“You don’t have kids, so what’s the big deal?” That’s what my sister Rhonda said when she showed up at my door with three suitcases and her two boys, ages 4 and 7. She’d just left her husband. No job.
No money. No plan. I said yes because she’s family.
Because my mother would’ve wanted me to. What I didn’t say was that my husband, Gary, had stage 3 kidney failure. He needed rest.
He needed quiet. He needed to take his medication on a strict schedule or his body would start shutting down. Rhonda knew this.
She didn’t care. Every morning, she’d kiss her boys on the head and announce she had a “job interview.” She’d be gone for six, sometimes eight hours. Meanwhile, Gary – my Gary, who could barely walk to the bathroom without help – was chasing after two kids who treated our house like a playground.
I begged her to find daycare. She said it was “too expensive.” I offered to pay. She said the kids “preferred Uncle Gary.”
I came home early one Tuesday because I had a bad feeling.
The house was chaos. Toys everywhere. The TV blaring cartoons.
The 4-year-old was screaming because he wanted ice cream. Gary was slumped on the couch, pale as a sheet, drenched in sweat. “Where are your pills?” I asked, panicking.
He pointed weakly toward the kitchen. I ran in there and found the pill organizer – empty. Not taken.
Empty. I turned to the 7-year-old. “Where are Uncle Gary’s pills?”
He shrugged.
“The white ones? Dillon flushed them. He said they looked like candy but tasted bad.”
I felt my legs go weak.
Those pills cost $400 a refill. We had a three-week supply. Gone.
And the pharmacy wouldn’t refill early without prior authorization. I called Rhonda. She didn’t pick up.
I called again. Nothing. I drove Gary to the ER.
They stabilized him, but the doctor pulled me aside. “If he’d gone another few hours without that dose, we’d be having a very different conversation.”
I sat in that waiting room for four hours before Rhonda finally texted back: “omg sorry!! was in a interview.
is he ok??”
I didn’t respond. When I got home, I went through her room. I don’t know what I was looking for.
Proof that she actually had interviews, maybe. What I found was worse. No resumes.
No printed emails from employers. No notes. But there were receipts.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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