Chapter Two
Elio
The GoFundMe I started for Fabio raised four thousand two hundred and eleven dollars in three weeks. Unfortunately, then the number just froze there.
The first few days were so promising. It really got my hopes up.
People from the bar donated. Mrs. Padilla shared it on her Facebook.
Grace, who I didn’t think even liked me, put in fifty bucks.
Donations from strangers trickled in, ten here, twenty there.
Hank lent me a thousand dollars without me asking, and he even told me not to worry about paying it back.
For a minute there, I actually thought we might raise a nice big chunk of money.
Then the money slowed to a trickle and just stopped.
I knew why too. People had moved on. They’d shared the link, felt good about themselves, and gone back to their lives. I don’t blame them. Everyone has problems. Mine aren’t special just because they’re mine. But it was a kick in the gut when the GoFundMe stalled.
So now I have a drop in the bucket against a gap of sixty to eighty thousand.
Maybe more. The insurance company already sent a letter twenty pages long that essentially said if the surgeon is out of network they’ll cover some of it but not most of it.
I’ve read the letter four times looking for a loophole.
There isn’t one. Or if there is one I don’t know how to find it and I can’t afford a lawyer to look it over.
That was three weeks ago. Since then I’ve picked up every extra shift Hank will give me.
I’ve sold the TV, Fabio’s old Xbox, and a box of our mom’s jewelry I’d been saving because I couldn’t bear to part with it.
The jewelry brought in three hundred dollars at a pawn shop.
The guy behind the counter barely looked at it before naming a price I knew was low.
But I accepted his offer anyway because I didn’t have the luxury of shopping around.
Mom’s engagement ring, her pearl earrings, a gold bracelet Dad gave her for their tenth anniversary were only worth three hundred dollars to that asshole.
I felt sick for two days after I took his offer. I still feel sick.
Fabio doesn’t know about any of this. He knows the surgery is expensive.
He knows I’m working on it. He doesn’t know I pawned Mom’s jewelry.
He doesn’t know I’ve been skipping meals to save money, or that I lie awake every night doing the same math that never adds up.
He’s home on medication, a beta-blocker that slows his heart rate and keeps the arrhythmias at bay.
The doctor said the medication buys us time but it isn’t a fix.
The fix is the surgery. The clock is still ticking.
He’s been good about taking it easy. Too good.
He used to play music, or argue with people online playing video games.
Now he’s quiet. He sits on the couch reading or watching something on his phone with headphones in.
He moves carefully, like he’s afraid of breaking something inside himself.
It kills me. He’s nineteen years old and he’s tiptoeing through the apartment like a senior citizen.
I come home from a double shift on a Thursday night and find him asleep on the couch with a textbook open on his chest. He’s been trying to keep up with his online college classes.
He’s a smart kid. Way smarter than me. He wants to be a teacher, which is the kind of dream that makes you want to punch the universe for putting obstacles in front of it.
I pull the book off his chest and set it on the coffee table.
I pull the blanket off the back of the couch and spread it over him.
His face is peaceful when he sleeps. He looks like Mom.
He has her refined features. My eyes fill with tears as I stare down at his young face.
Once I’m done staring at my brother like a sap, I eat a bowl of cereal standing over the kitchen sink.
After I’ve forced down the cereal I open the calculator app on my phone and run the numbers again.
I have six thousand eight hundred dollars saved, counting Hank’s thousand and the GoFundMe and the jewelry and every spare cent from every double shift.
Six thousand eight hundred. I need at least sixty thousand more.
My eyes fill with tears again and I swear under my breath.
I’ve become such a cry-baby. I literally never used to cry, but I’m so overwhelmed right now.
I can barely breathe the stress is so great.
The next day at 10:00 a.m. sharp I arrive at Millhaven Bank and Trust. I have an appointment with a loan officer for a possible personal loan. It’s my last real option. I’m pretty sure I know how it’s going to go, but I have to try. What else can I do? Giving up isn’t an option.
The loan officer’s name is Patricia Bellamy. She has a kind face and a sensible haircut and a desk covered in framed photos of golden retrievers. She smiles when I sit down and offers me coffee. I politely decline. My stomach is in a knot so tight that the coffee might come right back up.
“So,” she says, pulling up my application on her screen. “Let’s see what we’re working with here.” I can tell from the way her face changes as she scrolls that we are not working with much. “Your income is twenty-six thousand annually?”
“Give or take. It fluctuates with tips.” I chew on a hangnail, trying to read her expression.
“And your current debts include a maxed credit card at four thousand and an auto loan with a remaining balance of...” she squints, “eighteen hundred.”
“Yes.”
“Credit score is five-forty-two.”
“Yes.” I know it’s bad. She knows it’s bad. The golden retrievers would probably know it’s bad.
She sits back in her chair and folds her hands and gives me a look I recognize. It’s the same look the doctor gave me when she told me about the surgery Fabio needed. Professional sympathy. The face of someone who is about to tell you in the gentlest way they know how that you’re royally screwed.
“Mr. Conti, I want to be honest with you.”
Here we go.
“I appreciate that,” I say politely.
“With your current income and credit profile, a personal loan in the range you’re requesting isn’t something I can approve.
The monthly payment on that amount would push you outside our lending guidelines, and with the credit card already at its limit, we don’t have enough room to justify the risk. I’m sorry.”
I nod, trying not to let the rejection get to me. I expected this. I prepared for it. I rehearsed being calm about it in the car on the way here. But hearing it out loud still hurts like a door slamming shut on my fingers.
“Is there anything else we can do?” I ask. “Any other kind of loan, or a program, or something I’m not thinking of? If I’m honest, I’m… I’m open to anything.”
She hesitates. It’s a small hesitation, barely a second. But I’ve been watching people hesitate before delivering bad news for weeks now and I’m pretty sure this one means something.
“There are medical hardship programs.” She fiddles with the pearl buttons on her sweater vest. “Some hospitals have charity funds. You could try the pharmaceutical companies for assistance with the medication costs, at least.”
“I’ve applied for all of those. The hospital’s charity fund wait list is fourteen months.
I don’t have fourteen months.” I clear my throat.
“My brother really needs the surgery much sooner than that.” I’m embarrassed when my eyes fill with tears.
Jesus Christ, this is becoming a real problem.
“Maybe I could get a smaller loan. I mean, every penny helps, right?”
She nods slowly. She looks at me for a long moment and I can see her thinking. Not about my loan application. About something else.
“Mr. Conti, you say this surgery is urgent?”
“Yes.” My throat closes, but I push through. “My brother could have another cardiac event any day. His doctor wants him in the operating room within the next month and a half.”
She glances at the door of her office as if making sure it’s closed. She looks back at me and her expression is odd. “I can see how desperate you are,” she mutters, appearing uneasy.
“I am. I mean, I’ll basically do anything to get money for the surgery.” I grimace. “I mean, you know, anything legal.”
“Right.” She gives a weak smile. “Please tell me you’re not going to try and knock over our bank or anything.”
“God, no.” I hold out a shaky hand. “I mean any lawful thing.”
She smiles but it fades quickly and she gives the closed door another nervous glance. “There might be someone who could help you.” She bites her bottom lip. “Possibly.”
My heart jolts with hope. “Really?”
She flinches at my exuberance. “Now, you understand, this is not something I’m saying in any official capacity,” she says, her voice dropping slightly. “And if… if anyone asks, this conversation didn’t happen.”
That’s definitely not something I expect a loan officer to say, but I’m so desperate I barely blink an eye. I sit up straighter. “I’m open to almost anything. And I understand that this is just between us.”
“The… person I’m going to suggest is very unorthodox.” Her laugh is stilted.
“Unorthodox is fine,” I say breathlessly.
She studies me as if trying to decide if she should kick me out of her office, or proceed.
After a few agonizing moments, she opens a drawer and pulls out a business card.
It’s plain white, heavy stock, with nothing on it but a name and a phone number.
No title, no company, no logo. She slides it across the desk to me.
“His name is Roman Kessler. He’s not a loan officer and he’s not a charity. He’s a man who connects people in difficult situations with people who have resources. Even people with money have problems. Mr. Kessler is in the business of solving those problems for his clients.”
“Okay, that sounds promising.”