Chapter 16: Two Days

"It's true," Quinn said.

He said it right away, which was worse than if he had needed time.

A nurse had been watching us from the station. I rolled myself out through the unit doors, into the quiet corridor, and he followed.

There was a sunroom at the end, with a vinyl couch and a box of tissues on a table.

I stopped the chair in the middle of it.

"Two days," I said.

"Wednesday and Thursday. He sat in that lawyer's office both afternoons."

"You told me you said no in the first minute."

"I said no in the first minute out loud. I didn't say no in my head."

I waited.

He looked at the cast on his right wrist and then at the floor.

"He put the number on the table. Four hundred thousand and your sister's mortgage taken care of. I thought of my sister's mortgage."

"Your sister lives in Ohio and she's fine."

"She's fine because she works two jobs. I've been sending her money since I was twenty-four, Lena. Then I got hit, and I couldn't."

His voice was flat and dry.

"I sat there with a broken pelvis and no paycheck for six months, and a man in a nice suit told me I could stop worrying."

"So you thought about it."

"For two days."

"And then?"

"And then he said something I couldn't stand."

He took out his phone with his left hand and put it on the arm of my chair.

"I recorded him. Both days. Play the second one."

I didn't pick it up.

"Play it, Lena. It's the reason I said no."

I pressed the button.

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