I wasn’t going to let them win.
Part 2: The Fix
The hangar doors were vast, rattling slightly in the Chicago wind, a sound that usually blended into the background noise of my life. But in the silence left behind by Veronica Hail and her entourage of engineers, that rattling sounded like a countdown.
I stood there for a long time, gripping the handle of my mop until my knuckles turned the color of old parchment. The echo of their laughter was still bouncing around the high steel rafters, stinging my ears.
For a moment, I considered just doing my job. I looked at the yellow bucket, the gray water swirling with chemical cleaner. I could just finish mopping, clock out at 4:00 PM, pick up Lily from Mrs. Gable’s downstairs, and heat up another frozen lasagna. I could swallow the insult. I had swallowed plenty of them over the last three years.
But then I thought about last night.
I thought about Lily sitting at the kitchen table, her small face pale under the fluorescent light of our cramped apartment. She had been trying to hide it, but I saw her wince when she swallowed. The meds weren’t working as well as they used to. The specialist in downtown Chicago—Dr. Evans—had told me that we needed to switch her to a new immunotherapy treatment.
“It’s promising, Ethan,” he had said, looking at his clipboard instead of my eyes. “But insurance is tricky with this one. It’s considered ‘experimental’ by your provider.”
“Tricky” was doctor-speak for expensive. “Tricky” meant five thousand dollars out of pocket just to start.
I had forty-two dollars in my checking account.
