The Price of a Daughter
“I can’t help you, Dad.”
I stood in my kitchen with the phone pressed to my ear and waited for my son to laugh. To say he was joking. To say, Of course, Dad. How much? I’ll send it right now.
He didn’t laugh.
In the background, I could hear glasses clinking. Music. Someone shouting, “To Julian! To the closer!” A cheer went up. People clapping.
“Julian,” I said. “It’s thirty-two hundred dollars.”
“I know.”
“You told me what your commission would be.”
“That money is already allocated.”
“To what?”
He sighed. The kind of sigh you give a waiter who brought the wrong wine.
“Investments. Taxes. Other things.”
“This is surgery, Julian.”
“Ask the clinic for a payment plan.”
“I already did.”
“Then ask Mom.”
Somebody said his name again in the background. A woman’s voice. Laughing.
“Dad, I have to go. We just closed the biggest deal of my career. Can we talk tomorrow?”
The line went dead.
I stood there holding the phone, looking at the clinic estimate on the kitchen counter. A single sheet of paper with a number circled in red pen.
Remaining deposit due: $3,200.00. Deadline: 48 hours.
My name is Arthur Vance. I was fifty-eight years old that night.
And I was about to learn that sometimes a few thousand dollars can tell you more about a family than millions ever could.
