Chapter 2

Her words sat badly with me.

Holding it back, I asked,

"What do you mean by that?"

"Are you playing dumb when you know full well?"

My cousin shot the accusation at me, vicious.

"Great-Uncle Roland was so good to you two your whole lives, and now, when he needs you, this is what you do."

"How can you be this heartless? How can you just give up on treatment?"

I explained,

"It's not giving up, it's—"

"Don't feed me that garbage." Sandra shouted,

"I don't care how much it costs, Great-Uncle Roland gets treated."

Sandra had always been even tighter with money than Uncle Howard.

Hearing her say that caught me off guard.

"It's not that we don't want him to have the surgery. The doctor said the risk is high, and even if it works, there's a strong chance he ends up in a coma."

Sandra roared,

"Then he gets treated anyway!"

"We can't fail Great-Uncle Roland. We can't have no conscience!"

Listening to how righteous she sounded, I asked,

"But the surgery costs eight hundred thousand. Who's paying for it?"

Sandra scoffed,

"So it really is about the money."

"You heartless little thing."

"After everything Great-Uncle Roland did for you, now you're worried about the money? Are you even human?"

The way she said it, you'd think I was some kind of monster.

But the truth was, when we were kids, it was Sandra he treated best of all.

Take the holiday cash gifts.

Sandra always got a thousand from him. My sister and I got five hundred.

If she hadn't bragged about her holiday money the year she turned sixteen,

my sister and I probably never would have known.

Or take that investment insurance policy Sandra bought as a kid.

Over eight thousand a year, paid for twenty straight years, with annual dividends once it matured.

My sister and I both envied her for it.

At first I assumed Uncle Howard had bought it because he doted on his daughter.

But later, drunk one night, he said it himself,

"Me? Buy something like that? Not a chance."

"That was all your cousin's idea. I only paid the first year."

"After that, every time a payment came due, she'd go crying to Great-Uncle Roland and get him to cover it."

"I'll give her this, the girl's got a knack for it. She actually got him to pay twenty years of premiums."

"Now she collects money every year. Clever girl."

And that wasn't all.

After she graduated, Sandra borrowed fifty thousand from him to buy a car.

Later, when she bought a place out of town, she borrowed another hundred thousand from him.

Borrowed, supposedly. She never paid back a cent.

So if you actually tallied it up,

Sandra was the one he'd looked after most, and the one who owed him the most.

But she'd moved away after graduation.

Whenever he got sick or something came up, it was my sister and me who took care of him.

She never lifted a finger.

Every time it came up, she'd say,

"Isn't that exactly what you younger ones are supposed to do?"

"You want to brag about doing that little?"

"What's your real angle here?"

But now Great-Uncle Roland was already like this, and a lot of the accounts couldn't be settled.

There was no point saying any of it.

I thought for a moment, then said,

"Sandra, you'd better think this through."

"Set the eight hundred thousand aside for a second."

"If Great-Uncle Roland ends up in a coma, who's going to take care of him?"

Sandra snapped,

"You, obviously. You're his nephew. If you don't, who will?"

I laughed.

"Sandra, if that's how you want to play it, that's pretty heartless, don't you think?"

"He treated you the best. You're the one who spent the most of his money."

Sandra seemed to have seen it coming. Her voice went cold.

"I knew you were an ungrateful little brat who can't stand to see anyone else do well."

"Fine. You, me, and your sister. The three of us take turns caring for him. That work for you?"

Before I could answer, she pressed on, firm again,

"Bottom line, Great-Uncle Roland gets treated."

"I'm flying back right now. The family-signature line, all three of us sign it together."