“Why would he use another name for medical bills?” I asked, though my throat felt tight as I said it.
Gary did not answer. He slowly folded the photocopy, creased it with his thumbnail, and slipped it into his breast pocket.
“Let us go to my office,” Gary said. “I want to run a search through the county registry before the courts close for the day.”
The air in Gary’s office in the Oak Creek professional park smelled of old carpets and toner. He sat behind his wide mahogany desk, the computer screen reflecting off his forehead as his fingers clicked against the keyboard.
“The public records are always thirty days behind,” Gary said, waiting between his words as if he were counting the seconds. “But the civil filings show everything.”
“What did you find?” I asked.
He turned the monitor toward me, his hand resting on a yellow legal pad where he had jotted down several dates. Three documents from the county clerk were displayed on the screen, stamped in red ink.
“Three outstanding foreclosure notices,” Gary said. “On his workshop, the storage yard, and his personal property.”
The dates on the first two notices matched the exact week Ben had told me his back pain had become too severe to lay tile. He had cried on my shoulder that evening in my kitchen, telling me he was glad he had me to help him through his final months.
“He owes two hundred and twelve thousand dollars to local subcontractors,” Gary said.
“He told me he paid them all off when he retired,” I said. My fingers tightened around the strap of my purse.
“If he does not settle these debts by the fifteenth of November, the bank takes the workshop,” Gary said.
November fifteenth was the exact deadline the probate court had set for the release of my father’s inheritance funds. I stared at the red stamps on the screen, the numbers blurring into a single, heavy weight.
“It is a lot of money to lose, Clara,” Gary said, pausing as he looked at me. “And your marriage last week complicates things.”
“He is dying, Gary,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “We married so I could take care of him.”
“If those scans are clean, Clara, then we are looking at something far worse than a medical mistake,” Gary said.
He wrote a phone number on his yellow pad and pushed it toward me. “Keep your eyes open tonight. Do not sign anything he gives you.”
In Room 312, the only light came from the small television mounted on the wall, showing an old game show with the sound turned down. The smell of institutional floor wax was stronger than usual, and a silver-plated water pitcher sat on the bedside table, sweating in the warm air.
Ben lay with his knees pulled up, his face pressed into the stiff hospital pillow.
“It is a sharp pain, Clara,” Ben whispered, rubbing his left temple with his knuckles. “Like a hot iron right under my ribs.”
“Should I call Dr. Paulson?” I asked, standing by the metal bedside table.
