Ramirez said.

“The operating room is locked on my schedule.

The hospital’s legal department will deal with his policy cancellation after the surgery is done.”

She reached down, gave Grace’s hand a gentle squeeze, and headed back out to the hallway.

Once the heavy door clicked shut behind her, I unzipped the bottom side pocket of my canvas shoulder bag.

I took out the blue cloth pouch I had pulled from my grandmother’s porcelain teapot two nights earlier and unzipped the top to show the neat stack of bills inside.

There were twelve hundred dollars in crisp twenty-dollar bills, saved fifty dollars at a time from my guidance secretary paychecks over three years.