"I have stage-four gastric cancer," I said into the phone, then closed the folder. "Say that again," the voice on the other end asked. No tone to soften it, just the steady curiosity of someone reading results. "I said stage four. Multiple hepatic lesions. Nodal disease." I kept my voice flat. The CT monitor flickered behind me, the grayscale slides already labeled and archived. Gage's fingers tapped the screen like Morse code. "Okay." He sounded like he was putting a glove on. "How are you hearing it?" "Like three words that rearrange my schedule," I said. "Like a full stop." "Don't make plans to stop everything yet." Gage unhooked the printouts and handed them over. "We stage by AJCC. This is an M1. Palliative chemo is the standard. You know that." "I know," I said. I thumbed the edge of the film. The tumor sat where a surgeon's hands find it and know they can't always fix it. "How long? Months? Weeks?" "No precise timer," Gage said. "Usually measurable disease progression without treatment in a matter of months. With chemo maybe a year, maybe more. Depends on response." "Three months," I said. The words slipped out like an order rather than a question. I didn't plan them. They were the smallest, meanest tidy number in the room. "If I had three months, I could—" "—do the things you want," Gage finished. "I get that. But you're the one who's going to decide