Page 70 of Sawyer

“So, what do you two talk about?” I ask.

“We don’t really talk like normal people,” he says, and even though it’s dark, and I’m not facing him, I know he’s wincing. “We give each other brief updates about our lives. He tells me about the deals he’s working on. I probably bore him with the girls’ progress at school. When I talked to him in September, I told him about P’s cancer diagnosis. That’s when he opened the line of credit for us at the Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage.”

I jolt forward. “Wait! What? When he…what?”

“I told you about that, didn’t I? I must have!” says my uncle.

“No,” I whisper. “I don’t think you did.”

“Oh, well. He was very kind. He said we should charge Priscilla’s treatment to him. I told him that we already had insurance, but he said we’d get better treatment options if we paid out of pocket, and boy, was he right. The chemo that worked so well, so fast? Your father bankrolled that. The option covered by our insurance wasn’t as aggressive.”

“Your father’s tough,” adds Aunt Priscilla. “But he has these surprising moments of generosity, too.”

A lump has formed in my throat, and a stone settles in the pit of my stomach.

I’ve figured out his last bit of leverage. Aunt Priscilla’s treatment.

“That’s…so nice. Just wondering, how much does each treatment cost?” I ask. “You only have one left, right?”

“Yes!” says Aunt P., her voice filled with hope and happiness. “One more left!”

“And to answer your question,” my uncle adds, “I think the whole course of treatment for four months was—ooh, let’s see…um, about sixty-four thousand dollars.”

Oh. My. God.

“Wow! And he’s been paying all along? Every month?” I ask, trying to keep the fear out of my voice. “Or do they charge the whole four months at the end of treatment?”

“Yes. Month by month,” my uncle confirms. “He’s already paid forty-eight thousand dollars for us. I know it’s not much to him, but it’s been the difference between life and death for your aunt.”

My shoulders, bunched up around my ears, relax a touch. He’s already paid for three-quarters of her treatment.Phew. So, her final treatment will cost—I quickly do the math in my head—about sixteen thousand dollars. Sixteen thousand dollars.Holy cow.I only make $29.32 per hour. It would take over five-hundred hours of work to make the amount my aunt needs for her final treatment. I’ve been offered more hours after the new year, when the current office assistant moves to Montana, but right now, I only work twenty hours a week.

With my aunt out of work and the extra costs associated with her illness and treatment, money’s tight for my aunt and uncle. They don’t have sixteen thousand dollars lying around. And if I can’t give it to them—

“Why all the sudden questions about your father, honey?” asks my uncle.

“N-no reason,” I say. “Probably because it’s Thanksgiving. You know. Family and all.”

Family.Ha.My father has no idea what family is, what family can be. He only knows credit and debt, cold, hard business, and using those closest to him to get what he wants.

And I know exactly what my father’s going to demand for Aunt P.’s final treatment: me getting back together with Clark.

No way.

I won’t do it.

I’ll work three jobs to help my aunt pay for the treatment she needs, but I will never, ever go back to Clark-fucking-Rupert. He showed his true colors to me the last time we spoke, and they were uglier than I ever knew.

I rack my brain, trying to think of anything I own that’s worth several thousand dollars. I picture my room at Uncle Alan’s scanning it carefully in my mind, inventorying everything I own.

My designer sunglasses and the two Louis Vuitton bags I brought to Skagway might get five thousand dollars in a high-end second-hand shop in New York or Los Angeles, but it would take weeks to get them there, get them appraised and get the money. And besides, five thousand isn’t even a third of what I need.

Hmm. I brought a couple of pieces of jewelry with me. I have a pair of Pavé diamond earrings that might be worth another few thousand, and a couple of gold necklaces. Maybe those baubles, along with the sunglasses and bags, might be enough to get half of what I need?

I regret not bringing more with me. I have a bracelet sitting in Juneau that could—

Wait!

Suddenly, I remember the rock that’s been sitting on my finger for the last six months.My little shackle. When we spoke last weekend, Clark told me it was a piece of crap that I should “throw in the trash.” But maybe he just didn’t want it back because it was a symbol of our failed engagement. Clark wouldn’t have given me a piece of garbage. In fact, I remember him bragging to his friends about how much it cost. I don’t remember the exact number, but I remember thinking it was a lot. My heart lifts as I remind myself that Skagway, like most Alaskan cruise towns, has several very high-end jewelry stores. One of them should be able to appraise it for me this weekend and give me a fair price. Once I have that money in the bank,I can transfer it to Aunt P’s credit account at the hospital in Anchorage.

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