Growing up as the fourth man in a line of successful surgeons, our family had money, which gave me access to healthcare, even if you ignored the fact that my father was literally a doctor. Even if I hadn’t visited the hospital and made friends with nurses and doctors, I would have had no problem going to check-ups, getting tests done, and receiving my vaccinations.
But there are some kids—some people—who don’t have that privilege. Who have gone through their lives thinking of medical care as a sort of luxury, since food and shelter obviously came first.
That’s why the clinic is important. It helps to keep Chicago healthier, which benefits all of us.
“Right,” Cal clears his throat, and I see something close off in his face. I definitely don’t like that. “As you can see from the graphs I sent around this morning, I just don’t see any sort of budget change that’s going to reverse the negative trend.”
Negative trend?
“So, you’re suggesting…?” Ronald asks, raising his eyebrows, staring directly at Cal.
“It’s just good business,” Calvin says, tapping his pen against the table. “The clinic is nothing but a sinkhole. Donations have dried up, and frankly, this site has been hemorrhaging funds for a while now.”
All at once, it seems to click into place what’s happening.
“I’m sorry,” I say, though I’m not. I plant my hands on the table and stare directly at my cousin. “Forgive me if I’ve needed to catch up a bit. Iknowwe’re not talking about closing Dad’s clinic.”
I throw out the capitalD, just to remind these people who the hell is sitting in this spot. When I glance around the room again, all I see are dollar signs affixed to nice suits. Of course, Dad wanted me in this room.
We might not have always gotten along, but he knew I’d fight for something like this. Keep his legacy from turning to fucking stocks and margins.
“It doesn’t make any business sense to pour money into that clinic when we could be investing in something else,” Cal says, shrugging like we’re talking about tacos or wings for lunch.
I grind down on my molars to keep from standing up, walking over to him, and decking him right here. For some reason, I get the feeling that’s not going to help my case.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I drawl, leaning back, fiddling with a pen, doing my best to mask the fury I feel at the implication. “Maybe I’m sitting in the wrong chair. Maybe I had it all wrong, and my dad was not a surgeon and a philanthropist, but actually a ruthless businessman? It’s so weird, I seem to remember him saying something about doing no fucking harm…?”
Calvin’s brow lowers, and he stares at me with a stony expression.
“That’s all well and good,” Ronald says, from the head of the table. “But BHC is not a charity. And if we want to continue offeringanyservices, we have to be careful about how we allocate our funds.”
“How much?” I ask, and the room goes quiet.
“What?” Cal asks, narrowing his eyes at me. “What kind of question is that?”
I reach into my bag, pull out my checkbook—which I carry because of my father, so I guess he’s enabled me to be dramatic right now—and spread it out on the table.
“How much to keep the clinic from closing?”
“For how long?” Ronald asks, bewildered, his eyes on the checkbook. “For a month? The quarter?”
“Let’s go with a month. How much?”
Calvin lets out a low, annoyed groan. Very unprofessional.
“It would need at least fifty, if not sixty thousand,” a woman on the other side of the table says, tapping around efficiently on a tablet, then glancing up as though looking for clarification that there’s nowhere we can find that money.
“Great,” my heart thuds as I scrawl out a check. It’s a hefty sum—not necessarily to me, but even growing up the way I did, it’s not like I’ve really been a big spender. “Here.”
I slide the check cheekily down the table, watching as it flutters to a stop in front of Ronald, who picks it up, shaking his head, “Ninety thousand dollars. And what about next month, Russell? Are you just going to bankroll this thing? And how long until your accounts are clean and dry? I know how much the hospital is paying you, but even that isn’t enough for you to run this clinic single-handedly.”
“My inheritance,” I say, stretching the truth. “I’m rolling all of it into the clinic. So, there’s no closing it without consulting me, first.”
Cal’s head jerks over to me, but I ignore it.
The woman’s mouth drops open slightly, and the others around the table are unable to hide their surprise. It’s no secret that my father—even while being quite the philanthropist—invested in a lot of pharmaceutical and medical tech companies back in the eighties and nineties. His estate is worth a pretty penny.
Ronald looks at me through his bushy eyebrows. “Are you sure you want to do this, son?”
