Bell brushed an invisible speck from the desk. “There’s a catch. This treatment isn’t approved here. You’d need to go abroad—Singapore or Germany.”
Ethan’s pulse spiked again. “How much?”
“All in, with rehab? Around $1.8 million.”
The number landed like a death sentence. He didn’t have even a fraction of that. Every dollar he made disappeared into his car payment, the loft, and the lifestyle his mother loved so much.
“What about insurance?” he asked.
Bell opened a file. “Your employer plan covers standard care. Your case falls under rare disease, and the procedure is considered experimental. Insurance might cover basic treatment here. Maybe $180,000.”
Ethan shook his head slowly. “This can’t be real,” he whispered, then let out a strange sound that was half laugh, half choke.
The rising star of medicine—the man who had discarded his wife because she no longer fit the image—was now sitting in a chair facing blindness, disability, and the collapse of everything he valued.
He barely made it back to his apartment.
Rita was in the living room watching television. “Finally. I ordered dinner from that restaurant you like. On your card, of course. Come eat.”
Ethan stared at her with hollow eyes. “Mom, I’m seriously sick,” he said.
“Sick? It’s probably a cold. I told you—”
“It’s not a cold!” he shouted, finally losing control. “I have a life-changing diagnosis. I need treatment overseas. It costs one point eight million dollars.”
The fork slipped from Rita’s hand and clattered onto the plate.
“What do you mean, one point eight million? Where would we get that? We just made the first payment on your car!”
“This is not a joke!” he yelled, sounding like a man being cut open. “I could lose my sight. I could end up paralyzed. My career is over, and we don’t have the money to save it. We’re broke, Mom. Completely broke.”
That night, inside the luxury apartment they still barely owned, the proud young doctor cried out for the first time—not from physical pain, but from the realization that he had no way to save himself or the image he had built.
Fear settled over both of them in those beautiful, empty rooms. His words—We’re broke—seemed to bounce off the imported tile and designer furniture they still hadn’t paid for. Rita, pale and shaken, broke the silence first, and not with comfort.
“No. That can’t be right,” she said weakly. She couldn’t bring herself to look at her son curled on the rug. Her eyes darted around the room—the expensive decor, the crystal, the giant television.
“We can’t be ruined. We have assets. The loft. Your car. My handbags.”
Ethan gave a bitter laugh.
“That’s the problem. None of it is really ours.” He got to his feet and kicked a decorative table, sending it scraping across the floor. “We’ll be paying for this place for twenty years. We’ve barely made a dent. If we sold it tomorrow, we still wouldn’t clear the mortgage.”
“And the car you love bragging about?” He gave her a hard look. “It’s financed for seven more years. At a brutal rate. If we sold it, we still wouldn’t cover the loan balance. We have nothing but debt.”
Rita shook her head, refusing to believe it. “No. No.”
“And half those handbags?” he said, voice raw. “They’re knockoffs. We built our whole life on appearances.”
She sank onto the couch. “Then what do we do? Where do we get one point eight million?”
Suddenly a flicker of hope crossed her face. “My friends. The investor’s wife. The developer’s wife. They’ll help. They won’t leave me stranded.”
She grabbed her phone and started calling.
“Rita? It’s late. What’s going on?” came a cheerful voice.
“Please, help me,” Rita said at once, switching into full panic. “My son is very sick. He needs treatment overseas. I need to borrow the money—please.”
There was a long pause.
“One point eight million? Are you serious? I’m sorry, my husband’s out of town, and I can’t discuss something like that. I’ll call you later.”
The line went dead.
Rita stared at the phone, then dialed someone else. Another polite refusal. Then another. Then another.
