“Second: all encumbered property—the apartment and the vehicle—will be transferred to the foundation. Our attorneys will arrive tomorrow morning with the paperwork. You and your mother will have one day to vacate.”
“Vacate?” he said hoarsely. “Where are we supposed to go?”
“Third: during the term of your contract, you will be provided housing in staff quarters at St. Cyril Rural Clinic.”
“Fourth: the foundation becomes your sole employer. Base salary: $85,000 a year.”
“After crediting the value recovered from the apartment and vehicle, your remaining obligation will be approximately $1.8 million. At your salary level, your service term will be twenty-one years.”
Twenty-one years.
The floor seemed to drop away beneath him. It was not rescue. It was indenture.
“Exceptional performance,” Valerie added, “may shorten the term somewhat. If you prove useful.”
“Useful where?” he asked, barely able to focus.
“You didn’t think I was placing you in a comfortable office downtown, did you?” she said, with the faintest trace of dry amusement. “Your new assignment is in a remote Appalachian community, hours from the nearest city.”
He closed his eyes.
There were no alternatives. Either he accepted years of service in the middle of nowhere, or he faced blindness, disability, and financial ruin.
“I agree,” he said at last.
“Sensible,” Valerie replied, and handed him a pen.
His fingers shook as he signed where Marks indicated—whether from the disease or from the full weight of his collapse, he couldn’t tell.
“Good,” Valerie said when the folder was returned to her. “Tomorrow Mr. Marks will finalize the banking documents and put you on a flight to Singapore. Don’t disappoint us, Dr. Parker.”
Then she turned back to her computer screen, as if he had already ceased to matter as a person.
Two days later, a team of attorneys arrived at the loft.
Rita, who had clung to the fantasy of a miracle rescue, erupted. “You can’t do this! You can’t throw people out of their home! Where are we supposed to go?”
The lawyer was unmoved. He held up the transfer documents.
“The foundation has satisfied your obligations to the bank. Under the agreement, the property now belongs to the organization. You have sixty minutes to gather your belongings.”
The same woman who had once sneered at her daughter-in-law now stuffed clothes into bags while the building staff whispered nearby. Ethan’s luxury car was hauled away on a flatbed in full view of the neighbors.
Later, Rita was relocated to a small one-bedroom apartment on the edge of town. The foundation paid three months’ rent. After that, she was on her own.
Meanwhile, Ethan underwent treatment overseas.
The procedure went well. His immune system was reset. Recovery was long and lonely. No family. No sympathetic colleagues. Only a caregiver assigned by the foundation.
A few months later, he returned home physically restored. The tremor was gone. His vision had returned.
But he was no longer free.
A foundation representative met him at the airport, handed him a duffel bag with work clothes bearing the organization’s logo, and put him on a regional bus. After hours on the road and one final ride in an old pickup truck, he arrived at his destination.
St. Cyril Rural Clinic was a peeling building surrounded by fields and hills.
