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Flipping between tabs, I debate between sending an edible fruit arrangement, a unicorn onesie, or a collection of baked goods from the bakery down the street. Sophie hasn’t been at work for the last two days, understandably, and I’ve been assuaging my need to see her by sending gifts to her and Emma.
Yesterday’s pack of fuzzy socks and flowers led to a dozen texts between Sophie and I. I pull out my phone and reread them while I debate how mad she’d be if I sent all three.
Sunshine: Thank you for the sock collection, it was very sweet of you to send it, even if it was wholly unnecessary.
This had been accompanied by a photo of her and Emma’s feet on a bed, each foot wearing a different one of the socks I’d sent. I don’t have a foot fetish, but the sight of the two of them wearing something I’d sent had my squishy heart turning over in my chest.
Me: I just wanted to make sure Emma’s recovery wasn’t hindered by having cold toes. Hers or yours. I’d hate for you to develop cold feet.
Sunshine: … I see what you’re doing. I don’t have cold feet. How can you have cold feet when there’s nothing to run away from? I already told you, things between us can’t go any further than they already have.
Me: And yet, I can’t stop thinking about you Sunshine.
She hasn’t answered that text and it’s been driving me crazy.
The women I‘ve dated in the past asked me to pay for clothes, vacations, hell, one of them asked me to pay her rent on the third date and we hadn’t even kissed. But not Sophie. I’m debating between a twenty-dollar onesie and a forty-dollar fruit arrangement because I have a suspicion that if I send both she’ll yell at me and won’t let me send anything else. I could buy her anything she wanted, but she won’t accept it.
Annoyed that she won’t ask for anything, I arrange for the onesie to be delivered now, the fruit basket this afternoon and the pastries in the morning. My email inbox chimes with incoming messages for me to wade through so I finish setting up the deliveries and force myself to stop thinking about Sunshine and focus on my company.
Hours later, I’m entrenched in an exchange with one of the software engineers when a new incoming email catches my eye. It’s an application to the employee assistance program I set up. Officially, the program is sponsored by Mailbox and employees have the option of contributing to it with each paycheck. In return, they can ask for a scholarship from the fund if need arises. In reality, all their contributions are invested by the fund to earn interest, and I personally cover the costs of most requests to it. Contributors get their money back in the form of an additional annual bonus. There aren’t usually many requests for assistance and the ones we do get tend to be pretty small. I make sure that we pay our employees well with excellent insurance benefits.
I click over to the request, fingers crossed that it’s not another dog with cancer—there were two of those last quarter and it broke my heart both times. The first line of the request has not only my heart breaking, but my blood boiling. It’s from Sophie. For fifteen-thousand dollars. Which, thanks to some snooping and a conversation with Ms. Masterson, I happen to know is half the amount she owes the hospital for Emma’s appendectomy.
I stare at the request. Why would she need so much money? Shouldn’t our insurance cover most of it? And why is she asking for it from the employee fund and not from me?
“Mr. Sutton?” Mercedes sticks her head in my door. “Are you alright? I can hear you muttering out here.” Her glasses are perched on the end of her nose, eyeing me over the edge like one of her wayward grandchildren. “While I’m here, I’m going to point out that it’s almost four o’clock and you haven’t had lunch yet.”
I wave away the suggestion of food. “Is there a way I can check to see if an employee is utilizing our health insurance?”
Mercedes cocks her head. “Is there something I can help you with?” Before I can formulate an answer, she continues. “Does it have something to do with Ms. Alexander?”
I scrape my fingers through my hair, face scrunched in annoyance. “How do you…I mean. What?” God, Casey really did inherit every ounce of acting ability in our family. “Why would it have anything to do with her?”
Mercedes steps all the way into my office, closing the door behind her. “Sir, may I speak freely?’
“Of course.”
“I’ve seen the way you look at her, the way you are so careful not to single her out.” At my scowl, Mercedes continues. “I also saw the assistance request come in and it wasn’t difficult to put two and two together. You know more about her personal life than you’re letting on.”
The way she’s staring me down, one eyebrow raised, fills me with an urge to squirm in my chair like she caught me with my hand in the candy jar. “Her daughter had to have emergency surgery over the weekend.” I explain. “I just don’t understand why she needs so much money for the hospital bill if our insurance should be covering it. Do I need to look into our coverage? Or is there something else going on?”
“There’s a very simple way to find out, Mr. Sutton.” When I don’t answer, she shakes her head. “You could just ask her.”
Why doesn’t it feel that simple?
Sunshine: I told you we don’t need anything else. I’m going to let the next delivery driver keep whatever it is you’ve sent this time.
Sophie’s text comes through right before she flings the door open. “Oh!” Her eyes go wide at the sight of me. “I thought…I just assumed.” She stumbles back a step, glancing behind her with a grimace. “Theo, now’s not a good time.”
Ignoring her protest, I step inside her tiny apartment. This is where they live? It’s the size of my kitchen. Looking around, I take in the pillows and blanket on the couch, as if someone’s been sleeping there, the take-out containers in the trash and her pajama-clad state. There are dark circles under her eyes and her hair looks like it’s been piled on top of her head for days on end.
“Theo. Mr. Sutton. Please, it’s not a good time.” Sophie’s whispering and trying to block me from coming further inside with her tiny body.
I tear my gaze away from the tiny, disheveled apartment to look her in the eye. “Sophie, I just wanted to make sure you and Emma were okay. And see if you need anything.”
She steps outside, shutting the door gently behind her. “We’re fine, like I said. We don’t need anything.”
I open my mouth to speak but Sophie steamrolls right over me. “Theo, you have to stop. You have to stop sending things. I don’t want…” She glances back at the apartment behind her. “I don’t want Emma to get the wrong idea. It’s my problem, not yours. I can take care of it.”
