“Which hospital?”
She named a private medical center near her university, one I had seen advertised on billboards along the interstate. Then she lowered her voice. “Mom, the insurance won’t cover it. They’re saying it’s not an approved procedure or something. They need payment up front.”
“How much?”
A long, wet breath. “Twenty four thousand dollars.”
I sat back down. The number did not frighten me the way it should have. It was almost exactly what I had in my emergency savings, the account I had built a few hundred dollars at a time over seven years, the money meant for a collapsed roof or a layoff or the day I could no longer work. I had never spent a dollar of it. I had always told myself that it was for the real disaster, and I remember thinking, with a strange and terrible calm, that the disaster had finally come.
“Don’t worry about the money,” I told her. “I will take care of it.”
“Thank you, Mom.” She started to sob again. “I knew you would.”
I called my supervisor and told her I had a family emergency. She did not ask a single question. Then I drove to my bank, where I sat across from a young loan officer named Marcy and moved the entire balance into a new account. I had not planned to do it that way. My sister Vanessa had suggested it the night before, when she called to say she was worried about Sophie. She had been so gentle, so careful. Sophie has been having some health scares, she told me, and she did not want me to be frightened, but if Sophie ever asked for help, I should not hesitate. She said it would be easier for the hospital if the funds were in an account Sophie could access directly, so that nothing got delayed. A joint account, with Sophie’s name beside mine. I signed the forms in a daze, thinking only of how kind my sister was being.
Vanessa is four years younger than I am. After Daniel died, she was the one who drove over every Sunday with a casserole and sat with me at the kitchen table while I stared at the wall. She helped me sort through his papers and fill out the survivor forms and the insurance claims, because I could not read the words without crying. I trusted her completely. I would have said, without a flicker of doubt, that she was the person in the world I trusted most after my daughter.
I packed a small bag and started the drive.
It was four hours of gripped steering wheel and clenched jaw. I barely remember the highway. I know the sky was the flat white of a coming rain and that I passed a field of wet black cattle and a billboard for a personal injury lawyer, but mostly I remember my phone, lying faceup on the passenger seat, lighting up every time a message came in. Sophie sent them in little bursts.
They are getting me ready.
The doctor says everything should be fine.
Please hurry, Mom.
I called her twice. The first time she answered in a whisper and said she could not talk, the nurses were prepping her. The second time it went to voicemail. I told myself that was normal. I told myself a great many things on that road.
It was nearly evening when I reached the medical center. It was a glossy building of glass and pale stone, with a lobby fountain and a woman at the desk wearing a silk scarf. I gave my daughter’s name and heard my own voice crack as I said it. The woman typed for a moment and told me Sophie was already in recovery on the fourth floor.
