Chapter 131: Visiting Amara
Few Minutes Passed
Sean was looking at the flowers on the counter, thinking about nothing in particular, when his phone buzzed.
Max.
He picked up. "Max."
"Sean." Max’s voice had a quality to it that Sean hadn’t heard before, the flat professional efficiency gone, something quieter and more genuine in its place. "I just wanted to call. Not about work. Not about anything else." A pause. "Amara is doing so much better than they projected. The doctor said this morning that her recovery is ahead of schedule. She’s been giving the nursing staff opinions about the hospital’s meal planning." A brief pause. "Detailed opinions. With suggestions."
Sean smiled slightly. "Already."
"Already," said Max. "She started on Second day." He paused. "She’s been asking about you. Every day since after the surgery. She found out you were at the hospital the day of the operation and she’s been asking when she gets to meet the person who made all of this possible." Another pause. "I know I’ve said it already. I know you told me to stop. But Sean, I wouldn’t be watching my sister get better right now without what you did. I wouldn’t have been able to sit in that waiting room knowing I’d done everything I could if you hadn’t made the rest of it possible. So I’m saying it one more time and then I’ll leave it alone." A long pause. "Thank you. Genuinely. Thank you."
Sean was quiet for a moment. In the living room, Makima’s voice drifted through, something about Danny’s subsections being unreasonable.
"Max," said Sean.
"Yeah."
"I did it because I wanted to," said Sean. "You can stop thanking me for it. And honestly, it wasn’t purely a generous heart either. You did work for me that I needed done. Good work. Work that mattered. The hospital bill was something like a payment in a direction that made more sense than cash."
A pause on Max’s end.
Then something that was unmistakably the sound of someone smiling on the other side of a phone call. "You know," said Max, "people who are actually kindhearted are always the ones who say they aren’t."
"I’m telling you the practical reality," said Sean.
"You’re telling me the practical reality because saying the actual reason out loud is uncomfortable for you," said Max. "I know people like you, Sean. I’ve been working with you long enough to know the difference."
Sean said nothing.
"Anyway," said Max, clearing his throat in the specific way of someone who had said something honest and was now redirecting. "I almost forgot. Amara asked me something specific this morning."
"What," said Sean.
"She wants to meet you," said Max. "In person. She said, and I’m quoting her exactly, that she has waited long enough to thank the person who paid for her surgery and that she refuses to do it over text like some kind of impersonal arrangement." He paused. "She can be very particular about things like that."
"She sounds determined," said Sean.
"That’s one way to put it," said Max. "Whenever you have time. Whenever you’re less busy. No pressure."
Sean looked around the kitchen. Through the window the morning was fully arrived, the city doing its thing, no urgency in any direction.
"I can come now," said Sean.
A pause. "Now."
"I’m not doing anything," said Sean. "I’ll be on my way in a few minutes."
Another pause, longer this time. "Sean, you don’t have to—"
"Max," said Sean.
"Yeah."
"Tell her I’m coming."
He heard Max’s voice shift away from the phone, not a text, not a message, just Max turning his head and saying to someone in the room with him, "He’s coming now," and then a sound from further away that he couldn’t quite make out but that had warmth in it.
"She says," said Max, coming back, his voice carrying something he was clearly trying to keep neutral, "that you should not bring flowers because she already has too many and that this is a professional meeting." A pause. "I’m just relaying the message."
"A professional meeting," said Sean. "Understood."
"I’ll explain when you get here," said Max.
"I’ll be there in thirty minutes," said Sean.
"Thank you," said Max. Quiet and final, the last one, as promised.
Sean ended the call and looked up.
Makima was standing in the kitchen doorway, her phone at her side, the Danny call apparently concluded. She was looking at him with the expression she used when she’d caught the tail end of something and was deciding how much to ask about.
"Something came up," said Sean.
"I gathered," said Makima.
"Max’s sister," said Sean. "She wants to meet me. I told him I’d come now."
Something in Makima’s expression settled immediately into the warm straightforward version of itself. "Then go."
Sean stood, walked to where she was standing in the doorway, and kissed her on the cheek. She stood very still for exactly one second, the specific stillness of someone enjoying something brief, and then he was moving past her toward the hallway.
"I’ll be back this evening," he said.
"I’ll have actual dinner ready," said Makima. "Not takeout on plates."
"I made that with effort," said Sean, from the hallway.
"You presented it with effort," said Makima. "Different thing entirely."
He went upstairs to his apartment, changed quickly, grabbed his jacket, and came back down. Walsh’s replacement was already at the building entrance. Sean nodded at him and walked out to where James was waiting at the curb.
"Eastgate Medical Center," said Sean, getting in the back.
"Of course, sir," said James.
The car pulled away from the building, the morning sun coming through the window at exactly the angle that made the city look like it was showing off, and Sean sat back and thought about a professional meeting with no flowers in a hospital room.
He was looking forward to it.
—----------------------
Eastgate Medical Center
Max was waiting outside the hospital entrance when the Rolls Royce pulled up.