Chapter 3

On the other end, her father was still shouting when the line cut out with a flat click.

The screen flickered once and went dark. Dead battery.

The ward fell quiet again. I stood there holding the hot phone, glanced at the charging cable still plugged into the bedside table, then looked at Sonia.

She was still holding out her hand from passing me the phone, her arm frozen in the air, the stitches pulling at her freshly sewn wound.

The pain twisted her brows. Her hand shook, then slowly dropped.

Her face was drained white, her hair matted in tangles against her forehead. She looked like a flower beaten limp by the rain.

She hadn't always been like this.

The class beauty, reduced to this all at once, and I felt something in my chest, that dull knot I'd carried for so long, ease a little.

"The money. And the rest of the surgery fees. I'll pay for it."

Sonia's head snapped up, a flash of light in her eyes.

The woman in the next bed froze too, the hand she'd just wiped her eyes with stopping against her cheek. The way she looked at me shifted, as if she thought I'd finally come to my senses.

I ignored all the stares and pulled a pen and a folded slip of paper from the inside pocket of my jacket.

It was the back of a grocery receipt, the kind I usually kept on me to track my gas mileage.

"But."

I smoothed the paper flat on the bedside table and uncapped the pen.

"One thing at a time. You write me an IOU. Once you're back at work and earning, you pay me back, a little at a time."

The light in her eyes went out like a match snuffed by the wind.

Then she smiled, her mouth pulling into a shape uglier than crying, and shook her head, as if she'd seen it coming all along.

The ward exploded.

"Are you even human?"

"Your wife just came off the operating table giving you a son, and you're making her write an IOU?"

"I've never seen a man this outrageous in my whole life."

The woman in the next bed shot to her feet in a rage, one hand gripping the bed rail, the other pointed at me, her lips trembling for a long moment, though in the end she couldn't get out anything harsher.

Her daughter hurried to pull her back. "Mom, don't. It's their business."

The old man by the window slapped his reading glasses down on his newspaper, turned his head to look out at the night, and stopped watching.

I held the pen out to Sonia, my tone level, even a little considerate, as if I were sparing her. "You're weak, no need to write it yourself. I've filled it all out for you. Just look it over and sign."

I'd already listed everything on the paper. Surgery fee, hospital fee, medication fee, each line clear, coming to $1,530 in total. I hadn't written a repayment deadline, hadn't written any interest. I thought I'd already been very understanding with her.

Sonia looked at the crowded rows of writing on the back of that receipt, her eyes reddening, but she didn't cry again. She bit her lower lip, took the pen, her fingers still shaking, and scrawled her name in crooked strokes after the word "Debtor."

As she finished the last stroke, a tear dropped onto the paper and blurred a small patch of the three characters of her name.

She set the pen down and turned her head away, not looking at me.

I took out my phone, opened the payment app, typed in $1,530, and hit confirm.

The transfer chime rang out, unusually crisp in the quiet ward.

A little ding, like scanning a code to buy groceries at the market.

At the sound of it, Sonia stiffened, then pulled the blanket up over half her face, her shoulders shaking violently, the muffled sound of choked sobbing coming out from under it.

"Get out," her voice came through the blanket, muffled and trembling. "I never want to see you again."

I folded the IOU and slipped it into my pocket. I was still hesitating when a message came in from someone I knew.

It was Jonathan Perry.

"Eugene, coming out for a foot massage? That new place from last night, I'm telling you, there's this girl from down south, real sweet-looking, soft voice, kept asking this morning whether you'd be coming in again today. Come on, get moving, I've sent you the address."

I glanced back at Sonia in the bed, wrapped up tight under her blanket.

I quietly bent my head and typed: "On my way."

On the drive over, waiting at a red light, I rolled the window down. The early-autumn night wind poured in, cool against my skin.

I touched the IOU in my pocket, glanced at the massage parlor's address on the GPS, and stepped on the gas.

When I got to the place, the girl at the front desk recognized me and came up smiling. "Hey, want the same girl as yesterday?"

I took out my phone, pulled up the payment code, and paid $30,000.

"Yeah. And not just her. Go ahead and set me up with that premium membership you mentioned last time too."