My cell rang, so loud and sudden I flinched. I muttered something, seeing Kel’s picture on the screen.
“Hello?”
“Hey, how’s it going?”
I sighed, looking at the list of phone numbers. “Okay. How about you? Didn’t get fired for helping me yet, I hope.”
Kel laughed. “No. I’m not too worried about that.” She paused, and I could hear something in the quiet. Sometimes it was people’s silence that said the most. If you loved someone, all kinds of conversations happened without words.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It’s Dad. He called me this morning.”
“Why? What’s going on?” I was on my feet and over to the window, half expecting his house to be engulfed in flames.
“I guess he got a notice from the insurance company. The payment didn’t go through.”
“What? Can’t be—I’ve got that on autopay.”
“Then his account’s overdrawn.”
“No, that’s—” I was going to say “not possible,” but it was. Imagine a guy juggling bowling pins. He starts with two and slowly works up to more. Every so often one drops, and he has to keep the others in the air while picking up the dropped pin. Dad and my bills were the bowling pins, and the juggling act was finances versus timing. Somehow I’d miscalculated, and a bill must’ve come out before a payment went in.
“Shit, I’m sorry. Guessing I forgot something.”
“Not like you don’t have other things on your mind. I think that’s why he called me instead. He didn’t want to bother you with anything else.”
I sighed. “Sorry. I’ll take a look.”
“It’s okay, quit apologizing. Honestly, I knew this day would come. I’ve been putting a little aside for the last six months or so—”
“Kel, no. I’ve got this.”
“You don’t, though. You can’t. Do you know how much his care is going to be? Insurance is only going to cover so much each month.”
“I know, I’ve looked it up.” Dad losing his health insurance was one of the things I feared the most. Only in America could you be crushed by the wheel of medical expense before the disease being treated actually killed you.
“I’m going to help with the cost, Andy.”
“You need your money. The girls—”
“We’ll be fine.”
I moved through the house wanting to strike something. To break and shatter. It would feel good to pass some wreckage on. “I’ll figure it out.”
“What? Are you going to call Cory?”
I snorted. “Fuck no. Are you?”
“Not a thousand wild horses . . .”
Our older brother, Cory. Tall, dark haired, suave, never swore, went to church on a regular basis. Male version of our mother. Cory worked in finance in Chicago and came home once a year on Christmas. It was more than enough. By the end of his stay, I’d be sitting on my hands whenever he was in the room, and Kel would be drunk by ten in the morning. Even Dad would be more stressed than usual. Cory had that effect on people. He was a comb run through your hair the wrong way, a hangnail that tore. He was also loaded, but asking him for money was going to be my very last resort.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said. “Mom’s Roth IRA.”
“Yeah? What of it?”
“I was going to talk to Father Mathew about getting the church to revert it to Dad.”
Kel huffed a laugh. “The church give up money? Sure, sure. Please do let me know when you get blood out of that particular stone.”
“I know, I know. But if I explain the situation, he can’t turn us down, right? Even though it was in her will, there has to be some way to reroute it to Dad. Even if it’s accepting the money each month and making a charitable donation back to him.”
“I mean, that sounds good. But I don’t know if—” She stopped, and I heard a lot more in her silence again.
“If what? If I should be the one to talk to him?”
“Well . . .”
“It was a window, for God’s sake. I didn’t set fire to the church.”
“Still.”
“It’ll be fine. I’ll go up there this afternoon before I make supper for Dad. He can’t say no.”
“Five bucks.”
“You’re on. Except I’ll have to make payments if you win.”
“Ha, ha, ha.”
“Bye, sis, I’ll call you later.”