Stay Vertical (The Bare Bones MC #2)(10)

Madison nodded knowingly. It was interesting that we both had gone into fields where we attempted to help people. “Water is the big thing everywhere, what with global warming. Listen. I know you’re here on a mission, June. You’ve got ‘mission’ written in giant letters all over your face. You might as well be carrying a giant wooden cross and wearing pauper’s robes, you’re so missionary. Tell me. What is it you want me to do about Ingrid?”

Relief washed through me that she’d guessed my goal. New panic set in about her reaction to it. “Well. You know she has no insurance, of course. Don got her onto Medicaid, but they only cover a certain portion of it.”

Madison’s mouth was a thin line. “I see.”

I blundered ahead. “I guess she stopped dealing crystal awhile back when she just wasn’t up to it anymore, so everything’s fallen to shit. The heat apparently hasn’t worked in a while which was fine over the summer, but not now.”

“Well. What did she expect? Even people from her generation need to save for a rainy day. It’s not just us young ‘uns who need to scrimp and save.”

“I know. I couldn’t agree more. She lived from day to day, and everyone knew the time would come when she’d have nothing to fall back on.”

“Yes. What do you want me to do about it?”

“Well. She obviously needs to be in some kind of facility.”

“How much longer do they estimate she has? If it’s that aggressive—”

“That’s the thing. There’s only a three percent chance she’ll survive five years. So we’re not looking at long-term care.”

I told Madison some of the options available with Medicaid’s help, but I could see her eyes were glazing over. I couldn’t believe that even the most neglected and abused child would not step up to the plate when it came to a parent’s death. I just couldn’t. She called me the chosen one, but I only had a marginally better lifestyle than her because I had more upscale friends. If Madison’s friends had been nerds and bookworms, she might’ve had better dining tables to sit at, too. As it was, she hung with the thugs-n-drugs crowd, so her nightly meal was a bag of Doritos around her campfire.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Standing, Maddy took her glass to the window and gazed out at the red rocks. I came up behind her, because I liked to look at those spires, too. “I hear you, June, I really do. See, the thing is. That old witch never did one tiny thing to help me.” She turned to face me, and her features were hard, determined. “Not the tiniest. She’d scream if I took the last banana. I only owned two pairs of pants, and I’m sure you remember how embarrassing that is to a teenager. Then she says we can’t even wash our pants because we can’t waste water? I was starving through my entire teen years, June. Whenever I couldn’t stay at Sabrina’s, I stole food from the market. Once, I even had a fight with Sabrina so I hitch-hiked down to Mexico. Alone, June, alone! I remember when it was, too, because it was that month that f*cking serial killer was cruising up and down highway seventeen, and I was hitch-hiking in the same place on the same day as that chick whose arms he later cut off. When I got home, what did Ingrid say? ‘Oh, hi, Madison. Gone with the Wind is on TV now.’ She didn’t even notice I was gone. I was fourteen, June.”

“I know. I know. I know.” I didn’t know what else to say, really. I knew this was going to be a hard sell, but the more I listened to Madison, the more futile it felt. “We don’t owe her a thing. I couldn’t agree more. You’re preaching to the choir here, Maddy. The thing is…Could you really live with yourself if you didn’t help a little bit? It’s only for another year or so, and it’s only a couple thousand a month. I know nurses don’t make a lot, but it seems like Ford’s doing all right. He used to know Ingrid. He seems like he has a heart. Could you agree to help out for, say, maybe one year, tops?”

“No.” Just that one word, short and clipped. “No.”

“No? Because without it, Maddy, the only place we can afford to put her is one of those horrible, real low-budget joints where they put all of the drug addicts with no other resources. She’d be shoved into a ward with about thirty other dying meth heads who look like Auschwitz survivors and—”

“Well. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right? Now.” Madison strode back to the credenza where she banged her empty glass down. Heavy male boots were heading down the interior hallway that bisected all the hangar offices of various estimators, accounting types, and foremen. Lots of teamsters and truck drivers had been coming and going, but the hollow sound of these boots stood out with authority.

Even Madison turned around to face the closed door. Alert, obeying. I could easily read the excitement in her face before Ford even entered the room. Jesus, what a man. I had heard he’d been hit by some IED in Afghanistan or wherever he’d been patrolling as a SEAL. The ropey, thick scarring of his jaw didn’t even begin to detract from his innate beauty. His father had been Italian, and I guess Speed had told me he’d recently found out his mother was Apache, right before she died. Knowing that now, I could see it in the profile of his hooked nose as he gathered Maddy in his arms and bent a bit at the knees to kiss her on the mouth.

He crushed her lovingly, his lips lingering on hers. Jealousy burned in the pit of my stomach and I wanted to slap myself. This was my sister here! She deserved Ford, and everything that came with Ford, and then some. It was just a childish crush of mine, and an absurd one too, thinking Ford would ever be mine. Still, I had to turn away, and I even wished I could drink some of the Jack Daniels.