“Hey, any updates?” I greet Reggie with a handshake before shifting on my feet to face the room he just exited. For the first time in her life, Summer looks taller and stronger than her father. Rye’s big frame swamps his hospital bed, but since his personality makes him seem larger than life, his comatose state hides the fact he’s a giant.
Reggie shakes his head. “Doctors did some scans and shit when he first came in, but we’ve yet to get the results.”
“Do you have a clue what’s going on? Did he mention he was feeling unwell?”
He shakes his head again. “He was just standing there, then all of a sudden, he was on the ground.” He licks his dry lips before muttering, “It scared the shit out of me. Same thing happened to Rebekah, and she passed away four months later.”
“He won’t do that to Summer. He won’t put her through that again.”
“I agree.” He drifts his watering eyes to me. “But matters like this aren’t in our hands. We don’t get to play God. If we did, Rebekah would still be here.” After slapping my back as if my eyes are as filled with tears as his, he tells me he’ll be outside having a smoke if we need him.
Summer and I spend the next few hours in Rye’s room twiddling our thumbs. I try a handful of times to encourage her to go home for a couple of hours of sleep, but she’s adamant she doesn’t want to leave her father’s side.
“Then why don’t I go grab you a change of clothes and something to eat?” I smile in gratitude when she dips her chin for the quickest second. She won’t be any good to Rye if she ends up in the bed next to him. “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes, okay?”
I press my lips to her temple and squeeze Rye’s hand before I head out to the truck Reggie said he’d leave behind for us. It’s Rye’s truck with the expired tags. It kicks over without an issue, but the gas tank is on E, and there isn’t a gas station open at this time of night.
After banging my fist onto the steering wheel in frustration, I begin my travel to the trailer park with the hope that Rye has a gas tin in the shed where he stores his mower and weed whacker.
I make it to Rye’s trailer with only a handful of splutters and shakes of a truck almost out of gas. He doesn’t have any gas in a tin in the shed, but mercifully, his neighbor, Tommy, does. “Is it true he’s holed up in the hospital?”
Although I’ll never be a fan of gossip, I jerk up my chin. My dad’s asshole moves earlier today taught me a quick lesson on not biting the hand that feeds you.
“That isn’t good,” Tommy murmurs under his breath before twisting on the gas cap. “With his insurance expired, that bill will take them fully under.”
“What do you mean? He has insurance through the shop, doesn’t he?”
I curse into the humid night air when Tommy shakes his head. “He has it for everyone else but him. The premiums climbed too much for him to maintain after his diagnosis.”
“What diagnosis?”
His face whitens. “Oh, sweet child, he didn’t tell her.”
When I shake my head, I’ve never seen a man more eager to end a conversation, and I’ve witnessed a ton of them during my time, but I bring him around with a promise to help. “I can’t help them if I don’t know what’s going on.”
Like everyone I meet who recognizes me, he assumes I mean in a monetary value. I don’t, but if it has him willing to spill secrets, I’m down with a little white lie.
“Rye was diagnosed with a brain tumor a couple of months back. He needs to have it operated on, but with bills stacking up and Summer’s tuition being more than he can afford, he kept—”
“Pushing things back,” I fill in when I recognize the story. It is the same as my mother’s. She might have still been here if my father’s legal team didn’t drain every single penny from her bank account. “Is the tumor malignant?”
I breathe a sigh of relief when Tommy shakes his head. “It’s a big one, though. Messing with all parts of his head. If he doesn’t get it taken care of soon, he’ll lose more than a few clients because he can’t hold a wrench anymore.” His exhale matches mine. “Do you think you can help?”
“Probably not,” I reply. “But I’ll give it my best shot.”
Acting as if my shoulders aren’t as weighed down as they are, I enter the trailer now known as Summer’s family home. As I look at the overdue bills on the kitchen cabinet and the refrigerator with nowhere near as much food as it had stacked in there three weeks ago, I wonder how different life would have been for Rye if he hadn’t given up his baseball career to play house husband.
Rebekah was meant to be the breadwinner of their family. She was until she got sick, then it all went downhill for them. Rye’s mechanic’s wage couldn’t cover the hospital bills, and within weeks, they lost everything.
I don’t want that for neither Summer nor me.
Fuck that.
Who wants to work their ass off and have nothing to show for it?
Rye is in the situation he’s in because he was selfish.
He put his own greedy needs above anything else.
