Page 25 of Fearless Sinner

“I have a meeting tomorrow. The loan is for business development, so you send the application off first then an advisor meets with you to hear your pitch. After that the bank takes a few days to consider the whole application. So maybe a week tops. Maybe less.” I’m hoping it will be less.

“Okay. This sounds promising.” Dr. Chase smiles.

“Thank you, and thanks for contacting the insurance company. I’m sure the costs would be substantially higher if you hadn’t gotten them to agree to pay for all the other parts of the treatment.”

“That’s not a problem. It was my pleasure to help. For now, we can go ahead and do the paperwork. Then I guess we’ll just have to wait to hear from the bank. And for your mother to wake up.”

“Can the surgery be performed with her in a coma?” Roxanne asks with an edge of worry in her voice.

“It can, but our hope is that she will wake up before. There have been many instances of procedures like this performed on coma patients. It’s a little riskier because of everything involved, but we know that a new heart would be best for her.”

“Okay, thank you.”

“What happens if I don’t get the loan? What happens to her?” I quickly glance at Roxanne, who is wearing the same expression of fear and dread I feel coursing through me.

“I have to be… honest with you. While we’d do everything we can to come up with an alternative treatment plan, it would never be as effective as getting a new heart. She’s reached the stage where a transplant would be the utmost that we could do.”

So, she’d die.

If I fail, my mother dies.

“Just try to stay focused,” Dr. Chase says. “Everyone can only do what they can do. That includes the two of you. Do you have any other questions?”

Roxanne and I both shake our heads.

“Okay, here are the documents. Sign them and I’ll do the rest.” He hands them to me.

I go through each one and sign.

Minutes later Roxanne and I are outside walking around the visitors' garden. We’re waiting for visiting hours to start so we can see Mom.

“I don’t know what to do if you don’t get that loan.” Roxanne glances at me.

“I don’t know what to do either.”

“The situation is bad enough with finding the money owed to Cillian, but this is bad, bad, bad. I didn’t know Aunt Rosaline was so sick.”

“And I wasn’t here.” Knowing my mother, she would have hidden her pain from everyone and only went to the doctor when she realized there was nothing more she could do on her own.

“You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“But I do, every day. I have to get that loan, Roxanne. The house and the restaurant were important to me, but now we’re talking about Mom’s life.”

“I know.” She nods and blinks back tears. “Let’s just have hope. I will try to apply for a loan, too, and speak to a few people who know your mom. Maybe we can raise the money.”

“Yeah.” It’s a good idea, but that might take forever. Dr. Chase sounded like Mom needed the transplant yesterday.

As we continue walking, I try to fill my heart with hope.

Like Dr. Chase said, everyone can only do what they can do.

This is all I can do.

If I can convince the head of the Irish mafia to give me an extension to repay our debt to him, then hopefully I can convince the bank to loan me the money.

Granted, I doubt the bank’s advisor will look at me with the same desire in their eyes as Cillian O’Ridian. And that wild interest in finding out who I am. Or my dancing. But I have to try.

I always have to try because not trying means accepting failure.

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