Dr. Aris pulled a stool over. He sat down, putting them on the same level. The buzzing of the fluorescent light seemed to get louder.
"Mrs. Dowman... Eunice," he said, using her first name with a familiarity that was both jarring and, somehow, grounding. "This... thing... inside you. It's not your 'womb' anymore. It's not a... a 'symbol' of anything. It's not a 'curse.' It is a... a source. A source of poison. It is a necrotic, septic-soaked mass. And it is killing you."
Karlman's hands were shaking. "So... what... what is the advice, Doctor?"
Dr.Aris didn't sugar-coat it. He didn't look for a "soft" way to say it. He respected Eunice's 'A-type' detachment with his own 'A-type' bluntness.
"The advice is a fact," he said. "We must remove the womb."
The room fell silent.
The buzzing. The drip of the IV.
The 15-year war. The 10-year IVF battle. The hope. The failure. The barrenness. The "curse."
And now... the final, medical, sterile end of it.
Karlman, the penitent, felt... nothing. Of course they had to remove it. It was just a thing. It was a broken part. He had already accepted being childless. That battle was over, lost 17 years ago, and then lost again, definitively, on a gravel driveway.
His only thought, his only, singular, 'A-type' data point was: 'Will... will this... save her?'
"A... a hysterectomy," Karlman managed. "That will... that will stop the infection?"
"It's the only thing that will," Dr. Aris said. "We're not 'removing the womb,' Mr. Dowman. We are excising the infection. We are removing the poison. I don't care about the... the... symbolism... of the organ. I care about the sepsis that is about to send your wife into multi-system organ failure. I am being blunt. I am being honest. We don't have... days. We have hours."
Karlman nodded, processing. 'Remove the poison. Save her.' It was a clear, tactical, 'A-type' solution. He could understand this.
He turned to Eunice, expecting... what? Tears? Rage? The old 'A-type' fight?
Eunice... was smiling.
It was not a smile. It was a... a grimace. A small, dry, horrifying laugh that was just a puff of air.
"Of course," she whispered, looking at the ceiling. "Of course. 'Remove the womb.'"
She turned her head, her dead, icy, fever-bright eyes landing on Karlman.
"You see?" she whispered. "The... the 'curse.' It... it's just... tidy. It's just... cleaning up the loose ends."
She was... accepting it. She was welcoming it.
She looked at Dr. Aris. "It's fine, Doctor," she said, her voice a strange, airy, light thing. "It's... it's a logical endpoint. The... the 'project'... was a failure. So... you... you just... delete the project. It makes perfect sense."
Karlman looked at his wife. His judge. And he saw, for the first time in two years, not the woman who hated him, but the woman who had surrendered. She wasn't just letting herself die. She was relieved.
The penance was over. The curse had won. She was happy to be deleted.
And Karlman Dowman, the murderer, the penitent, the warden, felt a new, hot, unfamiliar emotion: rage.
Not at the doctor. Not at the families. Not at God.
He was in a cold, white-hot fury... at her.
"No," he said. The word was a gunshot in the sterile room.
Eunice's airy expression flickered. "What?"
"No," he said again, standing up. He was no longer the penitent. He was the 23-year-old boy in the registrar's office. He was the 38-year-old man in the NICU. He was Karlman Dowman.
He turned to Dr. Aris. He was not asking. He was telling.
"You... you will... save her. I don't care what you have to do. You will... fix this. You will remove... the poison. And she... she will... live."
Dr. Aris, a man who had seen every kind of grief, just nodded. "That's the plan, Mr. Dowman. But I need her consent."
They both looked at Eunice.
She was staring at Karlman, her face a mask of pure, unadulterated shock.
He had... shouted.
He had... interfered.
He, the murderer, had violated the single, most important rule of their prison: he had no say.
He had, for the first time in two years, demanded that she live.
He had, in his own, 'A-type', arrogant, broken way... chosen her. Again.
"Eunice," Karlman said, his voice now low, shaking with this new, terrifying rage. "I... I will not... let you do this. I will not... let you... 'delete' yourself. I... I... am your... your penance. You... you don't... get... to... die. You... you have to stay! You have to... you... you have to stay... with... me."
It was the most selfish, most broken, most honest, and most loving thing he could have possibly said.
It was not an 'A-type' solution. It was a human one.
Eunice stared at her husband. The man she hated. The man she loved. The man who had broken her life. The man who was now, with his back against the wall, refusing to let her go.
She was 44. She was septic. She was tired.
And she was, for the first time in two years, seen.
She turned her head to Dr. Aris.
"Fine," she whispered, her voice rough. "Do it. Delete it."
The ice, for just a second, cracked. "But... but save... me."