“Because I won’t be home tonight. Or the rest of the weekend. Quinn and I are going away someplace special together.” She smiled saucily and wiggled her eyebrows. “I got it yesterday at my...treatment and forgot to get it to you last night before I went out, but your first test starts Monday, so...you need it now.”
I nodded, ignoring the pang in my chest at thinking of her and Quinn someplace alone and romantic together...all weekend—
“Wait.” I shook my head, confused. “What about your Saturday dialysis treatment?”
Cora gritted her teeth at me, probably upset that I’d said that word aloud in public, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want her to miss an appointment because she was going to be with someone who didn’t know what was happening to her.
“Will you relax? I can get away for a couple hours for shopping and a spa or something.”
Four or five hours was way longer than a few. I didn’t see how she could hide something like that from him all weekend long. I wondered if she even planned on attending the treatment.
Missing them had to be dangerous. They cleaned out her kidneys. If her kidneys stopped working, she’d die.
I remembered the call I’d overheard her making with her dad last night before she left for the evening. When she’d assured him the nurse he’d hired to help her out was still doing a fine job, I’d turned from the supper I was making at the stove and watched her tell Mr. Wilder she loved him before hanging up.
“What nurse?” I asked, taking the grilled salmon off the skillet and sliding it onto a plate.
“The nurse I paid to tell my dad she was keeping an eye on me.” She snagged the plate I’d just filled and moved to the table to start eating. “Seriously, you don’t think my parents let me live here alone with failing kidneys without making sure someone was looking out for me, did you?”
“But...” I filled my own plate. “Why don’t you just let the nurse do her job, then?”
“Because she annoyed the shit out of me.” Cora hummed in pleasure deep in her throat as she took her first bite. “Fantastic,” she told me with her mouth full.
I smiled vaguely and sat across from her. I had stopped telling her which foods were healthiest for her to eat in her condition. Instead, I just fixed them, without saying anything, and let her dig in. As long as something tasted good, she didn’t care how good it was for her.