Monday afternoon, Paige sat at the kitchen table listening to her parents’ end of the phone conversation. How she wished they had a third extension. She wanted to take the phone from her father’s hands—after all, she was the trained medical professional here. She should be the one talking to the doctor. But she knew that was not the way her parents wanted it. They wanted to run their own lives.
Finally, they hung up. “Well?”
“There is a clinical trial he thinks she would be a good candidate for. It’s happening in Houston, at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. It involves a stem cell transplant, some radiation, I don’t know. So far, there have been eight other patients with your mother’s kind of lymphoma to go through it. Five of them have done real well, the other three, well . . . I guess they were sort of like us, they didn’t have much to lose.”
“So, what’s the next step, looking for a donor match?”
“Your aunt Opal’s already won the donor lottery. They tested her a while back, thinking we might need a transplant at some point. For some reason siblings are better than husbands or daughters. That woman is so competitive, she even wins blood-typing contests.”
“Well, I won’t begrudge her this victory if she can help Mom.
When do we get started?”
“We don’t,” her mother said. “We can’t afford it, so there’s no use thinking about it.”
“How do we know?”
“There’s already been some conversation between the hospital and the insurance company. They’ve apparently convinced them to cover a portion of it, but it’ll still be about twenty thousand dollars out of pocket. They want her to fly in next Monday for some preliminary tests. I, for one, think she should go.”
Twenty thousand dollars.
Paige thought about the raise that she didn’t get. She thought about the small nest egg she’d put away for a house someday. Still, she would do without food and shelter if that’s what it took to get her mother treatment.
“They said we’d be in Houston for almost four months. We can’t leave the house alone that long, not to mention poor Dusty.” Her mother reached down to scratch Dusty’s waiting chin.
“What if I moved in here? I could take care of the house and Dusty, and I’d still be in commuting distance to work.” Okay, it would be a really long commute, but doable. “It will be good for me to be living here with the two of you, for when you need . . .” Paige stopped the sentence, but it was too late to stop the thought. She affected a bright voice and tried to undo some of the damage.“ My lease is up in a month anyway. I was going to renew, but now I can just pay you guys rent instead.”
“Rent?” Her father looked positively scandalized.
“Daddy, I’d rather pay for a whole house than half of a tiny apartment somewhere.”
“Most people pay someone to house-sit for them, they don’t have the house sitter pay them rent. Especially not their own daughter.”
The doorbell rang. Paige jumped to her feet, more because she needed to move than she cared who was at the door.
The man standing on the front porch had a couple of days’ growth on his face and wore frayed jeans and a T-shirt that said Jackson Plumbing. He smiled and said, “Evening, beautiful.”
She tightened her grip on the door handle in case she needed to slam it shut in a hurry. “Can I help you?”
“I talked to Norman this morning, told him I’d be by for a look-see.”
“A look-see?”
“Well, you know, don’t want to buy anything sight unseen.” He winked at her and snorted what she supposed was meant as a laugh.
“What, exactly, are you planning to buy?”
“Truck, tools—the usual. I’m Sam Jackson. He didn’t tell you I was coming?”
Paige looked him straight in the eyes. He appeared perfectly sane, no shifty glances like he was lying. Still, he had to be. “Just one minute, please.”
She closed the door in Sam Jackson’s face, taking care to lock it behind her. She walked into the living room and looked at her father. “Daddy, there’s a man named Sam Jackson here. What are you selling to him?”
“Paige, you can’t do everything for us. I’ve got to make sacrifices, too. Anything to make certain your mother gets the help she needs.”
When they opened the door, Sam Jackson was already circling her father’s truck. They walked out to the driveway to join him. “You got some real nice stuff here.” He opened a tool box and removed a set of prized wrenches. “Really nice stuff.”
Paige stood with her father for the next half hour, watching Sam Jackson look through every compartment, touch every tool. “I’ll be in touch.”
“You have my cell number, right?” her father asked.
“Yep, got it right here.” The man patted a piece of paper in his T-shirt pocket and climbed into his filthy white truck.
“How can you consider selling to him, Dad? Look at his truck.”
Her father’s truck was always pristine as a matter of pride. Just the thought of it belonging to this man, whose own truck was covered in dirt, windshield dotted with grime, caused her stomach to ache.
“Honey, I’m sixty-seven. Most men my age are already retired.
Besides, I’m not really planning to sell right away, I’m just covering my bases. If things get worse than we expect, I want to know exactly what I have and what I don’t have to work with. Knowing what my stuff ’ll bring gives me an idea exactly how much of a fallback I have.”
“Promise you won’t sell.”
“I promise I won’t if I don’t have to.”
She stared into the sky. God, help us get through this. Help me get a raise, so my father doesn’t have to sell his things.