CHAPTER 3
From the bedroom, which doubled as a cramped home office, I opened a Safari browser on my MacBook Pro and typed the URL for my bank’s Web site. Afternoon sunlight spilled into the room from two windows, which the building’s superintendent kept promising to clean, while a steady breeze fluttered the curtains, casting movable shadows on the scuffed hardwood floor. Ginger, the orange tabby cat Ruby had adopted from the ASPCA last winter, perched herself on my lap and purred her pleasure. Her head darted all about, on a mouse hunt perhaps, as we’d had quite a few recent sightings. Not that we lived in a total dive, but this wasn’t the Ritz, either.
Seeing nothing of interest, Ginger opted instead to stick her head inside my water glass. Reflexively, I tilted the glass, allowing Ginger a drink, because that was what I’d done a thousand times before. Ginger had grown accustomed to drinking water out of a glass, and we hadn’t the time or inclination to break her of this curious habit. Meanwhile, my left hand deftly keyed in the username and password combination for my bank account. Ruby hovered close behind, scratching Ginger’s orange head while her kitty drank.
“How much is in the checking account?” Ruby asked.
I clicked. Then I clicked again.
“Two thousand,” I said. “Give or take a thousand.”
Ruby grimaced. “What? Why are we so low?”
“Um, let’s see. We’re down to one income, which after business expenses, food, taxes, car payment, my school loan, your tuition, and utilities . . . leaves us with just about zero every month.”
“Oh, goodness.”
Ruby didn’t ask me about our savings account. She knew I had drained it long ago to climb the Kang. “Live the life you want to live today,” is what Ruby always preached. It’s one of the reasons I loved her so much. She didn’t just support my passions—she actually got me.
Today I just wanted Ruby to live. It’s funny how life gets really centered, and really quickly, too, when you’re forced to confront what’s truly important. Each day, each moment Ruby and I had together, her health, her comfort, that’s what I cared about now. That’s all I cared about. I reached over my shoulder and grabbed hold of her delicate wrist. Ginger, surprised by the sudden movement, leapt from my lap and onto the floor with a soft meow.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s going to be fine.”
“Do you know how much our insurance is going to cover?”
“No. But I have a call in to Atrium. They should be calling back soon. We’ll figure it all out, I promise.”
Ruby sighed and flopped down on the bed—technically, just a mattress and box spring on the floor. Bed frames were for grownups, she once said. I admired her from my desk chair, taking in every detail like a slow, calming breath. Ruby, beautiful and lithe, fit her surroundings the way a tiger blends into the jungle. I had ceded all apartment-decorating decisions to my wife. The furniture came from various consignment shops. The color scheme, turquoise and white, evoked a feeling of living in a beach cottage, because that was where she longed to be—an ocean community, replete with artsy people who valued acupuncture and holistic healing. Clutter, she kept to a minimum. Everything about our home was peaceful, like Ruby before her disease.
“You know what’s weird?” Ruby said as she gazed absently up at the cracks in the ceiling, her arms bent at the elbows, hands interlocked and resting behind her head. “I don’t feel sick, just tired.”
“Hopefully, after that drug, we won’t have to know what cancer feels like.”
Ruby sat up and got cross-legged on the bed. “That drug sounded worse than the cancer.”
“That drug is the most important thing in our lives.”
“Liver problems. Irregular heartbeat. Skin rashes. Upset stomach. F*ck this, John. I mean it. F*ck having f*cking cancer. I can’t stand it.”
I got up from my chair and plunked myself down on the bed beside Ruby. I put a hand on her knee but knew not to hug her. Ruby could be like Ginger that way. At times she wanted to be petted and scratched; other times she was too prickly to be touched. But I kept my hand resting on her knee, knowing she’d eventually cave in to wanting comfort. When she fell against my chest, I wrapped her in my arms and wouldn’t let go.
“Are you ready to tell your mother?” I asked, brushing Ruby’s hair from her face and eyes.
Ruby pulled away and sighed. “Sure,” she said, “but I’m not expecting anything.”
“She might surprise you,” I said.
“How? By getting sober and buying a plane ticket?”
“Something like that.”
Ruby shrugged off her mother the way I had the cost of her medication.
“I won’t hold my breath.”
The phone call from Atrium came an hour later. Ruby was fast asleep in the bedroom, cocooned within a burrow of blankets. Ginger was nestled up next to her and making that super-loud “I’m the happiest cat in the world” purr.
The agent from Atrium, a whiny-sounding man, introduced himself as Leonard Tate. “How are you doing this afternoon?” he asked.
I thought he sounded young—maybe just a few ticks past his frat party years. I told him what was going on with Ruby and how her doctor was going to prescribe her a course of treatment for Verbilifide.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tate said, not sounding all that sorry to me.
“I wanted to make sure that everything checks out okay for my wife’s treatment as far as our insurance coverage goes before we start,” I said.
“Of course,” Tate said.
The line went uncomfortably silent. I could hear fingers tapping away at a keyboard. He seemed to make an impossible number of keyboard clicks for the information he’d set out to retrieve. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack.
Following an interminable amount of time, Tate asked for my health insurance account numbers, which I already had given to the annoying phone tree disguised as Julie, a saccharine-sounding computerized agent who couldn’t have been less helpful if she spoke only Yiddish. I didn’t bother asking Tate why Julie couldn’t pass along my account numbers to a living, breathing person. It’s been my experience that most large companies have antiquated technologies. And Atrium, both large and anonymous, trumped all other insurance companies with the lowest customer satisfaction ranking according to Ranker.com, which compiled such lists from actual customers. The Internet was a powerful equalizer that way. If you failed to meet customer expectations, you’d be sure to hear about it. Atrium knew to offset their prickly corporate culture and rankled consumer base with the lowest rates going. The bottom line was, we couldn’t afford better insurance coverage.
Tate keyed in the numbers as I read them. More silence. More fingers tapping away, but this time I could hear Tate make a couple deep sighs—disconcerting, to say the least—immediately followed by yet more finger tapping. I imagined Tate was seated inside a cubicle somewhere. Maybe he had a plant on his desk. A picture of his girlfriend, perhaps. Did this stranger understand the importance of our conversation? Did he realize lives were at stake? Could he relate to me as more than just a health insurance account number on the other end of his headset?
The answer, according to Ranker.com, left little doubt.
“So, Mr. Bodine, I’ve pulled up your health-care policy, and I’m afraid there’s a problem with the coverage.”
I felt the floor drop out from underneath me. “What do you mean, a problem? My payments are automatically deducted from my bank account,” I said.
“This isn’t an issue with the status of your coverage. That’s not in question.”
“Then what is?”
A creeping sense of dread started at my toes and began to inch its way up through my body.
“Your plan will not cover the cost of Verbilifide, because there’s a generic alternative available,” Tate said.
My loud and relieved sigh made Ginger look, though Ruby, still buried beneath her many blankets, didn’t budge.
“For a second there I thought we were going to have a real problem,” I said. “The generic drug for Verbilifide isn’t available,” I explained. “You can check that with Ruby’s doctor if you need confirmation.”
“Yes, well . . .” Tate hesitated in a way I didn’t like one bit.
“Yes, well, what?” I said.
“The actual availability of the medication isn’t the issue as far as our policy is concerned. Technically, there is a generic alternative.”
My pulse started jackhammering away, and I knew my voice would waver if I tried to speak. I felt my face flush as I attempted to swallow down a simmering rage.
“It’s not available,” I said, speaking the words loudly, as if maybe that would aid his comprehension. “It’s out of stock.”
“Yes, well, when it gets in, it will be covered—minus your deductible, of course.”
“Minus my . . . when it gets in stock . . . What . . . what are you trying to say?”
Thank goodness for cordless phones. Not wanting to wake Ruby, I left the bedroom, anticipating the volcanic eruption to come.
“I’m sorry, but this is the policy. We don’t cover brand-name drugs if there is a generic alternative.”
“It’s not available, Mr. Tate!” I shouted into the phone, squeezing the handset so hard that my fingers ached. “How can my wife take something she can’t get? Tell me, how is that possible?”
“I understand that you’re upset,” Tate said.
“Upset? Upset? No, upset doesn’t even begin to cover it. Are you telling me that my wife and I are on the hook for a three-hundred-thousand-dollar course of treatment?”
“Unless you take the generic,” Tate said.
“I can’t get the generic! I can’t get it! What part of ‘it is not available’ don’t you understand? How is this not getting through to you?”
A steely bolt of anger revved inside me, threatening to explode in a vitriolic tirade unless I paced the room.
“You elected to have the most inexpensive policy,” Tate said.
“There are a number of constraints to your drug coverage.”
“I elected to have the most inexpensive coverage because that’s all I could afford. The monthly premiums are already ridiculously high. For what? What in the hell am I paying you for?”
I heard footsteps behind me and whirled at the sound. Ruby ambled out of the bedroom, wrapped in a snuggly blanket. Her hair stuck out at odd angles, and she seemed unsteady on her feet. I cupped the receiver with my hand.
“What’s going on?” she croaked out.
“Nothing, babe,” I said. “Just talking with our insurance company. Minor hiccup. I’ll get it all worked out.”
“Well, keep your voice down,” Ruby said, feigning an irritated tone. “You’ve got to let a sick girl get her rest.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“So sorry that I was such a fool,” Ruby sang, soft and sweetly.
She held up a finger. Another point. I recognized the melody from a classic country tune but didn’t recall the artist. I smiled weakly, giving Ruby’s forehead a mollifying kiss. Meanwhile, I’m thinking, We’re screwed.