“I thought she was funding all of it.” “She covers the hospital bill,” Brady said.

“My other debts, and your cash — I already pulled that from somewhere else.

I called my father this morning.” My hand tightened on the doorframe until my nails bit the wood.

My father, Herbert, had retired the year before, forty years on his feet at a steel plant, and everything he had was in a retirement account he guarded like a man who knew exactly what each dollar had cost him.

“I told the old man the hospital wouldn’t prep the room without a big deposit up front,” Brady went on, pleased with himself.