“You’re a goddamn genius, ma.”

“Watch your mouth.”

“You know you’ll never pay this back?”

“They won’t miss it. It’s a bank.”

“It’s about four banks. Mom, Christ—“

“Mouth.”

“I can’t even get my head around what to do.” I collected the papers. I wanted to slam and bang them to illustrate my annoyance, but they only made shuffling sounds. “Can you just tell me what happened? Because you didn’t raise me to do stuff like this.”

She put her fists on her hips. “Like what?”

“Stealing. This is stealing.”

“Not if I let them have that house.”

“It’s not worth seven hundred thousand dollars.”

“The appraisers said it was, so it is. That’s what things are worth. What experts say they’re worth. People like us, we’re nothing. Our opinions don’t mean anything. And you agree. In your heart you know it. You think the house isn’t worth anything because you love it and if you love it, it’s garbage right? Well, how much would you pay for it? Huh? How much for your father’s trees? How much for the porch your father and I sat on after you were in bed?”

“Mom—“

“How much for the kitchen where I cooked for you? How much for the side door you snuck into after curfew as if I didn’t know? Or the bathroom where I miscarried two babies? How much is it worth, Monya? Even that cracked foundation your father promised to fix a hundred times before he shipped himself across the world. That house was where I waited for him. Where he wasn’t when I found out I had cancer? How much would a stranger pay for those years? If my life there wasn’t worth seven hundred thousand dollars, what was my life worth?”

I couldn’t take it any more. Her face was red and strained. Her voice had his a crescendo, and I had been a neglectful, indolent bitch. I bolted up from the chair and put my arms around her and let her cry.

“It’s okay, ma. We’ll fix it.”

“I can’t. I tried everything.”

“I have friends who are lawyers. I can—“

I could have them look at the paperwork, maybe explain the situation. But I stopped myself. Jonathan was going to offer to buy the house, no doubt, and I didn’t want him to. I didn’t want to go down a road where he started bailing out my family, then my friends. I didn’t want him to trade Jessica’s financial distress for mine. I could soothe my mother for the moment, but in the end, we’d have to let the house go. I’d tell Jonathan I was ok with it. Make it out like it wasn’t a big deal.

A call came in. Still holding my mother, I slipped the phone out of my pocket. Margie. I missed it by a second and put it back in my pocket while it went to voicemail.

“Let me see what I can do,” I said. She sniffed and stood up straight.

“There’s nothing to do. I’m sorry you have to move.”

“I’ll live.” I waved it off, but I knew I wasn’t convincing. So I changed the subject. “I should have come around sooner.”

“Yes. You should have.”

“I’m sorry.”

A text blooped. My mother and I looked at each other expectantly.

“This the man with the car?” The tone did not bode well for an intelligent conversation. If I had just learned to stop calling myself a whore, my mother hadn’t. She was in a depressive phase but that could change on a dime.

“No it’s his sister, probably.”

I looked. It was a text from Margie, as I expected.

—Where the fuck are you?—

The next one came immediately after.

—He’s bleeding into his chest. Bad suture ripped tissue—

It took me sixty seconds to say goodbye to my mother, promise her I’d do my best for her, scoop up the papers, and get in the car.

MONICA

I texted Margie that I’d be there in two hours. It was getting dark already, and I’d hit Los Angeles right around rush hour, which would literally double the time it would take me to get to Sequoia. The hospital was inside a knot of traffic arteries that made it hard to move toward or away from during peak hours. Either poor planning for the sake of the ambulances and women in labor, but if you wanted a central, urban hospital accessible from the five points of LA, it was prime real estate.

And Jonathan was in the middle of the best cardiac unit in the country, if the internet was to be believed. Whatever happened, I was sure it would be rectified in no time at all. I worried that he might face unpleasantness, and that I wouldn’t be there for him. But he’d be fine. I was sure, positive as a matter of fact, that it wasn’t a big deal.

I finally got into the waiting room at 7pm, and was redirected to intensive care. I didn’t shake, nor did I panic, because in ten years, this was going to be funny.

But when I got to intensive care, it didn’t look like anyone was laughing. Fiona blew past me without greeting. Deirdre smiled at me, but she wasn’t like the rest of them. She couldn’t hide her concern. Sheila, who always came off motherly and kind was talking to Margie like she wanted to bite her head off. Doing my own roll call, I counted off. Carrie not coming. Leanne in Asia. Theresa hadn’t been around in days. Eileen stood by Margie, twisting her diamond ring around her finger with her thumb. Her pumps had been traded for sneakers days ago, when her medication had been upped. She waved to me, but didn’t call me over.

Margie’s presence made me bold. I walked forward.

“This is unacceptable,” Sheila spoke in clipped vowels and hard consonants, he finger pointed at Margie’s throat. “And you treat it like another day in the park. This hospital fucked up. They as good as killed him.”

I gasped, and the three of them paused, glanced, ignored.

“Thanks for the drama,” Margie said to Sheila. “It’s exactly what we need.”

“You need to start a filing a malpractice suit immediately.”

“Like hell.”

“You’re losing your guts.”

“I want us focusing on Jonathan. Not legal battles. Let them do an inquiry—

“And start the cover-up.”

“This is not TV—“

“I’ll hire my own counsel.”

“Exactly what he needs.”

“You—“

“I agree with Margie,” I said. Six light eyes turned to face me and I got my first ever case of stage fright. “It’s going to take years to sue. A week isn’t going to make a difference.”

Sheila turned her head, but didn’t commit the rest of her body to face me. She’s been kind to me from the minute I met her, but I had the feeling that was about to change.

“Who are you?” she spit out.

She knew goddamn well who I was. Nobody.

I walked away and wasn’t followed. Good. Fucking Drazens, all of them. Except the one.

I didn’t know the nurses in the ICU, so I went to the desk and put a harmless look on my face.

“Hi,” I said to the dark-skinned woman with an armful of charts. “I’m looking for Jonathan Drazen’s room?”

“He’s down in x-ray. Come back in an hour.”

I had two choices. Go back and try and find out what I needed from the Family Drazen, or wait in the cafeteria until Jonathan came back. I knew Margie would tell me everything once she shook Sheila, and Sheila herself might even calm down enough to be nice to me. But there was no reason I had to stand there and be abused while I waited.

As I walked into the cafeteria, I saw Daddy Drazen sitting with a long-haired man in sandals, who had his two year-old daughter on his knee. The man was talking fast with his head down. Declan leaned into hear, and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. He didn’t quite seem like a sociopath, which didn’t mean much of anything. I wasn’t an expert on either Declan or abnormal psychology.

I got in line for a cup of tea. A song percolated in my head. I went to get my notebook, but dig as I might, it wasn’t in my bag. I must have left it home. Damn it. I took out a Sharpie and got ready to write it on my arm.

“Monica?”

I heard my name as I spaced out to the music in my head, trying to get words and rhythm to match.