Chapter 7: Surgery Money

On Sunday night, Missy sat on my living room floor with thirty-one statements and a highlighter.

I lay on the couch with my legs up on three pillows.

"Read me the bad ones," I said.

She read them.

Oxygen. A heart stent. Kidney dialysis three times a week. A woman who'd had a stroke in May and couldn't feel when she was hot.

By midnight there were twelve names circled in pink.

"These twelve don't make it through two weeks of a hundred and three," Missy said. "Not with box fans."

"I know."

"The forecast says the twentieth. That's eight days."

"I know."

She looked at me over her glasses.

"Carlie. What are you doing with your face?"

I was doing math.

I had nine thousand dollars in a savings account called SURGERY.

My surgeon wanted my half before he'd put me on the calendar.

"I'm going to buy four," I said.

"Four what?"

"Four of the big window units. The kind that cool a whole room. With the outlet work, they're eleven hundred apiece."

Missy put the highlighter down.

"That's your back money."

"My back's been bad for five years. It can be bad another month."

"Carlie."

"The lady on Dodds Avenue is on oxygen, Missy."

She didn't argue after that.

She just reached up and squeezed my ankle.

Monday morning, I bought four units at a supply house in East Ridge.

Forty-four hundred dollars.

An electrician Missy's cousin knew did the outlets on Tuesday for the price of lunch.

The widow on Dodds Avenue got the first one.

The woman who'd been sleeping in her car got the second.

When the cold came out of the vent, she put both hands on it and cried.

On Wednesday afternoon, I was back in my kitchen with the last receipt on the counter.

The thermometer on the fridge said ninety-six.

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