Smiling, Mark said, "I wish that Jane was the hottest woman in town."
Jane was caught in traffic on the way to work. Her husband's words from miles away caused her to vanish and reappear in a hospital bed. The staff was puzzled by her intense fever. Her hospital gown was soaked in sweat.
"Dr. Nakahashi, it's a shame she's all alone," said a nurse.
A middle-aged Japanese man with glasses nodded. "Yes. Her last relative was her late grandfather. She received a package from him yesterday, opened it, got sick immediately, and called 911. She's been lying down ever since. We thought the package might've caused her illness. But the lab found nothing in it, exotic or otherwise. She has no family here. Possibly no friends. Nobody's visited yet. Maybe that's for the best. I can't imagine anyone wanting to see her suffer like this."
The nurse couldn't bear the sight of the woman sweating nonstop. "Poor Miss Doyle ..."
Jane had never been married. Mark Gibson had disappeared from a house that was no longer his. The Omission Stone had eliminated him from reality. Now the Gibsons' house had always belonged solely to Jane Doyle.
