Page 106 of The Plus One Professional

Rita buzzed me in through the door. “She’s in 302.”

I nodded and headed around the corner. When I got to her room, the door was open, but I tapped my knuckles against the wooden frame as I entered to announce my presence.

Sara was seated on an exam table in a hospital gown with an IV in her arm. She was looking down at the floor as tears flowed down her face. It was always tough for me to see her in a hospital gown with an IV in her arm. I always felt so helpless. But seeing her crying in a hospital gown with an IV was like being kneed in the balls by He-Man.

“Hey,” I said quietly to announce my presence because she must not have heard my light knock.

She lifted her head, and her eyes widened in shock. “Cole?!” She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “What are you doing here?”

“I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer, so I called Carly, and she said you guys were here.”

“You called me?” She sniffed as she retrieved her phone from her purse. She pulled it out and pressed the home button, but the screen remained black. “The battery must have died. Sorry, it’s been acrazyday.”

Sara put the phone away and lifted her hand to wipe her cheeks once more. I stepped farther into the room and lowered down in the seat that was against the side wall. I took a deep breath to brace myself for what I was about to hear. “So, what’s going on?”

Her reaction to that question was not at all what I’d expected. She didn’t straighten her shoulders and put on a brave face. She didn’t break down sobbing. Her lip didn’t quiver. She wasn’t stricken with fear and vulnerability.

Instead of any of those things happening, a wide smile spread across her face, and she burst out laughing.

“What?” I asked, looking around. “What am I missing?”

“Sorry.” She shook her head before inhaling and exhaling audibly. “I’ve been like this all day. A total basket case. I keep crying, then laughing. Then laughing, then crying. I just…I can’t actually believe what is happening.”

She was hysterical. It was worse than I thought. Did she have months to live? Weeks? What the fuck was going on?

I did my best to keep my tone even and calm and not let her see the panic that was gripping me. “What is it? What’s happening?”

She reached inside her purse, and I noticed her hands were shaking. She pulled out a large, white envelope and handed it to me. When I opened it, I was expecting to see medical papers, tests, diagnostics, something—anything to give me a clue as to what was going on.

I read the header and then reread it to make sure I had seen it correctly. Fostering the Future. I’d heard the name of the charity at the wedding I’d attended with Charli. Before the wedding started, Charli mentioned to me that Alex Vaughn and his two friends, Maddox and Nick, started it because they’d grown up in the system. From what I understood, they gave out scholarships and small business loans to kids who were in foster care.

Why did Sara have a letter from them?

I continued reading. The first sentence of the letter stated that Sara Crawford had been chosen as the beneficiary of a medical provision grant.

“What is this?”

“It’s a grant for people who grew up in the system and have chronic illnesses and their caregivers.”

“How did you…” My voice trailed off as I continued reading.

“I applied for it,” she answered my unasked question.

“Without telling me?” I was trying to wrap my head around what was going on.

“Yes, I didn’t want you to get your hopes up. It’s the first year they’ve had it. Nancy, the nurse at Dr. Miller’s office, told me about it a month ago. I didn’t know how many people were applying, and I wasn’t sure if we would qualify since you work for Vaughn Construction, but they didn’t care. They didn’t consider it a conflict of interest because I don’t work there.”

“So, what does this mean?”

“It means you don’t have to worry, and I don’t have to worry; we don’t have to worry about medical debt or medical bills anymore. They took care of all that. It’s gone. And not just the medical bills and debt.” She reached out and turned the top two pages before pointing at a sum of money at the bottom of the third page that had a lot of zeros in it.

“What is that?”

“It’s a lump-sum payment. It’s part of the grant for quality of life.”

Holy shit. That was some quality of life.

“And it’s ours.” She started laughing again. “I got this letter a week ago, but I didn’t say anything because I wanted to wait until it was actually sitting in a bank account with our names on it.”

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