Chapter 1

The dark faded.

Then, light.

Not a bright light, just... a room. Our room.

I was floating near the ceiling.

That was strange.

I saw myself. On the bed.

Still. Too still.

Leo, my son, stood beside the bed. His small hand touched my arm on the bed.

"Papa?" he whispered.

My wife, Eleanor, stood by the door. Her arms were crossed. Her face was hard.

I tried to speak. No sound came out.

I tried to move. I couldn't.

Just watching.

Leo turned to Eleanor, his small face crumpled with fear.

"Mama, Papa won't wake up."

His voice was a tiny thread.

"He told me he was sick, Mama. Real sick."

Eleanor didn't move.

"And Julian... Julian is bad, Mama. Papa said..."

I wanted to scream, *Listen to him, Eleanor! For God's sake, listen!*

But I was just air. Silent air.

Eleanor finally spoke. Her voice was ice.

"Marcus filled your head with nonsense, Leo."

She walked towards him, not to the bed, but to Leo.

"Your father is dramatic. He wants attention. He taught you to lie, to turn you against Julian."

She grabbed Leo's arm, not gently.

"Julian is a good man. My friend."

She pulled Leo away from the bed, away from me.

My chest, or where my chest used to be, ached with a cold fire.

*No, Eleanor. No.*

Eleanor turned to leave the room. She didn't look at the bed.

At me.

Leo pulled free from her grip, his small body shaking.

"No, Mama! Papa needs help!"

He ran after her, towards the front door of our brownstone.

She was already opening it, her car keys in her hand.

"Stay here, Leo. I have things to do."

She stepped outside.

Leo stumbled on the top step of the stoop, trying to follow her.

He fell, hard.

A small cry.

Eleanor paused at her car door, looked back.

Her face showed no concern, only annoyance.

"Stop faking, Leo. Get up."

She got into her car and drove away.

I rushed towards Leo, or tried to. I passed right through the wall.

I was outside, beside him. He was crying, his knee scraped and bleeding.

Helpless. I was utterly helpless.

*My boy, my poor boy.*

Then, it all came back. A rush of cold memory.

Julian Croft. Eleanor's childhood friend.

He was dying. Liver failure. His years of drinking and drugs finally caught up.

Eleanor found out I was a match. A rare match for a partial transplant.

"Marcus, you have to do this," she'd begged, her eyes wide, Julian's shadow already in them.

"He's my oldest friend. I can't lose him."

Julian himself, pale and weak in a hospital bed, but his eyes sharp, manipulative.

"Marcus, old man, be a sport. Eleanor worries so much."

I remembered the doctors. Their grave faces.

"Mr. Washington, your autoimmune hepatitis... this surgery is extremely risky for you."

"Life-threatening," one had said, very clearly.

Eleanor had waved it away. "Doctors always exaggerate. You're strong, Marcus. You can do this. For me. For Julian."

The pressure. Relentless.

She said I was selfish if I refused.

She said I didn't love her if I let Julian die.

I loved her. I loved Leo. I wanted peace.

So I agreed.

The sterile smell of the hospital. The fear, cold and heavy in my gut.

Then the surgery. Pain.

Waking up, feeling like I was drowning.

Eleanor by my side, but her eyes were for Julian's recovery chart.

She'd left me in our Harlem home to "rest" while she checked on Julian.

"You'll be fine," she'd said, a quick kiss on my forehead.

I wasn't fine.

The pain got worse. I couldn't breathe.

I called for her. She didn't come.

Then... the dark.

And now this. This floating, watching horror.

She had pushed me. Julian had pulled the strings. They killed me.

Leo pushed himself up, his small face streaked with tears and dirt.

He limped back into the brownstone, back to the bedroom.

He stood by the bed, looking at my still form.

He didn't understand. Not fully.

He gently pulled the blanket up over my shoulder.

"Papa," he whispered, his voice thick with tears. "Mama will come back. She'll help."

He believed it. My brave, loving boy.

He sat on the floor beside the bed, his small hand resting near mine.

He stayed there for hours.

I stayed there with him, a silent, screaming ghost.

The sun began to set. The room grew dim.

Eleanor didn't come back.

Leo's stomach rumbled. He hadn't eaten.

He looked at me, then at the door.

A new resolve hardened his small face.

He stood up.

"I'll get Mama," he said to my body. "I'll make her listen."

He walked out of the bedroom, out of the brownstone.

I followed, a cold dread coiling inside me.

He was just seven years old.

He started walking, then running.

Towards Midtown. Towards Eleanor's office at Vance Consolidated.

Miles. For a little boy, an impossible journey.

Through the Harlem streets, then into the busier avenues.

Cars honked. People rushed past, not noticing the small, determined boy.

He was tired. He stumbled often.

His injured knee throbbed. I could feel his pain, a phantom echo in my own non-body.

But he kept going.

For me.

My son. My brave, doomed son.

And I, his father, could only watch.