Page 28 of Crossfire

No, no, no!

I sprinted to Dad’s front door…

“I’m worried about you, Ivy.” Mom’s voice snapped me back into the present.

It wasn’t easy to shake off the memory; it lingered in the recesses of my mind, poisoning my thoughts with steady doses throughout the day and night and sometimes—like now—with a massive surge.

I had to actively focus on the conversation at hand.

“Did Pete call you?” I asked.

No reply.

“He shouldn’t have done that.”

Well, he shouldn’t have turned into a massive dick today either, but here we were.

Come to think of it, the only non-horrible part of my day was meeting Grayson. There was something about his energy that had put me—at least a little—at ease. Maybe it was his eyes, the color of the sea after a storm—a tumultuous green with flecks of gray—or the sincerity in his baritone voice when he’d asked if I was okay. Like he truly cared.

I wish I’d taken him up on his offer to have coffee. Life’s relentless chaos was getting exhausting, and a moment of happiness would have been a welcome change. If I didn’t start grabbing on to glimpses of joy where I could, I might drown in despair.

“What were you thinking, Ivy? Dad wouldn’t want you to get killed.”

The mention of him serrated my heart open and left it bleeding.

“Or ruin your finances to pay Grams’s balance.”

“But no one else can, so what am I supposed to do? She needs medical care for the rest of her life.”

Mom sighed. “Ivy, I understand you feel obligated to help, but you can’t sacrifice your own well-being in the process.”

“I’m not,” I claimed in a defeated sigh. “But if you have any ideas, I’m all ears.”

Mom straightened her spine and shifted gears.

“You need to call that assisted living facility and explain to them you do not have the resources to fund her stay. Because you don’t. That is the cold, hard truth.”

“And then what?” I challenged.

“Then, Grams will have to find somewhere else to stay.”

“Where?” I clasped my hands together, knuckles whitening with worry. “Where, exactly, can Grams go stay for a price I can afford, that provides round-the-clock medical care?”

Mom’s lips thinned. “Harborview Haven has an opening.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You were on the same tour I was, Mom. Would you feel safe there? Would you trust that staff to not screw up your medications?”

If they couldn’t even bother to clean up urine off the floor when they knew a tour was coming, what kind of care did they provide behind closed doors? That place was riddled with high turnover, budget cuts, and other problems. They’d get it together, I’m sure, but not for a while.

“If I missed a viable solution,” I continued, “I’m all ears, but meanwhile, I need to figure out how to pay her bill.”

“It’s not your responsibility to figure it out.”

“If not me, who? Her only son is dead. Who else, exactly, can take care of her?”

Mom was silent for several seconds. “I don’t know, but it shouldn’t be you. It’s not fair to you.”

Fair. That wasn’t something I expected these days.

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