Chapter Ten

Shyanne, absorbed in wedding plans, skips their traditional Thanksgiving, leaving Margo grieving a lost ritual. Jinx compensates by cooking a full holiday meal for Margo and Suzie. As they lounge, Bodhi babbles “Dada,” pricking Margo’s insecurity about attention and phones. A message arrives from JB, offering $100-per-question prompts; on a whim, Margo commands a selfie and is startled to find JB young and striking.

Amid casual wrestling talk, Jinx suddenly seizes with severe back pain. Doctors are unreachable on the holiday, and despite Jinx’s protests, Margo calls an ambulance. Suzie, for the first time, volunteers to watch Bodhi and handles feeding and soothing calmly, reassuring Margo enough to accompany Jinx.

In the ER, IV muscle relaxants and pain meds ease Jinx’s spasm. He asks Margo not to volunteer his addiction history unless asked, fearing stigma in pain treatment; Margo agrees but worries about relapse risk. They trade stories of hospital bias, including a nurse mocking Bodhi’s name and Shyanne’s slap, which prompts Jinx’s fierce vow he’d have “burned that hospital to the ground,” deepening Margo’s sense of his love and protectiveness.

Waiting, they discuss Jinx’s fascination with ancient Rome and the ethics of violence. He frames wrestling as boys demanding love through spectacle, while acknowledging the sport’s deadly costs among his friends. He describes Roman blood sport and how moral frameworks shifted, crediting Christian ethics of intrinsic value. A doctor questions Jinx repeatedly about pain meds and orders X-rays and an MRI to check his spinal fusion.

Overwhelmed by the bright, indifferent ER and worried for Bodhi, Margo leaves at Jinx’s urging. She returns home to find Suzie and Bodhi peacefully asleep. Lying awake, Margo replays Jinx’s incendiary promise and imagines his black-clad figure amid ruins, a stark emblem of love and mortality.