She explained treatments—inhalers, breathing exercises, oxygen therapy, medications that cost hundreds of dollars a month even with insurance. She used words like “chronic,” “progressive,” “managed but not cured.”
The hospital bills started arriving a week later. Thousands of dollars. My tiny savings evaporated paying the minimum payments. I couldn’t keep up at the factory anymore—I’d cough so hard during shifts that I’d have to stop working, would get dizzy and disoriented, couldn’t meet my quotas.
They let me go as kindly as possible. Gave me two weeks’ severance and a handshake and told me to file for disability.
The disability payments started three months later: eleven hundred dollars a month.
My rent was seven hundred. Utilities ran another hundred fifty. Medications were two hundred if I filled everything the doctor prescribed. The math didn’t work, and there was nothing I could do to make it work.
I tried anyway. I ate one meal a day, usually oatmeal because it was cheap and filling. I skipped medications, alternating which ones I could afford each month and praying I’d chosen correctly. I sat in the dark at night to save electricity. I wore every sweater I owned layered together in winter instead of turning on the heat.
The landlord still wanted his rent. The utility company still wanted payment. The pharmacy still refused to hand over inhalers without money.
I lasted three months before I had to make the call I’d been dreading.
The phone felt impossibly heavy in my hand. Shame burned hotter than any fever.
“Deacon,” I said when he answered. “I need help.”
The silence on the other end stretched so long I checked to see if the call had dropped.
“What kind of help?” he finally asked, his voice careful and professional, like I was a client rather than his mother.
“I can’t afford my apartment anymore. The doctor says I need treatments I can’t pay for. I was wondering if maybe…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t force myself to say “Can I move in with you?”
“You want to live with us.” A statement, not a question. A verdict.
“Just temporarily,” I whispered. “Just until I can figure something out.”
“Let me discuss it with Sloan,” he said. “I’ll call you back.”
Three hours later, my phone rang. “You can stay in the guest room,” he said. No warmth. No “we’d love to have you” or “of course, Mom, you’re family.” Just permission, granted like a favor.
“Thank you,” I breathed, relief flooding through me so fast it made me dizzy. “I’ll pay rent. I’ll help around the house. I won’t be any trouble at all, I promise.”
“We’ll work out the details when you get here,” he said, and hung up without saying goodbye.
Six Months of Hell
I moved in on a Saturday morning in May, everything I owned fitting into two battered suitcases and three cardboard boxes. Deacon didn’t come to help me pack or move. He just texted the address and told me to arrive by noon.
Standing outside that beautiful house with its perfect landscaping and its three-car garage, I felt like I was looking at someone else’s life. This didn’t look like a place where I belonged. It looked like a magazine spread, like a model home, like something to be admired from a distance but never touched.
Sloan answered the door in white designer jeans and a silk blouse that probably cost more than my monthly disability check. Her smile was polite and distant.
“Loretta. Come in.” She stepped aside but didn’t offer to help with the suitcases.
The interior was even more impressive than the exterior—all gleaming hardwood floors and high ceilings, everything decorated in shades of white and gray and cream, everything coordinated and expensive and cold. It looked like a place where people posed for photos, not where they actually lived.
“The guest room is upstairs, second door on the right,” Sloan said, gesturing toward the staircase. “You can use the half bathroom by the laundry room. Deacon’s at the office. He’ll be home around six.”
I dragged my suitcases up the stairs, my damaged lungs burning, my legs trembling. I had to stop twice to catch my breath.
Before I could finish unpacking, Sloan appeared in the doorway with her arms crossed, leaning against the frame.
