Condemned by My Sister novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Doctor Who Changed His Story

In the hospital Marianne rips out his IV and Dr. Ellerker claims the leukemia was a lie; Eli's card is then declined, because she closed his account.

At ten the next morning I was lying in a hospital day bed with a bag of clear fluid dripping into my hand.

Marianne had paid for the hotel, as she promised, and in the morning I had walked to the hospital because Dr. Ellerker had told me to.

He had said the second dose could not wait.

The curtain around my bed slid open.

Marianne stood there in a gray coat with Corbin a step behind her, leaning on his cane.

Dr. Ellerker came in last and stopped at the foot of my bed.

He did not look at me.

"Doctor," Marianne said. "Is my brother sick?"

"Marianne, I told you yesterday," I said.

"I asked him."

The doctor's throat moved.

"No," he said. "He isn't."

I tried to sit up, and the bed rail rattled.

"Dr. Ellerker. You said it was leukemia. You said I needed a donor. You showed me the blood count."

"Mr. Thurlow." His voice was thin and flat. "You came to me and asked me to write it down. You said it would get you moved to a clinic and out of the prison laundry."

"That's a lie."

"I am a doctor," he said to the floor. "I won't help a man fool his family. I've refunded your fee to your account this morning."

Corbin made a small, sad sound in his throat.

Marianne crossed the room in three steps.

She took the tube out of the back of my hand and pulled the needle free.

It hurt, and blood ran down my fingers onto the sheet.

"So that was the plan," she said, and her voice was low and shaking. "You wanted me to think you were dying."

"Marianne, listen to me."

"You wanted me to feel guilty. So I would let you walk back into my house. And then what? Take Corbin's room? Push him out one lie at a time?"

"I never pushed him."

I had said it so many times, in so many rooms, that the words had worn smooth.

Marianne flinched.

Corbin touched her sleeve. "Don't, Marianne. It's all right. He's been through a lot."

"It is not all right."

She looked down at my hand, which was still bleeding onto the bed.

For a moment her eyes looked wet.

Then she turned her face toward the curtain and wiped them with the back of her wrist.

"You're twenty-two," she said. "I can't keep doing this with you."

"Doing what? You never did anything for me. You told them I did it and walked out of that courtroom."

Her mouth opened and shut.

Behind her, Corbin was watching my face.

He was not watching Marianne and he was not watching the doctor.

He was watching me.

Dr. Ellerker cleared his throat and held out a folded paper without looking up.

"This is a prescription for the nosebleeds," he said to the wall. "It's the best I can do."

I took it because my hand needed something to hold.

"Get dressed," Marianne said. "Don't call me until you're ready to tell the truth."

She walked out through the curtain, and Corbin limped after her with his head bent.

At the last second he looked back at me over his shoulder.

He was smiling.

I put pressure on my hand with a corner of the sheet and waited for the nurse to find me a bandage.

The pharmacy was two floors down.

I stood in line behind a woman with a stroller and watched the numbers over the counter.

I had my old debit card in my fist, the one that had been waiting in my property bag.

I wanted to keep the $212 on the prison card for a room, and the medicine cost eighty.

The pharmacist scanned the debit card and frowned at the screen.

"Declined," she said. "Do you have another card?"

"There's money on it. Five years of wages."

"I'm sorry, sir. That account was closed at nine twelve this morning."

I stared at her.

It was the joint account, the one my sister had opened when I was sixteen and kept her name on top of.

It had held every dollar I had earned in the prison laundry, and now it held nothing.

The woman with the stroller moved around me.

I stood there with the paper in one hand and a cotton ball taped to the other until the pharmacist asked if I was all right.

"No," I said, and I walked out.

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