Oliver’s Doctor
Chapter 06 - Oliver’s Doctor
Clare did not remember crossing the room.
One moment she stood by the study door with her treatment bag on her shoulder.
The next, Gabriel’s phone was in her hand and she was reading the name on the screen.
Harold Madsen, M.D.
Consulting Neurology Review.
Mercy Children’s Hospital.
Oliver Bennett.
Her son.
The letters shifted out of order.
“No.”
Sebastian moved his wheelchair closer. “Clare.”
“No.” Her voice sounded too calm. “He isn’t Oliver’s doctor. I would know.”
Gabriel said, “Consultant reviews sometimes happen through insurance boards without patient contact.”
“That is not an answer that improves my breathing.”
Sebastian looked at Gabriel. “How?”
“The same foundation that covered part of Oliver’s filtration machine approved the neurology review.”
“What foundation?” Clare asked.
Gabriel did not answer quickly enough.
Sebastian did.
“Lombardi Children’s Fund.”
Clare stared at him.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
She wanted to believe him.
She hated that she did.
Her life had taught her to mistrust money with no face. Hospital social workers called it assistance. Donors called it giving back. Parents called it staying alive another month. Nobody explained which strings had been sewn beneath the paperwork.
“What did he review?” she asked.
Gabriel scrolled.
“Medication coverage. Equipment renewal. Transplant priority documentation.”
Clare’s knees weakened.
Sebastian noticed and turned sharply. “Sit.”
“I don’t want to sit.”
“Your face says otherwise.”
“My face can mind its business.”
It was a ridiculous answer.
The room held it carefully.
Then Gabriel said, “There is a denial attached.”
Clare stopped breathing.
“What denial?”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “A request for an upgraded home filtration system was marked not medically urgent.”
“That machine keeps him out of the hospital.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” Her voice cracked then, humiliatingly. “You don’t know what it is to calculate electricity use against medication, or to pretend rice and eggs are a choice, or to smile at a child while reading a letter that says necessary does not mean covered.”
Sebastian looked as if she had struck him.
Good, she thought.
Let something hurt in this house besides me.
“I’ll fix it,” he said.
The phrase lit a match inside her.
“With what? A phone call? A threat? A check that makes everyone behave until you look away?”
His face went cold.
She did not stop.
“My son is not another thing for you to move because it offends you.”
“Clare.”
“No. I came here because I needed money and because Gabriel made it very clear what saying no might cost me. I stayed because your injury deserved truth. But do not stand in front of me and act as if you understand what it means to have a child’s life negotiated by strangers in clean offices.”
Silence.
Gabriel looked toward the floor.
Sebastian looked at her.
Not angrily.
Carefully.
“You’re right,” he said.
That stopped her.
“I don’t understand,” he continued. “But I know what it is to have my body negotiated by people who believed they loved me.”
The sentence found her despite every defense.
Clare pressed one hand over her mouth.
“I need to go home.”
“My driver—”
“No.”
Sebastian nodded once. “Gabriel, take her. No blindfold. No men outside her building unless she asks.”
Gabriel said, “Sebastian—”
“Unless she asks.”
Clare gathered her things with hands that would not cooperate.
At the door, Sebastian said her name.
She turned.
He held the missing addendum on his lap.
“I will find out why Madsen is near your son.”
“Don’t do it for me.”
“I’m not.”
His eyes moved to the paper.
“I’m doing it because the same man who helped bury my chance may be deciding Oliver’s.”
Clare did not forgive him.
But she believed that.
At home, Oliver was awake, sitting at the kitchen table in his dinosaur pajamas while Mrs. Alvarez made tea.
“Mom, you’re early.”
“It’s almost midnight, baby.”
“Still early for you.”
Clare laughed because the other option was crying.
She held him too tightly. He tolerated it for five seconds, then patted her back like she was the patient.
“Did the scary job go bad?” he whispered.
She pulled away. “Who told you it was scary?”
“You wear your brave face when things are scary.”
Mrs. Alvarez looked away politely.
Clare brushed Oliver’s hair from his forehead.
“It got complicated.”
“That means bad but not finished.”
He was eight and too smart because poverty aged children in strange, unfair increments.
“Yes,” she said softly. “Bad but not finished.”
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
She nearly ignored it.
Then a message appeared.
Do not trust the Lombardi man. He was never meant to move again. Neither is your son’s place on the list.
Below the text was a photograph.
May you like
Oliver.
Sleeping through the window of their apartment.
