They Gave My Sister My Room, Now They've Lost Everything novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Declined

At the ER her debit card is declined because her father emptied her savings, and he texts that he will only sign her financial aid forms if she apologizes to Valentina at Sunday dinner; she answers no, and learns her aid file closes Friday.

"There has to be a mistake," I said. "My dad pays for it every month."

The nurse turned her screen toward me.

It said the plan had ended on June first, and that I was not listed on the new one.

My lips felt thick, and my voice came out slurred.

"Please. I can't breathe right."

She stopped talking about insurance and called for a bed.

Two minutes later I was lying under a thin blanket with a clip on my finger and a needle in my arm.

A doctor with tired eyes asked what I had eaten.

"Anchovies, in a salad. I'm allergic. I've never had a reaction this bad."

"Were you given any epinephrine?"

"No. Nobody at the table would drive me."

He looked at me over his clipboard for a long moment.

"You came alone?"

"Yes."

"Good thing you came at all," he said. "Another hour and your throat would have closed."

He ordered a drip, and the swelling went down while I watched the ceiling.

Around midnight the nurse came back with a clipboard and an apologetic face.

"We have to talk about the bill. With no coverage, tonight comes to forty-eight hundred dollars."

My stomach dropped.

"I have savings," I said. "Two thousand from my summer job. I can put something down now."

I handed her my debit card.

She ran it and shook her head.

"Declined."

"Try it again."

She did. The machine beeped at us both.

I opened the banking app on my phone with a thumb that wouldn't stay still.

The account was a joint one, because Dad had set it up when I was sixteen so I could "learn to be responsible."

The balance was zero.

The last transaction was a transfer out, five days ago.

It went to Dad's own account.

I had earned that money slicing pizza for ten weeks.

I was going to use it to buy sheets for my dorm room.

"Miss Cortese?" the nurse said. "Is there someone I can call?"

"No."

The word came out before I thought about it.

She wrote something on the form and left me alone.

My phone buzzed on the blanket.

It was Dad.

"Where are you? Mom's worried."

Mom had not been worried at dinner when I was gagging in the bathroom.

I did not answer.

A second text came in a minute later.

"The hospital called the house about a bill. Do you know how embarrassing that is? Come home right now."

I read it twice.

The hospital had told him I was sick enough for an emergency room, and the only thing Dad had said about it was that it was embarrassing.

A third text arrived.

"Here's how this works. Your financial aid forms need my signature, and I haven't signed them. Come to Sunday dinner and apologize to Valentina in front of everyone. Then I'll sign."

I sat up so fast that the clip came off my finger.

Aid was the reason I could go.

My family earned too little for the school to ask for anything beyond a small contribution, and they had told me that for months.

My whole plan for the next four years lived on Dad's signature.

He knew it, and he had picked the moment to say so.

I looked at the dark screen of the hospital window and saw my own face in it, puffy and tired.

I thought about the basement and the plastic smell and Valentina's little smile over her fork.

I thought about Sunday dinner, and the whole table watching me say sorry for being sick.

I typed a single word and sent it before I could take it back.

"No."

The dots appeared at once.

Dad wrote: "Then you can forget about Columbia."

I turned the phone face down on the blanket.

My hands were steady, which surprised me.

The nurse came back with a discharge form and a pen, and I signed my name on the line for the bill.

I would find a way to pay it.

At two in the morning I carried my suitcase out to the waiting room and sat in a plastic chair under a flickering light.

I was eighteen.

I had no savings, no bed and no insurance, and I was seven days from the first day of the best school I had ever dreamed about.

I opened my email to look for the housing office number.

The first message was from Columbia's financial aid office, sent three hours ago.

It said my file would close on Friday if a parent signature was not received.

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