Chapter 15: Sold

The whole tent clapped for that.

My mother clapped hardest.

Jenna smiled up at Josh, and only her mouth was smiling.

Jude came across the lawn and stood next to me at the bottom of the steps.

"Do you want to stay?" he signed.

"No."

We walked out through the side gate, past the trash cans, the way I used to leave for school.

Nobody stopped us.

In his car, with the engine off, I opened the voice clinic's page on my phone.

The first open date for surgery was Tuesday, September fifteenth.

I booked it before he'd pulled away from the curb.

On Thursday the twentieth, the hospital's billing office sent me the number I owed before they'd put me on the schedule.

Twenty-nine thousand dollars. My half.

I had nineteen thousand four hundred.

I did the math on a sticky note and stuck it to the mirror over my sink.

The next morning Jude saw the hospital paperwork on my desk.

He didn't touch it. He waited until I looked up.

"How much?" he signed.

I told him.

"Let me pay the rest."

"No."

"Amy. It's money. I have some. It's what it's for."

I signed, "My grandmother left money for this. My father gave it to Josh."

"If you pay for it, it's yours to be kind about. I want it to be mine."

He looked at me for a long time.

Then he nodded.

"Then let me drive you," he signed. "That morning. That part's free."

"Okay."

That weekend I listed the Civic.

A man came on Sunday with his daughter, who had just turned seventeen and gotten her license.

She walked around the car twice and kicked one tire.

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