Diana returned while Phei was feeding her.
Not the sterile liquid sludge the hospital called "nutrition" — those plastic tubs that tasted like regret and cardboard. He had brought real food and added slices of fruit arranged on a napkin with the quiet precision of someone who understood that dignity and beauty still mattered even when the body had spent eight long months in open betrayal.
He held the spoon for her. Just steady patience — bringing the spoon to her lips, waiting for the slow swallow, repeating. The same way he had done for many times. The same way he would keep doing until the day she no longer needed him to.
Maya watched from the chair by the window, silent.
She watched how he tore the bread smaller when the first pieces proved too ambitious. How he wiped the corner of her mouth with a napkin between sentences without ever interrupting her.
