Page 37 of Margo's Got Money Troubles

“Tell me what to do,” she said.

“Go get my phone and call Dr. Murtry.”

But it was Thanksgiving and Dr. Murtry wasn’t answering, nor were two other doctors Jinx tried. When Margo discovered that Jinx absolutely could not stand or shift position, she started to freak out.

“Well, I can just stay on the couch,” Jinx said, “until someone calls back.”

“Dad, you’re sweating bullets. You are clearly in excruciating pain.”

“Well,” Jinx said. “Maybe ice?”

“Dad!” Margo said. “You need to go to the ER!”

“I don’t think I can get in a car.”

“We’re calling an ambulance,” she said.

“We are not,” Jinx said. “Do not call an ambulance!”

But she called 911, and she could tell by the way he didn’t really try to stop her that he was glad. Once they knew an ambulance was on the way, his main concern was that she pack him some books to read in the hospital. “I’m coming with you,” Margo said.

“You don’t want to bring Bodhi to a place like that! A hospital full of germs!”

“I’ll watch Bodhi,” Suzie said.

They both looked at her. Suzie had never volunteered to watch the baby before.

“How hard could it be?” she said. “I mean, I watch you guys do it all day!”

“There’s pumped milk in the freezer,” Margo said, and rushed to show Suzie everything she would need before the ambulance arrived. “And if he’s freaking out text me, and I’ll leave and come home. I don’t think I’ll be gone longer than an hour or two tops.”

“It’s fine,” Suzie said, “I think we’ll be totally chill.”

Margo placed Bodhi in Suzie’s arms experimentally. Both Suzie and Bodhi seemed at ease.

“Okay,” Margo said, like she was judging a Jenga tower for stability. “Okay!”

When Jinx and I were finally alone together again in his little curtained-off area of the brightly lit ER, he was already doing much better. The nurse had given him muscle relaxers and pain meds in his IV.

“Margo,” he said softly, almost a whisper, “I am not going to mention substance abuse issues unless they ask directly. Is that all right with you?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said. The idea that I would somehow object and tell his doctor he had just gotten out of rehab hadn’t even occurred to me. Now I wondered if that was actually the right thing to do.

“We can figure it out after, I can refuse to take whatever they send me home with. I just know from experience that if you bring it up they instantly treat you like a criminal.”

“Okay,” I said. Certainly, I wanted my dad to get the medication he needed. I was also uneasy about this. His addiction was a large uncharted area I didn’t truly understand. I worried this was how it always started for him: with the best of intentions. I could hear an old woman asking for water through the curtain on our right. “My mouth is so dry,” she was saying.

“In the hospital, when I was having Bodhi,” I said, clearing my throat from a sudden attack of phlegm, “there was this nurse who was checking my IV, and she ran her hand over my hand in this weird way, and I realized she was checking for a ring. And maybe they have some policy to remove the patient’s rings in case of a C-section, but I suddenly felt scared that I didn’t have this marker, this thing that indicated that someone loved me, that I was valuable, that someone would get mad and sue if I died. It was probably all in my head, but I felt like I’d press the button for something, and she wouldn’t come for, like, hours, and she would walk out without answering my questions, and she made fun of Bodhi’s name. They didn’t release me for forever, and they wouldn’t tell me why. She’d just decided I was this certain kind of girl, you know?”

“She made fun of his name?” Jinx asked, and I could see a strange coldness coming into his eyes, like ice forming on a lake.

“Yeah, I didn’t tell you this? Shyanne slapped her!”

Jinx only stared at me, his eyes completely dead. “I would have burned that hospital to the ground,” he said. All the hair on my arms stood up.

“I just... I get it,” I said. “The way how they treat you can change.”

“To the ground,” Jinx said again.

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