March fourth through seventh.

My donor compatibility testing. Three days of blood draws, a CT scan, a psych evaluation, a cross-match. I'd come home each night shaking from the contrast dye. And on the second night, Ethan called to say the company's financing was falling apart and he'd be at the office until morning. His phone was off until noon the next day.

Ethan crossed the room and turned the tablet over.

Audrey closed the album and stretched. "Ethan, you'll want the left side again tonight, right? Away from the door." She glanced at me. "He always wakes up at three for water. Half a glass, never more. I'll have Rosa leave one on his side."

I looked at her for a long moment.

"You know an awful lot about my husband's bedroom for someone who's only his childhood friend."

She didn't blush. She reached over, picked up the framed wedding photo from my nightstand, and laid it face down beside the roses. The glass clicked against the wood.

"The light was hitting my eyes," she said.

Ethan said nothing at all.

I pulled my suitcase from the closet and started packing. I folded slowly, because bending made the incision burn. Sweaters, jeans, the soft pants I'd lived in since the hospital. My mother's jewelry box. My medication, the dressings, the follow-up paperwork. The drawer looked empty when I was done, except for Audrey's makeup.

I didn't ask for the robe. I knew how that would go.

When I zipped the suitcase shut, it was heavier than I'd expected. I gripped the handle and tried to swing it off the bed.

Something inside my abdomen pulled tight and tore.

The pain was so sharp my hand opened on its own. The suitcase hit the floor with a thud, burst at the corner where I hadn't zipped it all the way, and my pill bottle rolled out across the hardwood and under the dresser.

"Oh," Audrey said faintly. She pressed her fingertips to her temple. "Ethan, I'm so dizzy. The noise—"

He was beside her in two strides, one arm around her waist. On his way, his foot caught the suitcase and shoved it out of the path like it was trash left in a hallway.

I grabbed the bedpost and held on. Black spots crowded the edges of my sight.

"Ethan." I kept my voice steady. "Please carry the suitcase down to the car. That's all I'm asking."

He didn't move from Audrey's side.

"Stop it, Claire."

"I'm not—"

"Audrey loses a kidney for me and doesn't complain. You pack one suitcase and act like you're dying."

Audrey leaned her head against his shoulder. "Don't be too hard on her." Then, softer, as if it had just occurred to her, "Actually, those recovery supplements in the kitchen. The protein shakes and the iron. Would you mind leaving those, Claire? My doctor said I need to rebuild my strength."

I'd ordered them from the transplant clinic's dietitian. Two hundred dollars a month, out of my own account.

"Of course she'll leave them," Ethan said. "She doesn't need them."

Something warm spread under the waistband of my pants. I looked down. A dark red stain had soaked through the edge of the gauze and was creeping outward into the cotton of my shirt.

Two years ago, I'd nicked my finger slicing onions, barely a scratch. Ethan had dropped his phone, run for the first-aid kit, and stood over me in the kitchen holding my hand under the faucet, pale and furious at the knife. *You scared me,* he'd said. *Don't do that to me.*

Now he was rubbing Audrey's back and didn't look down once.

I crouched, slowly, fished the pill bottle from under the dresser, and stuffed it into my handbag. Then I pushed the suitcase shut with my knee and dragged it out of the room myself.

It took me ten minutes to get it down the hall and to the front door. I rested twice against the wall. By the time I reached the foyer, my shirt was sticking to my side.

Audrey stood halfway up the staircase, her arm looped through Ethan's, my robe belted tight around her waist.

"You know," she said, "I wouldn't mind if Claire stayed. She could cook for us while I recover. Her cooking's actually pretty decent."

I waited for Ethan to laugh.

He tilted his head instead, like he was weighing it. "That's not a bad idea. Rosa can't do low-sodium for anything."

He was serious. He was really thinking about keeping me in the kitchen of my own house to feed the woman who'd taken my bed.

I pulled the silver house key off my keychain and set it on the entry table. It made a small, clean sound against the glass.

"You want a divorce? Fine," I said. "But from now on, you talk to me through a lawyer. Everything. Don't call me. Don't text me."

Ethan came down two steps, his mouth twisting into a smirk.

"With what money, Claire? You quit your job to take care of me. Without this house, without my card, you'll last three days. Maybe." He leaned on the banister. "You'll be begging to come home by Friday."

I picked up my handbag. Inside, my follow-up appointment form crinkled against the pill bottle.

"Then don't answer when I call," I said. "Because I won't."

I opened the door and dragged the suitcase outside. The wheels scraped and stuttered down the stone steps, each jolt sending a spike through my side. My fingers were trembling so badly I could barely keep hold of the handle.

At the bottom of the steps, my phone buzzed in my bag.

For one stupid second, my heart lifted.

It was Ethan.

*Don't you dare harass Audrey after what you pulled. If she so much as gets a text from you, you'll regret it.*