On Halloween, My Husband Bet I'd Never Leave Him, So I Stopped Waiting novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Twenty-Four Thousand

Her mother has had a stroke and the rehab costs twenty-four thousand dollars; Russell tells her to submit an expense request, and when she brings the papers to his study he calls Diana to hear her opinion.

I called 911 from the gallery doorway and ran to my car while the dispatcher kept me on the line.

My mother lived alone across town, and I gave the address twice because my voice kept breaking.

By the time I reached the hospital, the paramedics had already taken her back for scans.

"I'm her daughter," I told the first nurse I saw. "Please, is she alive?"

"The doctors are with her. Sit here, and someone will come."

I sat in the hallway with my phone in both hands.

Diana's photograph was still open on the screen, Russell's arm around her on that terrace.

I closed it and called him, and the call rang out.

I called again and got the same ring, so I typed a message.

[Mom had a stroke. I'm at the hospital.]

An hour later a doctor came through the double doors.

My mother was stable, he said, because the ambulance had reached her fast, but the stroke had taken the left side of her body.

Through the window of her room I saw her lying small and gray under a white blanket.

Last week she had asked me which dress I was going to wear to the opening.

I put my hand over my mouth and cried where the nurses could see me.

I stayed all night in the chair by her bed.

Russell never answered.

In the morning the doctor said that Mom would need months of rehabilitation, and that nobody could promise how much movement would come back.

A discharge planner sat down beside me with a folder.

One center had a bed that could take her at once, and it ran an intensive inpatient program, but it sat outside her insurance network.

"The first payment is twenty-four thousand dollars," she said, and slid an estimate across her knee. "We are asking about covered options, but I can't hold this bed for long."

I stared at the number.

My savings had gone into the exhibition, and my checking account held $3,186.

For seventeen years Russell had made me send every household cost to his financial assistant.

He could give away a house on a laugh, and I was afraid to ask him for twenty-four thousand dollars.

I asked him anyway.

His name lit up my phone a few minutes later.

"Sylvia, why didn't you come home last night?" he said. "The kitchen staff say you didn't plan dinner."

"I texted you. My mother had a stroke."

"I saw that. Did you have to stay all night?"

"She almost died!"

A nurse across the hall looked up, and I lowered my voice.

"Don't yell at me. I'm not a doctor, so what could I have done?"

"She needs rehabilitation," I said. "Her insurance won't cover the good place, and I don't have the money."

"So this is about money again."

It landed harder than I expected.

"It's about my mother, Russell."

"Send an expense request like everyone else. I'm busy."

He hung up.

I sat there with the phone against my knee for a long time.

Then I photographed the estimate and sent it to his assistant.

That afternoon I drove home to get clean clothes.

A message waited from one of the people who had come to the opening.

[Your work was wonderful. What a shame Russell couldn't make it. Was it an emergency at the office?]

On any other day I would have made up an excuse.

I typed: [He chose not to come.]

I also found his promise to attend, and I saved it next to the photograph of the keys.

That evening I carried the estimate and a repayment plan into Russell's study.

I knocked first, as I always did.

"I told you to send the paperwork," he said, and looked up with a frown.

"I did. I wanted to ask you in person."

He leaned back in his chair.

"I need to borrow twenty-four thousand dollars," I said. "I'll sign a loan agreement, and I'll pay you back every month from my design work."

My fingers were wound tight around each other.

"We don't know if she will walk again. I want her to have the best chance there is."

He turned the pages over one at a time.

"Please," I whispered. "Just this once."

He raised his eyes to mine.

For one foolish second I thought that he finally understood.

Then he reached for his phone and made a call.

"Diana, come over," he said. "Now."

I stared at him.

"Why are you calling her?"

He laid my mother's estimate on his desk and rested his hand on it.

"Before I decide whether you get this money, I want to hear what she thinks."

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