Chapter 11: Rolls

Will read the email over my shoulder, in his boxers, with a mug in his hand.

"Sixty-one thousand," he said.

"And change."

"They can't make you pay that. You signed as his surrogate. That's not the same."

"It says guarantor on file."

"Then it's a mistake."

"It's a form," I said. "Everything he owned said me. The hospital just believed it."

I held the phone out at arm's length and looked at it.

I wasn't scared.

I was furious in a flat, quiet way.

"I'm calling them at eight," I said.

"I'll make coffee."

"You'll make toast. I need something to chew."

At 7:58 my phone buzzed again.

Dean.

I read it standing at his counter in his T-shirt.

I saw the portal. I'm taking the guarantor line myself, I already called billing from Mom's kitchen. Don't pay anything. Don't call them. It's mine.

Then a second text, two minutes later.

I'm sorry it came to you at all.

I put the phone face down on the counter.

"Well?" Will said.

"He's fixing it."

"Do you believe him?"

"I believe he called," I said. "I'm waiting to see if they say yes."

That night I hosted supper at my side of the duplex, which I'd said was a bad idea.

Will had said, "It's my partner and my sister's two kids and a pot roast."

I'd said, "I haven't cooked for anyone but a man I was married to."