AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Thank you, Doctor Rogers.”
I hung up the phone just as a notification came through. The electric company. Past due amount owed.
I signed into my checking account, hoping there’d be more money than expected. I was hoping for a miracle but there wasn’t one. $12. I had $12 until payday, and this check was going to be small because this wasn’t the first unpaid day I had taken.
I had no idea what I was going to do.
I also had no time to worry about that, I had to get my little guy taken care of. I called his pediatrician and talked to the receptionist.
“Monday at two?” she asked me.
“Monday? But it’s Thursday.”
“We are fully booked up, Grace. I’m sorry. If it is an emergency, you need to take your son to the hospital.”
“Right, yes, I’ll do that, thank you.”
I hung up and felt completely hopeless. Even with our health insurance, an emergency visit had a $100 copay. I contemplated calling my mother, but I knew she wouldn’t be able to send any money over. Her situation was as dire as mine these days, ever since dad went to prison for fraud. Who knew our entire lives had been a lie? While we believed we were “well off,” the truth was we were in such severe debt that it left us with absolutely nothing! I never imagined that I’d be struggling to pay a $100 hospital bill.
My phone rang and I recognized Duncan’s number right away. I answered.
“Hey, just heard you’re not coming in today,” he said. “Ollie okay?”
“I don’t know, Duncan…” I looked over at my precious little boy. He was so small for his age, mostly due to the one functioning kidney he’d been born with. No one knew exactly why, just a birth defect that “happens sometimes”. It was rare, but apparently poor Ollie’s luck had run out even before he was born.
“Are you taking him into the ER?”
“Yes, I just got off the phone with the pediatrician and I think that’s best.”
“Do you need some money?”
“Duncan, you know I hate to take money from you.”
“I know you do, but this isn’t about you. It’s about Ollie.”
“I know, and I appreciate it, Duncan.”
“I’ll send some over. Let me know if you need more. I’d come over, but I’m working and since we’re short staffed already, Doc Rogers isn’t going to let me go.”
“I know, and it’s fine. I can drive us; you can stop by later.”
There was a silence on the line, and I knew what Duncan was going to ask before he even said anything.
“Have you had any luck, you know, tracking down his dad? Just in case, you know.”
I swallowed down the tears. “No, no luck still. I don’t know what else I can do and I’m starting to believe there’s no hope as far as that goes, Duncan.”
“Right. But I still hope that we can find him in case he can be a donor.”
Ollie’s one functioning kidney was failing. We knew it was only a matter of time after he was born that he would need a transplant, and I wasn’t a match. No one on my side of the family was. Someone on his father’s side might work… if only I could track him down.
As far as Duncan knew, the father was a random one-night stand four years ago. I told him I didn’t even know the guy’s last name. That was a lie, but it might as well have been the truth since the father wanted nothing to do with us and couldn’t even be bothered to return my calls.
Chapter 3
Alex
“Oh Alex…” my mom greeted me with tears in her eyes. She hugged me tightly, as if afraid I might dissipate into thin air or maybe I was just a figment of her imagination that might not even be real.
