The Officer's Runaway Wife & Secret Son novel Chapter 505

It wasn't that Rhys hadn't thought about it.

But a transplant wasn't like taking out an inflamed appendix or setting a broken bone.

With those, you got sliced open, stitched up, woke up, popped some painkillers, grumbled at the nurses, and were back on your feet in a week or two.

Lungs were different.

He had obsessively scoured every scrap of data on lung transplants. He had read every peer-reviewed paper in the medical journals, and scrutinized every case report detailing post-op complications.

The risks were astronomical. It was a complete gamble.

Conservative treatment meant he could scrape together a few more years.

Going under the knife meant he might never get off the operating table.

He envisioned the doctor stepping out of surgery, pulling off his mask, and uttering the dreadful, "We did everything we could," to Clara waiting in the hall.

It would leave Clara completely alone to digest the nightmare and robotically reply, "Thank you."

Daniel Reed might be there too—after all, someone had to execute the will.

As for Rhys himself, he would be reduced to nothing more than another statistical casualty in a medical journal.

He was terrified that the precious little time he had left to watch his wife and son would instantly hit zero.

He was far too greedy for this miraculously recovered family. He would rather wither away slowly than wager his remaining time on a fifty-fifty coin toss.

Looking at his furrowed brow, Clara knew exactly what he was calculating.

He was weighing the pros and cons, tallying up the probabilities and risks, inevitably arriving at his standard conclusion: do not gamble.

Stick to the conservative treatment, maintain the status quo, and survive one day at a time.

Clara cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to meet her gaze.

"Are three to five years really enough for you?"

She couldn't play along anymore.

Her precious Felix was sneaking around like a frightened mouse in the dead of night just to confirm his father was still breathing.

And the next morning, he would eat and laugh as if nothing was wrong, never breathing a word of his sheer terror.

He could vividly imagine that scene.

Decades from now, with both of their hair turned white, Clara would complain about him walking too slowly, all while gripping his arm tight so he wouldn't fall.

He lingered in that beautiful fantasy for a long time. Then, like a fragile bubble, it violently popped.

The illusion shattered.

Being a seventy-year-old at the grocery store was a luxury that didn't belong to him.

All that belonged to him was today, tomorrow, the day after, and the terribly finite sliver of days strung between them.

Clara watched the faint spark in his eyes ignite, only to die out completely. She didn't push it any further.

She refused to force him into a corner.

She released his face and forced a casual, reassuring smile. "Let's leave the medical stuff to the professionals. We'll consult Dr. Black in a couple of days, alright?"

Rhys closed his eyes. The pages of data, statistics, and grim survival probabilities flashed through his mind one final time before he let out a heavy breath.

She was always giving him an out.