Kathy’s hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Oh, sweetheart.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. Real tears. The kind that came from somewhere deep and unguarded.
“A baby,” she said. “Jason, you’re going to be a father.”
“Yeah, Mom,” Jason said with a slight smile. “We wanted to tell you in person on Mother’s Day.”
“That’s wonderful,” Kathy said, her voice breaking. “That’s just wonderful.”
She reached across the table and grasped Amber’s wrist like she was holding onto a lifeline.
Amber patted Kathy’s hand twice, then gently pulled away and picked up her wine glass.
“We’re very excited,” she said, and took a sip.
That was the first thing I noticed.
Fourteen weeks pregnant, and she was drinking wine like it was water.
Maybe I was old-fashioned. Maybe things had changed. But Kathy had not touched a drop of alcohol when she was carrying Jason. Not 1. The ultrasound bothered me too. I had seen enough of them from friends and old firehouse buddies showing off grandchildren. They all looked similar, sure, but this one looked too perfect, too textbook, like an image pulled from a medical website.
I kept my mouth shut.
What was I supposed to do at the table? Accuse my daughter-in-law of faking a pregnancy? Call my son a liar on Mother’s Day?
So I sat there and watched Kathy cry tears of joy while Amber finished her wine and Jason went back to his phone.
“You’re going to be a grandfather, Hank,” Kathy said, turning to me with a radiant smile. “Can you believe it?”
“That’s great news,” I said.
The words felt like stones in my mouth.
Our first grandchild.
Our only, probably.
At 69, with failing kidneys and a foot ulcer that would not heal, Kathy was not likely to see many more milestones. But she did not say that. She just smiled through her tears and asked Amber about due dates, doctors, names, nursery colors.
And I thought again, where did it all go?
The $2 million.
It should have grown. It should have become $4 million by then. Maybe $5 million. Invested properly, it should have made Jason secure and given him room to help the people who had emptied themselves for him.
Instead, Kathy and I were 2 months behind on rent.
She had been rationing insulin for months because we could not afford the out-of-pocket cost after our insurance lapsed. Her medication was $750 a month. Between the mortgage we had lost, utilities, taxes, hospital bills, and everything else, there had simply not been enough.
On March 10, 2024, I woke at 6:00 to find her sitting on the edge of the bed, swaying. Her nightgown was soaked with sweat. Her skin felt cold and clammy.
I grabbed the secondhand glucose monitor from her nightstand, pricked her finger with shaking hands, and watched the number appear.
Normal should have been under 120.
Anything over 200 was dangerous.
450 meant her body was eating itself from the inside out.
“We’re going to the hospital,” I said.
“Hank, we can’t afford—”
“Now, Kathy.”
I half carried her to the car. She threw up twice on the drive to Phoenix General. The doctors called it diabetic ketoacidosis. Potassium imbalance. Severe dehydration. They stabilized her, but Dr. Sarah Morrison told me in the hallway that it could not happen again.
“The insulin,” she said. “She needs it. Full doses. Every day. If she keeps rationing, next time we may not bring her back.”
The bill came to $12,847.
One week before that, on March 3, I had sat in another doctor’s office and heard my own sentence.
Stage 2 prostate cancer.
PSA level 47.
Treatment recommended immediately.
Estimated cost: $78,500.
I folded the paperwork and put it in the glove compartment of my truck.
I never told Kathy.
How could I? She was already cutting insulin to stay alive. How could I tell her we needed another $78,500 for me?
So 7 days later, while her body collapsed in front of me, I carried the secret of my own diagnosis in silence.
And then, on the second day of her hospital stay, I heard my son.
I had stepped into the hallway to use the restroom. Kathy was sleeping at last, machines beeping softly beside her bed. Around the corner, Jason’s voice came low but not low enough.
“I’m just saying, it’s $50,000. The policy’s been paid up for years.”
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