25 days, Arthur whispered. The timeline clicked. The pattern was forming. Yes, sir. She has missed the deadline to accept the scholarship. The school is required to report her truency to the state. She will not graduate the scholarship. It’s gone. The waste of it. The sheer tragic waste. It felt like a physical blow to Arthur.
This was worse than a girl skipping school. This was a bright light being snuffed out. Why, George? Arthur asked, his voice low. Why the mother? George’s voice was grim. Helen Miller. It is not a bad cold. She was diagnosed two months ago with a severe aggressive form of lupus. The new treatments, the specialist, her insurance denies them as experimental.
The out-ofpocket cost for the main prescription is $900 a month. Arthur felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. Helen was fired from her second job at a dry cleaner for missing days due to her illness. Your job. This is all they have. The phone was disconnected to save money. $900 a month.
Arthur said it was to him nothing. A rounding error. To them it was a future. Clare knows. Arthur stated she’s been skipping school to what? Work. I’m still looking into that, George said. But it seems she is also covering her mother’s shifts unpaid, cleaning this house just to keep you from firing her. She’s trying to hold on to the job and the health insurance that her mother is too sick to perform.
Arthur stood up, the anger and the sadness rising in him. He walked to the window. The soldier, George, the photo. George slid the last piece of paper across the desk. It was a grainy black and white military file photo. Captain Robert Miller, George said. Clare’s grandfather, Helen’s father, Baker Company, 101st Airborne Division, served two tours, highly decorated, passed away in 2010.
Arthur looked at the name and then his blood ran cold. Baker Company. He turned from the window. He walked to a framed photo on his bookshelf. It was a photo he had not truly looked at in years. A group of young men in fatigues smiling in a dusty foreign jungle. My brother, Arthur said, his voice barely a whisper. My older brother, Thomas.
He was in Baker Company. He He didn’t come home. Arthur looked at George, his eyes clear and hard as ice. This is not an employee, George. This is This is family. Sir, get me their address, Arthur said, his voice low and dangerous. And find out where Clare Miller is right now. The address was a gray, worn-down apartment complex in a part of town Arthur hadn’t seen in 40 years.
He drove himself in his modest sedan, not the Rolls-Royce. He felt the need to be invisible. The building smelled of boiled cabbage and old carpet. He walked up three flights of stairs. The concrete was cracked. He knocked on 3B. He heard a slow, painful shuffling. The door opened a crack held by a chain. An eye peered out. “Susan,” Arthur said gently.
The door slammed shut. He heard a muffled sob, then the rattling of the chain. The door opened. The woman who stood before him was a ghost. She was a decade younger than Arthur, but she looked 20 years older. Her hands were swollen into claws. Her face was gray with pain. She leaned heavily on a metal walker. This was not the neat, capable woman who managed his home. Mr.
Coleman, she gasped, her voice thick with shame. I I was I was going to call. I just I’ve been Helen, Arthur said, stopping her. I came to see you. He stepped into the tiny bear apartment. It was spotless, but it was cold. A single small electric heater glowed weakly in the corner. “I saw Clare last night,” he said. Helen’s face crumpled.
