“It’s not giving up.”
He looked at Lisa, then back at me. “Do what you can, Kirsten. That program is her best chance.”
“You mean billing won’t bother trying.”
***
By noon, I was back in Adrian’s cold mansion kitchen.
Adrian sat in his wheelchair, glaring at oatmeal.
The first week I worked for him, he told me not to call him sir because he was “twenty, not a retired judge.”
I told him he glared like one.
That made him laugh for the first time.
Most people treated him like the wheelchair had swallowed his voice. They spoke over him, around him, or at him in slow, careful tones that made his jaw tighten.
Adrian sat in his wheelchair.
I pushed the bowl closer. “Eat.”
“It tastes like wet cardboard, Kirsten.”
“I’ll add honey tomorrow.”
“Then I’ll hate it tomorrow.”
His mouth twitched.
“You don’t pity me, do you?” he asked.
“Honey, I feel for you, and I’m here to help. But pity? I don’t have the time.”
