“Nothing.”
“Are you saying that because you don’t want to tell me or because you’re trying to convince yourself you’re not upset about something?”
The pale smile flashed again. “Maybe a little of both.”
He set Moxie down and fished out the dog biscuit from his pocket. She snatched it from his grasp and went trotting back to her bed. Hands free, Denver framed Misty’s face, brushing a gentle kiss over her lips before combing her hair back with his fingers. “Talk to me.”
She turned to look at the glass thing on the table. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Hale’s work. He always sends me something truly exquisite on this day.”
“Why today?”
“Trying to cheer me up, I suppose.” She sighed. “You remember I told you that I ended up here because a friend had given me one of Hale’s pieces, and I tracked him down?”
“Yeah.”
“Judy wasn’t a typical friend. She was this woman I got to know through my job. I was the managed care specialist at her HMO.”
A sick feeling set up in Denver’s gut as he grabbed another stool and sat across from her.
“She first called in because of a denied claim. It was a common enough thing. The insurance industry is obnoxiously and needlessly complicated. People were usually pretty upset by the time they got to me. I can’t tell you how many times I got told off. But Judy didn’t do any of that. She was the sweetest thing. Said she was sure there was some kind of a mistake and that she had faith that I could fix it. I told her I’d do my best and that she might want a snack because this kind of thing of thing took a while. She said she was making cookies, and we got off on this tangent where she told me all about her recipe for snickerdoodles and how they were her grandchildren’s favorite. I took down all of her information to look into the situation and promised to call her back. She sent me snickerdoodles the next day.”
Even as the memory made her smile, that sick feeling continued to grow in his belly.
“A lot of my job was sorting out the complicated legalese of contracts—I’d gone to law school, if you can imagine that.”
“I have a really hard time seeing you in a courtroom.”
“So did I. That’s why I dropped out after my second year. But I understood contracts, and I kind of fell into this job. I certainly didn’t love it. Didn’t even like it most of the time. But I was drowning under my parents’ disapproval and massive student debt for a degree I didn’t get. Anyway, so I started digging into Judy’s case. It took a while. I had lots of cases. Lots of details and minutia to sort through. Sometimes I’d call her. Sometimes she’d call me. But we ended up talking a few times a week. I’d update her on the great big nothing I was accomplishing, apologize for the system, and then we’d just talk about life stuff. Those calls were the highlights of my week.”
“Did you get her sorted out?”
“For that first claim, yeah. But while I was messing with all that, her condition got worse. Her doctor said she needed a particular procedure. So she started all the pre-approval paperwork, but it got hung up. That part wasn’t even on me, but I knew the system better than the person assigned to it. She needed that surgery.” Misty’s voice shook. “I managed to parse out that the problem was a conflict between her primary policy and her Medicare supplement. The procedure her doctor wanted to perform was not the conventional treatment. He’d said the conventional wouldn’t work and he wanted to take a more aggressive approach. The way the contracts were written, neither insurer was actually going to cover it without exhausting all the conventional—aka cheaper options—first. Because why on earth should insurance we pay for cover the things we actually need, right? She couldn’t afford a three hundred thousand dollar surgery out of pocket.”
Denver tasted the bitterness of her tone on his own tongue.
“I couldn’t tell her that. I couldn’t tell her that there were no more options. So I put her off, and I researched my ass off, trying to find something, anything that could help her. By that time, we were talking every day. And then one day, she didn’t call. And she didn’t answer when I called her house.”
He knew how this would end before she said it and curled his fists against the futility of it.
“Another day passed, and another. And I finally found it. The damned loophole she needed to get her surgery paid for. When I still couldn’t get her by phone, I went to her house. We had her address in the system. I was breaking all sorts of rules, but I had to tell her. It was a young woman who answered the door. A few years older than me. She’d been crying. Somewhere deep down, I knew. But I went ahead and introduced myself and asked if I could speak to Judy.” Misty sucked in a breath and blinked back tears. “She’d died two days before.”
Denver closed his eyes, fighting back the choking rage. “Too little, too late,” he bit out.
“Yeah. I expected her to slam the door in my face. Instead, she invited me inside. She said her mother had talked of me often, and she’d left me something in her will. I couldn’t imagine what. We were…well more than strangers by that point, but..” Misty trailed off, struggling against emotion. “She’d left me the globe. It was beautiful. All bleeding colors and this sort of vignette inside that looked like the moon and stars. She said it was called Moonbeams and Sweet Dreams, and it had been one of Judy’s favorites. I didn’t know then what it was worth, but I thanked her daughter and took it. Then I turned in my letter of resignation. I didn’t know what I was going to do next, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I could go back to that job. Eventually, I ended up here. I started this shop as a way to honor her memory.”
Misty lifted her gaze to his. “Today is the four year anniversary of her death. It always gets me down.”
She needed comfort and kindness. Denver recognized that. But he couldn’t seem to make himself lift his hand to touch her.
She was one of them.
“I’m sorry.” They were, if not the right words, acceptable words. They were all he could manage past the noxious swirl of shit her story had stirred up. He needed to get the hell out of here before he spewed any of it out and made everything worse. “I hope the sandwich helps. I have to go.”
“Go?” She blinked, those big, trusting brown eyes he suddenly couldn’t look at anymore. “You’re not staying to eat with me?”
“No. I have a…thing.” Denver took a step back, then another. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, and walked away.
~*~