“Bo Langston?” a nurse called.
Gage tucked Bo against his chest, stood, and grabbed his phone from where he’d set it. As he carried Bo toward the hall leading to the examination rooms, he returned the device to his pocket. It buzzed a few more times, then stopped, leaving Gage on his own.
The struggle was worth it. Soon enough, Aaron would come home, and Gage wouldn’t have to try so hard to make it on his own anymore. But until that day happened, he had to be strong. For Aaron, for Bo, and for himself.
* * *
“It’s not asthma,”Dr. Wilmot said. She smiled kindly at Bo, who closed his eyes and turned his head away, barely holding back tears. Gage trailed his fingers over Bo’s back, trying to show him it was okay, but no matter how sweet or attentive he was, Bo wasn’t comforted. “I’m afraid that this is beyond the scope of my expertise. What I can do is write you a referral to a respiratory physician.”
“Okay,” Gage said uneasily. “I think that’s a great idea. Thank you. Is, um… is a specialist visit covered under Bo’s Medicaid?”
“You’d have to talk to one of the clinic’s financial advisers,” Dr. Wilmot said. She tore free the top paper from a medical pad and handed it to Gage. “I believe that the visit should at least partially be covered, but oftentimes the tests needed to diagnose a patient aren’t.”
“Okay.” Gage clenched his throat to keep his voice from trembling. “How much are the tests?”
“Again, I’m not familiar. You’d really have to speak to someone in the office about the specifics.”
“I mean…” Gage let himself take a breath, pulled his thoughts together, and shut out his fear as best he could. “Can you ballpark it? You know, fifty dollars, five hundred dollars, ten thousand dollars…?”
Dr. Wilmot offered him a sympathetic smile. She straightened her lab coat and glanced at a chart on the wall. Gage followed her gaze, but saw nothing of importance. The fear he’d done his best to shut out burst through the dam walling off his emotions and flooded his chest—whatever she was about to say, she couldn’t bring herself to look at him when she said it, and that meant it couldn’t be good news. “Well, it’ll depend on what your respiratory physician wants to have done. X-rays will typically cost between three to four hundred dollars if you’re uninsured. A CT scan is typically north of a thousand dollars. If you need anything more invasive, the cost could rise—it depends on what your specialist will want to test for.”
“Okay.” Gage forced a smile and held it. It was the only way to hold back the floodwaters now rising in his chest. “Thank you.”
“Until then, you’ll want to make sure he takes it easy. No running around.”
“Right.” Bo hadn’t been the goofy, active boy Gage loved for the last few months, anyway. Play was the last thing on his mind when drawing breath while at rest was a struggle. “It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“I’d aim to get him in to see a respiratory therapist as soon as you can,” Dr. Wilmot said. Her gaze returned to Gage, but Gage was too crestfallen to meet it. Naively, he’d thought that Dr. Wilmot would give him answers—that with a few strokes of her pen, she’d write him a prescription for something that would make his boy better.
That Bo wouldn’t have to suffer anymore.
“I will,” Gage said. His voice was washed of its emotion, too drained from the onslaught of his panic to make the fake smile on his face reach his voice. He scooped Bo off the examination table and held him against his chest. “Thank you.”
Dr. Wilmot showed him to the door, where Gage thanked her quietly again before heading back down the hall and across the lobby. In a daze, he exited the clinic and strapped Bo into his car seat, kissed him on the top of his head, then buckled himself in behind the wheel and took a second to sit and stare out the windshield. He didn’t have thousands of dollars on hand to pay for testing, and another monthly payment felt like an impossibility. Where was he supposed to come up with a few extra hundred dollars a month?
Gage closed his eyes. He knew where the money needed to come from, and what he needed to do to get it, but it made him sick to think of working any more than he already was—and it made him sicker yet to imagine the things he’d need to do in order to bring that money in.
At last, he pushed the thought from his mind and forced a smile back onto his face. This time, it made it into his voice. It had to—he had no other choice. Bo needed him to be upbeat more than Gage needed to mourn what he was about to do. “It’s time to go home, baby. You ready for some lunch? Uncle Alex made sure that we have the mac and cheese with the animal-shaped pasta. Are you hungry enough to eat a zoo?”
“Yeah!” Bo exclaimed. His voice crackled, and he coughed. Gage’s heart broke.
“Then let’s go home,” Gage said as he turned the keys in the ignition. “Let’s see how many lions we can find in our lunch.”
That night, after Bo had settled down to sleep, Gage closed himself in his office, forgave himself for what he was about to do, and locked the door.
2
Aaron
A.Alcrest: You around, night owl? Missing you.
The tiny circle on the upper right corner of Gage’s icon was orange instead of green, which meant there was a fifty-fifty chance he’d reply. Aaron lifted his coffee to his lips and gently blew upon the surface, sending ripples across the darkened pool. Its heat warmed his upper lip, so he waited to sip, not eager enough to burn his tongue. Despite the early hour, he was more awake than he had been in weeks. The stress was finally over—he’d successfully defended his dissertation.
While Aaron waited for a reply, he went through his email. He’d received electronic confirmation that the university had received his oral defense paperwork, signed by his supervisor, as well as the corrected copies of his thesis. Another email informed him that his degree would be available in four to six weeks, and reminded him that he’d either need to pick it up in person, or authorize a representative to pick it up for him. Aaron planned to elect a representative, even though it meant additional paperwork—the few hours it would take to fill out the necessary forms was worth it. There were bigger, brighter things in his future, and he couldn’t wait to get to them.
Fifteen minutes passed while he worked on assembling the necessary documents. He received no response from Gage.
A.Alcrest: Did you fall asleep at the keyboard again?
