Chapter 85 Bonus Chapter 13: She’s Right Outside

Chapter 85 Bonus Chapter 13: She’s Right Outside
Like a man finally allowed to put down every defense he had been carrying.
“Okay,” Nathan said. “Then we’ll keep each other company.”
Outside the window, wind moved through the trees in the yard, the branches rustling softly.
Sunlight spilled through the glass and fell over both of them.
One old. One young.
Like a quiet painting.
Mason thought he would remember that picture for the rest of his life.
2026 · Spring
The day Nathan died, Mason sat beside his bed.
Outside the hospital window stood a tree covered in small white flowers.
Mason did not know what kind of tree it was. The petals were tiny, five to each blossom, thin as paper. When the wind blew, they drifted down, turning in the air once or twice before landing on the windowsill, the ground, the sunlight.
The petals were white.
The sunlight was gold.
It was beautiful.
Like a dream.
Mason held Nathan’s hand and sat by the bed.
Nathan’s hand was so thin now. The knuckles stood out sharply, the skin fragile as paper, blue veins visible beneath it. Once, these hands had been long and strong. They had written elegant rows of equations. They had moved with steady precision over the most delicate lab equipment. They had solved the hardest math problems for Mason as if they were nothing.
Now, even holding a glass of water took effort.
Mason did not cry.
He only held Nathan’s hand and waited.
Waited to say goodbye.
Waited to send him on the last stretch of the road.
Because he had always known this day would come.
From the first time Nathan began seeing things that were not there, Mason had known.
The doctors had said the brain damage was irreversible.
It would get worse.
Worse, and worse, and worse.
There was no cure.
Mason had only not expected this day to come so soon.
And so slowly.
Soon, because there were still so many things he had not said to Nathan.
Slowly, because every second of waiting felt like a fist closing around his heart.
That evening, the clouds near the horizon were stained gold by the sunset.
Orange-red, rimmed with light, like an oil painting.
Nathan suddenly opened his eyes.
Mason shot to his feet. “Dad? You’re awake?”
Nathan looked at him.
His eyes were clear. Calm.
No confusion. No hallucination. None of that frantic searching, that constant anxiety of a man trying to find someone he could not reach.
Only peace.
Like a person who had finally reached shore.
Like someone who had walked a long, long road and, at last, seen the porch light waiting at home.
“Mason.” His voice was faint as wind.
“I’m here.”
“Take care of yourself.”
“I will.”
“Your sister…” Nathan paused. His gaze moved toward the window, toward those golden clouds. “Has she come back?”
Mason opened his mouth.
Outside the window, petals drifted down.
One.
Two.
Three.
They landed on the sill, in the sunlight, across Nathan’s white sheet.
The room was so quiet he could hear his own heartbeat.
Mason remembered so many things.
He remembered being very young, Nathan pointing at the photograph on the gravestone and saying, “She was a very important person.”
He remembered being fourteen, Nathan drunk and lost on the bed, whispering, “I can’t find her.”
He remembered being twenty, Nathan speaking to empty air, saying, “Chloe wants Popeyes today.”
He remembered Nathan waiting for Chloe for twenty-three years.
In every morning. Every dusk. Every moment Mason had asked, When is Mom coming home?
Through every spring blossom, every summer cicada, every autumn leaf, every winter snow.
Nathan had been waiting.
Waiting for someone who would never come back.
And suddenly, Mason understood.
In Nathan’s world, Chloe had never truly left.
It was not only a hallucination.
Not only an illness.
Not only the damage in his brain.
It was a choice.
Nathan had chosen to believe she was still there.
He had chosen to keep loving her this way.
Because there had been no other way for him to survive.
“She’s back,” Mason said.
His voice shook, but he forced the corners of his mouth upward.
Forced his voice to sound lighter.
Forced this final moment to be something beautiful.
“She’s right outside. I’ll go get her.”
“Okay.”
Mason stood and walked out of the room.
The hallway was long. Fluorescent lights shone overhead, cold and white, turning everyone’s face faintly gray. At the far end of the corridor, a window caught the sunset, staining the whole hallway warm gold. Light and shadow crossed the white walls like a silent farewell.
He stood there.
No one was there.
Only his own shadow, stretched long across the floor.
He drew in a breath.
The corridor was so quiet he could hear himself breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Like waves. Like a heartbeat. Like some ancient, stubborn rhythm that refused to stop.
He remembered Nathan teaching him to swim.
Mason had been seven, standing at the edge of the pool, staring at the blue water and refusing to get in. Nathan had crouched in front of him, looked him in the eyes, and said, “Don’t be scared. Dad’s here.” Then he had taken Mason’s hand and walked him into the water one step at a time.
The water had been cold.
Nathan’s hand had been warm.
He remembered Nathan teaching him to ride a bike.
Nathan had run behind him, holding the seat, lap after lap, breathless but never letting go. Later, when Mason finally learned to ride and went farther and farther, he had looked back and seen Nathan standing in place, hands in his pockets, smiling as he watched.
Sunlight had fallen over Nathan then too, pulling his shadow long across the ground.
Mason stood in the hospital corridor and turned those memories over one by one.
Like flipping through an album.
Every page was Nathan.
Only Nathan.
His father.
The person in this world who had loved him most.
Mason opened the door and walked back into the room.