The pie was great; delicious enough for him to forget that he really wasn’t hungry. What a bizarre day it had been! Some strange, beautiful woman walking in off the street and informing him that she’d had herself impregnated using his sperm. Asking him tomarryher as though she were ordering a cup of coffee.
And offering him a million dollars for the privilege.
Of course, he was right to turn her down. Just because she’d happened to select his profile for her insemination didn’t mean they were connected, anyway. And if he was honest, he was a teeny bit offended that it had taken so long for someone to pick him out of the catalogue.
I mean sheesh!
“Come in, Dustin. Hello, hello, do you read me?” Kim made a big show of tapping an imaginary microphone, blowing on it and repeating herself. “Do you hear me?”
He smiled. “I drifted away for a bit.”
“Yeah. Like you were in an armchair filled with helium balloons!”
“Sorry. You were saying?”
“Just asking about your day. You went to see Arabella? You said you would.”
Just the mention of his sister’s name made him brighten. “Yeah, I dropped in before I went to the parlor.”
“I missed my visit today because I had physical therapy. How’s she doing?”
He shrugged, trying not to communicate his concern. Arabella had been hospitalized for months, because the doctors were increasingly concerned about her condition. Her need for medication and dialysis was growing, and the search was on for a suitable kidney donor. It would just take time—and money. Much more money than he had.
“Looking good. Working on a massive puzzle, the kind that doesn’t have a picture on the cover. Four thousand pieces, I think.”
“Girl’s nuts,” Aaron said.
“We know.” They all grinned at each other, warmed by the mere idea of his sweet-natured teenage sister, but under their masks of smiles there was real concern.
Apart from the anxiety and uncertainty of waiting on a donor, there were also the finances. Arabella’s medical bills so far were enormous, and even though Dustin had taken another mortgage on the tattoo parlor—as Chantelle Moreau’s investigators had deduced—he’d barely made a dent in their debt. Their father’s small life insurance policy had taken care of his funeral and some of the bills, but it had also been eaten up by Kim’s immediate care after the accident, since she, too, had suffered serious injury.
Now, with the money all spent, and Arabella ineligible for Medicaid, the costs continued to grow.
As if reading his mind, Kim wheeled over to the coffee table and picked up an envelope. Immediately, he spotted the hospital’s logo in the upper left-hand corner. That couldn’t be good. The only mail that came from the hospital these days was bills.
Without saying a word, he took it from her hands. She’d already opened it. He pulled out the thick wad of papers, a long litany of itemized charges which he skipped over, preferring to zoom straight on the bottom line.
They owed several thousands of dollars. Not in total. Inadditionto everything they already owed for Arabella’s care.
Dustin felt light-headed, as if the ground was swaying and rising, then shifting away from him.
How the actual hell did anyone expect him to pay this?
He looked down to see Kim’s eyes fixed on him. They were wide, anxious, scared. He looked over, and Aaron was there, too, waiting for a reaction.
He schooled his features, willed them to reveal no emotion. None of the panic and frustration. None of the sinking, hopeless anxiety that he was feeling right now. He was the man of this family, and it was up to him to make sure they were all right.
The problem with that was… he didn’t know how.
Silently, he folded the sheaf of papers and tried to stuff them back into the envelope. But they didn’t seem to fit.
Great. Wonderful.
He wanted to slap them down onto the coffee table, fruitlessly channel his frustration that way, but didn’t like to alarm anyone. Instead, he put them down carefully, straightened his back and said, “Gonna take a shower.”
The others nodded, knowing it was a bad idea to ask any questions.
As he walked up the stairs, his whole body burned with anger, frustration and shame. He was the go-to guy, dammit, especially since his dad, God rest his soul, was gone. Dustin knew that everything was up to him.