Chapter 4: The Ward

They kept Loyd in the cardiac unit overnight, and I sat beside his bed until the monitor stopped scaring me.

At six the next morning he opened his eyes and looked straight at the ceiling.

"I'm not dead," he said.

"No, sir."

He turned his head on the pillow and saw me in the chair, still in yesterday's sweater, with the index card in my hand.

I put it in his palm.

He closed his fingers over it and didn't say anything for a while.

"The doctor says you have two blocked arteries," I said. "You need a bypass. Soon."

"I paid the deposit last night."

He lifted his head off the pillow so fast the monitor shrieked.

"Rex."

"You were off your company insurance. They wouldn't schedule it without a card."

"I will not have you pay for my heart." His voice shook.

"Not a nickel of it. You hear me? It's the one thing nobody can say I took."

The door banged open before I could answer.

Dinah came in backward, shouldering it, with a foil-covered dish in both hands and a stuffed grocery bag hooked over one wrist.

Behind her came three people in canvas work jackets, and every one of them looked like they hadn't slept either.

The first was a stooped man with gray eyebrows and big hands.

The others were a thin young woman with a nose ring and a tall guy in a Royals cap.

"We're not allowed to all come in," Dinah said. "So we're not allowed to be here."

"Hi, boss," said the young woman.

Loyd's face did something complicated.

"Go home," he said. "All of you. You'll lose your jobs."

"They'll lose us first," said the old man with the eyebrows.

He walked up to the bed and set a small paper bag on the blanket.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Found A Homeless Genius To Save My Company from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.