Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
Olivia
The woman on the phone has a kind voice and a long list of numbers. I’m standing in the kitchen writing the numbers down on the back of an envelope because I can't find anything else and my hand is shaking slightly, making the pen skip.
I knew this day was coming, the day I had to find out how much the hospital bill was going to cost me. As the numbers escape her mouth, I’m trying everything not to throw up, because I’m going to be in debt for the rest of my life.
"The outstanding balance from the oncology department covers the last four months of treatment," she says.
"And then there's the emergency care from the accident itself, which is being processed separately.
Once your father is discharged the rehabilitation costs will begin, and depending on the level of care he requires—"
"What's the total?" I cut her off. I know she’s trying to make this easier for me, but if she rips the band aid off quickly, it would be better for me.
She tells me.
I stop writing.
I look at the number on the back of the envelope.
"Miss Banks? Are you still there?" I must have zoned out for a lot longer than I thought.
"Yes." My voice comes out remarkably normal considering what’s happening inside my chest. "Yes, I'm here. And there's no, there's no payment plan or—"
"We can absolutely discuss payment plans. I'd recommend speaking to our financial services team directly, they can—"
"Of course." I press my fingers to my eyes. "Of course, yes. I'll call them. Thank you."
I end the call not wanting to talk to her anymore. There’s nothing she can say to make this any better for me, and her giving me ideas isn’t going to help me work out my financial troubles.
I stand in the kitchen, looking at the number on the envelope, and I breathe through my nose.
I hear footsteps behind me, Hayden comes in from outside, his jacket still on, and he looks at my face and then at the envelope in my hand and he goes very still.
"What's that?"
"Nothing." I fold the envelope in half before I've decided to do it. "Just some stuff from the hospital."
He crosses the kitchen in four steps and holds out his hand. He doesn't say anything. Just waits, hand out, with that patience he seems to have, which is one of the reasons I love him even more every day. I’ve never met anyone with the amount of patience as him.
"Hayden—"
"Olivia."
I hand him the envelope, because I know the tone, it’s the tone which tells me he will not stop with this conversation until I give it to him.
He unfolds it and reads the number. His expression doesn't change, not a flicker and somehow that’s worse than if it had.
"Right," he says.
"Don't." I take the envelope back. "I know what you're going to say and the answer is no."
"I haven't said anything," he quickly replies to me.
"You don't have to." I fold the envelope again, smaller this time, like I can make the number inside it smaller too. "I'll call the financial team. They do payment plans. I'll work it out."
"Olivia—"
"I mean it, Hayden. This isn't… you've already done so much, your family has already done so much, and I’m not going to sit here and let you—" I hear my voice starting to raise, because I know Hayden well enough to know that he’s not listening to a word I’m saying about this topic.
"What's going on?"
We both turn.
Hayden's dad is in the kitchen, looking between the two of us, and my heart starts to beat even faster now.
"Nothing," I say.
"Hospital bills," Hayden says at the same time.
His dad looks at us both.
"One at a time," he says. "Olivia." Hayden closes his mouth, and I have to press my lips together to stop smiling, because Hayden doesn't look happy, I get to talk first.
I look at his dad and think about saying it's fine, but these Crawford men are very good at reading people.
"The hospital called," I start. "About my mum's treatment costs. My dad's ongoing care once he's discharged." I stop. Press my lips together. "It's a lot."
That's the understatement of my life. It’s a number that I looked at and felt the ground shift under me, a number that turns the next several years of my life into a calculation.
I don't know how to make it work no matter how many different ways I run it.
And in the three minutes I've not been on the phone, my mind has been on overdrive on how I can make this work for me.
I shake my head.
Not at Hayden's dad. Just at myself, at the helplessness of it, all at the fact that my mother spent the last years of her life fighting to stay alive and the bill for that fight is sitting on the back of an envelope in my shaking hand.
Hayden's dad sets the newspaper on the counter, he pulls out a chair at the kitchen table, sits down and he looks at me.
"Sit down, sweetheart."
I sit down; Hayden sits beside me. His hand finds mine under the table and I hold it without looking at him because if I look at him right now I will cry before this conversation even starts and I’m trying very hard to hold myself together.
"Tell me the full picture," his dad says. "All of it."
So, I do. I put the envelope on the table, and I tell him about the debt. The number on the envelope and what it means for the next however many years of my life.
When I finish, the kitchen is quiet.
My eyes are dry because I’m concentrating very hard on keeping them that way, and it’s taking most of my available energy.
Hayden's dad looks at the envelope for a moment, then at me.
"Here's what's going to happen," he says.
"Mr. Crawford—"
"Here's what's going to happen," he says again in a tone which tells me to stop talking and listen.
"Your father comes to our clinic when he's discharged.
We have nurses, we have the facilities, we have everything he needs for his recovery.
He'll have proper care, round the clock, and he won't be in a hospital ward. "
I open my mouth.
"I'm not finished." He puts his hand up to stop me. "The costs, all of it, the treatment, the accident, your mother's care, we'll handle it."
"No." The word comes out before I can stop it. "No, I can't… that's not … you can't just—"
"You're going to be a lawyer," he says.
I blink.
"Hayden tells me you’re both doing the same degree.
I should have guessed you would want to be a lawyer.
" He folds his hands on the table, and smiles at me.
"When you qualify, you come and work for the clinic.
We need a good lawyer on retainer. Someone we trust." A pause.
"You work for us, you earn a proper salary, and a portion of that goes toward settling what's owed.
Not all of it, you'll have enough for yourself, enough to live, but enough that this debt has somewhere to go. "
I stare at him, at the man across the table from me, the man whose son I sent to prison, and they’ve all seemed to have forgotten like it never happened, and I have no idea what to say.
"That's—" My voice comes out wrong. I stop. Try again. "You can't do that. That's too much, that's… after everything I did…, you can't just—I hurt Hayden, and the family." My voice breaks. I press my lips together hard.
Hayden's hand tightens around mine under the table.
His dad looks at me for a long moment.
"My son forgave you," he says quietly. "That tells me everything I need to know."
The tears come before I can stop them.
Not the quiet kind, I feel Hayden's arm come around me, his hand at my shoulder, and I press my face into my own hands, and I cry at the kitchen table of the family I destroyed.
"I'm sorry," I manage, which is completely inadequate and the only thing I have.
"Don't apologize," his dad says. "Not in this house. Not anymore."
I look up at him through blurry vision.
"You're one of ours now," he says. “That's not a conversation. That's just the way it is."
The sob that comes out of me is embarrassing, and I don't care even slightly.
Hayden pulls me closer, and I let him and I sit in his family's kitchen, and I cry for all of it, for my mother and the bills and the years ahead and the impossible, unearned gift of being in this room with these people after everything.
"The clinic," I say. My voice is still rough. "My dad. He'll fight you on it."
His dad glances at me over his shoulder.
"He can try," he says mildly.
Something between a laugh and a sob escapes me.
Hayden makes a sound beside me that is definitely a laugh, quickly converted into something more neutral. I look up at him laughing, with his dad.
"What?" he says.
"Nothing," I say.
I look out at into the garden, and the treehouse, our treehouse. I think about two kids who used to climb up there and read books and eat stolen cookies and didn’t know yet what was coming. Who couldn't have imagined sitting in this kitchen twenty years later with everything broken.
I turn back to Hayden and his dad. "Thank you," I say quietly.
His dad sits back down across from me.
"Don't mention it," he says. Which is exactly what Hayden always says.
Dad’s quiet on the drive to the clinic. Not the fragile quiet of the hospital, this is a different quiet, and it makes me worry.
He's in the passenger seat with his eyes on the road and he hasn't said anything since we left the hospital car park twenty minutes ago, beyond a single comment about the weather that wasn't really about the weather.
Hayden’s driving, he hasn't said much either, which tells me he's clocked the quiet and is giving it room. I sit in the back, and I watch the two of them and think about how strange this moment is. I never thought we would ever be sitting in the same car together.
"How far?" Dad asks.
"Ten minutes," Hayden says.
Dad nods.
Quiet again and I look out of the window.