As the Canary Contract Expired, I Left New York Carrying My Father’s Ashes Chapter 10
Caleb collapsed on the street corner.
Years of heavy drinking, repeated infections after his stomach surgery, and his already metastasized cancer left him with no choice but to be taken directly to a private hospital.
When David arrived, I was trimming the stems of a bouquet of white roses.
He stood behind the counter, his eyes filled with exhaustion and worry.
“Caleb refuses chemotherapy. The family’s Consiglieres are losing their minds.”
The scissors in my hand cut through the final unnecessary branch of the flower.
“That’s his choice.”
David placed a transparent evidence bag on the counter.
Inside was the plastic ring I had thrown into the airport trash can.
“He kept holding onto this.”
His voice tightened.
“The doctors said he doesn’t have much time left. He signed his will. Everything under his name was left to you.”
“Nancy, I’m not here to convince you to forgive him.”
David lowered his voice.
“I’m asking you to see him once.”
“Just once.”
“So he knows someone came.”
I placed the white roses into a vase.
“I have a baking class this afternoon.”
David looked anxious.
“The class can be rescheduled.”
I remained calm.
“The night my father was taken off life support, he waited for Caleb too.”
David froze.
I picked up the evidence bag and stared at the cheap plastic ring inside.
For a moment, I remembered how I used to believe that ten dollars’ worth of plastic was more precious than every diamond in the world.
Because the person who placed it on my finger had promised me a future.
But that promise had already expired.
The ring was nothing more than a worthless piece of plastic now.
“David.”
I looked at him.
“Did you ask him why he refuses treatment?”
David hesitated.
“He said if he was dying, you might come see him the way you stayed by your father’s side.”
I handed the evidence bag back to him.
“Even now, he’s still using his life to force me into making a choice.”
David’s eyes turned red.
“Then what do you want him to do?”
My voice was cold.
“Accept treatment or refuse treatment.”
“Either way, it’s his decision.”
“But he doesn’t get to use death as his final way of controlling me.”
David gripped the evidence bag tightly.
“But he really does know he was wrong.”
“The records of the family hospital’s mistakes back then were corrected because he personally demanded it.”
“He publicly took responsibility for the damages caused by stopping your father’s treatment payments.”
“The donations were made anonymously.”
“He returned the property rights.”
I was silent for a moment.
“I know.”
I lowered my eyes.
“And I admit it. I loved him once.”
David looked up.
I continued.
“But I can’t spend the rest of my life wondering whether the next time he’s afraid of losing me, he’ll make another decision for me without asking.”
“Fixing his mistakes is something he owes. It’s his punishment.”
“It’s not a reason I have to go back.”
At two in the afternoon, I went to my baking class as usual.
I turned off my phone and left it inside my locker.
When class ended, David was sitting on the bench outside the classroom.
He no longer had the ring.
Only a death certificate.
“3:17 p.m.”
His voice was barely audible.
“The machines were turned off.”
Before Caleb died, he kept staring at the hospital room door.
That door never opened.
I took the death certificate from David and carefully checked the time and signature sections required by the attorney.
The sunlight outside was bright.
I didn’t go to the hospital.
Because his life and death, and my forgiveness, had never been a transaction.
His family would come and handle his funeral.