Part 1Karma Has A Cruel Harvest

When my eyes locked with Damian’s in the oncology ward, we both froze.

For me, it was the sheer, jarring shock of running into my ex-husband in a place like this after five years of total silence. For Damian, however, the look on his face suggested he’d jumped to a very different conclusion.

He frowned, his hand shooting out to grip my arm with a familiarity that made my skin crawl.

"Are you sick too? How bad is it? Do you need me to call in some favors with the specialists here?"

He looked genuinely concerned. It was a masterful performance. He looked like a man who hadn’t been caught red-handed in an affair five years ago—a man who hadn’t stood by with a shrug while my world burned to the ground.

I found my pulse again and wrenched my arm out of his grasp. My voice came out like gravel grinding against stone—dry and hollow—as I told him I was only there to visit someone.

Damian let out a long, visible breath of relief.

"Leila was diagnosed when she was four months pregnant. We’ve been to every major cancer center in the country, but..."

He trailed off, finally noticing the wall of ice in my expression. He swallowed the rest of his sentence.

As I moved to brush past him, something possessed me. A dark, jagged little thought escaped my lips before I could stop it.

"Do you believe in karma, Damian?"

* * *

Damian’s face paled instantly. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, but no sound came out.

I gave him a thin, jagged smile—the kind that didn't reach my eyes—and prepared to walk away. But then, a voice I’d hoped never to hear again drifted through the sterile air.

"Damian? Who are you talking to?"

I turned, almost on instinct.

A woman in a hospital gown and a knit beanie was shuffling toward us. I had prepared myself for the possibility, but seeing Leila like this still hit me with a dull thud of surprise. She had always been the girl who wouldn't leave the house without a full face of makeup and perfect hair. Now, her skin was the color of old parchment, her eyes sunken into dark hollows.

Recognition flared in her eyes. "Doris?" she whispered.

When I didn't respond, she looked at Damian, who was standing uncomfortably close to me. A flicker of something old and territorial crossed her face. She hurried her pace, lacing her fingers through Damian’s and leaning her head heavily against his shoulder.

"Doris, look at you. You’re so thin. What kind of cancer do you have? Do you have insurance for the treatment? Because if you need money..."

"Leila!" Damian barked, cutting her off.

He turned back to me, his eyes full of a sickening kind of pity. "I’m sorry, Doris. Leila’s been… emotional lately. The illness. Please, don't take it personally."

He hadn’t apologized when I caught him with my cousin. He hadn't apologized when he systematically dismantled my family’s life to protect her. But now, he was bowing his head to me over a few petty insults.

I didn't care enough to wonder why he’d changed. I didn't even want to spend the breath it would take to acknowledge him. I gave a curt, empty nod and turned to go.

They weren't expecting me to be so indifferent. I heard them speak at the same time behind my back.

"Doris, where are you living now?" Damian asked.

"Don't you ever show your face near us again!" Leila hissed.

My phone started buzzing in my pocket—a volunteer from the animal rescue. As I answered, the muffled sounds of an argument broke out behind me. I couldn't help it; I looked back one last time.

I saw Damian irritably brushing off his right shoulder—the exact spot where Leila had just been leaning to mark her territory.

"You’re disgusted by me?" Leila’s voice rose to a hysterical pitch. She caught me watching and her face contorted. She grabbed her head, screaming loud enough to rattle the windows.

"Do you have any idea what I’ve gone through to carry this baby for you? Do you know how much I gave up to be with you? How can you do this to me? I’m not even dead yet, and you’re already flirting with your ex-wife right in front of me!"

The oncology ward is usually a place of heavy, suffocating silence. But Leila’s screams drew every ambulatory patient and bored relative into the hallway.

Damian muttered something low and sharp, trying to suppress his rage. Leila’s face flickered with a moment of genuine fear, but then she doubled down, pointing a trembling finger at me.

"When did you start seeing her again? Did you set this up? Did you bring her here just so she could see how miserable I am?"

The eyes of the crowd shifted to me—curious, judgmental, pitying. I felt a momentary surge of adrenaline, but it settled into a cold, flat calm.

Just as I was about to speak, Mrs. O’Malley—a long-time family friend who was practically a permanent fixture at the hospital while she cared for her husband—pushed through the crowd with a heavy plastic pitcher of water. She looked at Leila and spat on the floor.

"You two have some nerve showing your faces in this town," Mrs. O'Malley shouted. "The way you treated the Rossi family... the way you broke those poor people's hearts... and now you're here bothering Doris?"