Page 4 of The Irish Arrangement

“From my end of things, it looks like she did.”

“No.” I shook my head, catching a look from the only stable hand we could still afford to employ here at my mother’s work farm. Oscar raised his brows, sticking his pitchfork in the hay pile he was transferring, and watched as I paced out here in the open. I wasn’t sure what I’d ever do without the older man. He helped me keep this place in operation, and it was all I had. All my mother ever had. Nora Gallagher didn’t contribute much to the place she got from her parents, but I gave it my all.

“She did not miss her appointment. A man from your office called the night before and said that she had to move her appointment time to three o’clock on the twelfth, not eleven. And that’s what we showed up for.”

“Did you receive a confirmation email of this supposed appointment?” she asked.

Supposed. I held in a growl of frustration. “Yes. For the original one at eleven, which we confirmed. He called and changed it after we’d confirmed the first one.”

“That change doesn’t show up on our end.” She cleared her throat as the sound of tapping keys came through the line. “So, according to me, that request for a change didn’t happen.”

I threw my gloves down on a tree stump. “Let me get this straight. According to you, I’m lying now? This is your mistake.”

“I made no such mistake.”

“Fine. Someone in your office did.”

“I see no record of that.”

“Want proof?” I snarled. “I have my call log. Someone named Chad called from your office and asked us to change our appointments due to a doctor’s conflict. I don’t have all day to sit around and accept these last-minute changes, but it just so happened that we could swing it that day. And now you expect me to understand that this is somehow my fault. Or that I’m making this shit up. So that my mother won’t be seen by her specialist for two more months? We waited five months to even get this appointment.”

She huffed. “And if your mother had shown up at her appointment time of eleven on the twelfth, she would have seen her specialist as desired.”

Desired? Who ever wanted to need a specialist on their medical case? No one. That was who. My mother never wished for any of this, a stubborn bout of cancer that kept returning. An autoimmune disease. An infection from a negligent cook at a restaurant. She never desired any of this, but it was her lot in her unfortunate life. It was my headache to deal with the best I could. Losing my cool with this receptionist wasn’t my finest moment, but for God’s sake. How much stress could a person take before snapping?

“I refuse to accept this change. Ask your staff. Speak to Chad. I don’t care if it wasn’t documented on your end. It was on mine.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And why the hell not?”

“Chad is unavailable at the moment.”

I pulled the phone away, covered the mouthpiece, and yelled. Riled up and heaving for air, I returned. “I don’t give a shit. You are not going to make my mother wait two more months for an appointment that your office screwed up on.”

“We do not tolerate this kind of behavior,” she retorted sassily.

“Oh, but incompetent employees get a free pass at the expense of the patients?”

She huffed. “I have nothing further to say to you other than a reminder that you will be billed an additional missed-appointment fee for not showing up. Goodbye.”

At the beep of the call disconnecting, I gripped my phone so hard that I swore I’d crack the case.

“I hate you!” I bellowed it, knowing Mom was asleep on the other side of the house. I’d never wake her from a nap, but I had to vent somehow. If it wasn’t scrambling to get her to her appointments in the city while not slacking on the farm, it was hunting down available doses of her medications. Plural, because she required a variety of drugs to keep her as healthy and pain-free as possible.

“Cara…” Oscar approached me carefully. He was a staple around here and always had been. I’d grown up under his wing, learning how to work on this farm. I wouldn’t lash out on him, but I detested his trying to talk to me right now.

“We can try to shift some things around and make sure you don’t struggle with getting Nora to her appointments.”

Oh, my God. Why was everyone glossing over the fact that it wasn’t my fault? Why couldn’t he understand that I had shifted my chores to get her there on time? And it was their fault for playing around with me like this.

“It’s not that, Oscar,” I warned. “They’re claiming it’s just some office SNAFU. I always make time for Nora’s care.” It added up. Doctor appointments. Bloodwork. Dialysis until she could get a kidney transplant. Therapy. More appointments to check on her medications. The list went on and on, but I'd never failed her. I couldn’t. I was all she had in this world. Me and this farm that kept a few dollars in her bank account after things were all said and done.

“All right, but I’m just saying…” He shrugged, almost sheepish. “We could sell off some of the land and have a little cushion for these sorts of things. And if you sell the second tractor, maybe it could cover the pay for a second pair of hands around here.”

I hung my head. He had to bring that up again. Oscar and I never saw eye to eye on every decision, but he didn’t get it. I had to be this frugal to save up for Mom to get that kidney transplant, if and when she would be matched. He didn’t see the bank statements like I did.

Already exhausted from dealing with the woman at the specialist’s office, I felt zero energy for round three or four of hashing out why I wouldn’t agree with Oscar’s suggestions. It sounded good on paper, but he didn’t have the whole picture. Trusting Oscar with the farm was one matter. Bringing him in to see how much debt Nora had incurred just to stay alive was another matter I would not welcome him to learn about.

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