I tapped again, harder this time, until the glass finally slid down three inches.
“I’m late for the regional meeting, Sarah,” he said, his thumb hovering over the screen.
I held up the brass key I had taken from the silver key ring. “Your mother says you’re paying for Melissa’s storage unit.”
Eric’s gaze didn’t leave his phone. “She had nowhere else to put the oak table.”
“You told me that three hundred dollars was for a new lawnmower part,” I said.
“It’s temporary,” he said, his voice flat and defensive. “Melissa has to clear out of her apartment by the first of October.”
“That is her lease expiration, Eric, not our emergency,” I said.
“She has two kids, Sarah,” he said, his thumb scrolling through a text thread. “She’s their mother.”
“And why does she need a front door key today?” I asked.
“Mom is just being organized,” Eric said, shifting the car into reverse. His foot rested hard on the brake pedal. “She wants to make sure the kids don’t get locked out when they get here.”
“They aren’t registered for school in this district,” I said.
He let the car roll back an inch, his eyes still fixed on the screen in his lap. “We have to think about the kids, Sarah.”
He rolled the window up before I could answer. The glass reflected the gray morning sky, hiding his face from me.
I stood in the driveway until his taillights disappeared around the corner of the block.
The third-floor office of the medical group smelled of ozone, old carpet, and half-cold black coffee. I sat at my desk with a stack of quarterly insurance audits, but the numbers kept blurring into the shape of a yellow legal pad.
Jane, my lead biller, leaned over my shoulder with a green folder of unpaid medical claims. “Did you get those updated health insurance cards from Eric’s office yet?”
“He said he was still waiting on human resources,” I said.
Jane frowned, her reading glasses sliding down her nose. “That’s odd. They usually issue those online within forty-eight hours.”
“He says they are changing provider networks,” I said.
“Let’s check the state health plan portal,” Jane said, pulling a rolling chair next to mine. “If he’s still under your policy, it should show his primary coverage.”
