4: JOHN CROW

MEREDITH'S POV

I was still numb the next morning. My lips were cracked, and my throat was dry. I didn't sleep much last night, mainly because of what happened with Simon. I lost mobility for an hour or two and apart of me worried he was going to come back to my flat and have another go at me. My vagina was rubbed raw and sore. I'd been saving myself for the one and to think this was how I lost my virginity.

I drank some water, then got myself ready for the hospital. I needed to take some clean clothes for my mom. She should wake up any time now since she just had her first surgery. If this didn't work, and she didn't get any better then our next stop was a heart transplant.

I mustered up the strength I needed to get through the rest of the day. I just couldn't pity myself right now. So what if I was raped by my neighbour? My mother was in the hospital fighting for her life.

I couldn't act selfish and think about myself now. Plus, Simon warned me he would kill my mom if I ever told anyone.

The taxi dropped me off at the hospital and I paid the driver in quarters. He grumbled, but he had to take them. It was all the money I had. At least it was payday. I planned to collect my check at the diner later on after visitation was over.

My mother was sleeping when I entered her room. Her care and hospital bills was where most of my cash went to. I was neck high in debts, plus I was barely hanging on by a thread. I had loans that were overdue and my job as a waitress was not pulling the dollars I needed to take care of everything. So I sacrificed food, rent and paying the loans so I could take care of the parts of my mother's treatments that wasn't covered by insurance.

We weren't always like this. We lived in the suburbs most of my life in a nice house in a nice neighbourhood. We were easily upper middle class, but everything went to shit when my mother married John Crow, a handsome Italian immigrant. He was maybe ten years younger than her, but he fooled her into thinking he loved her. He was even good to me. We never saw his treachery coming.

Turned out John wasn't who he said he was. He was a gambling addict, and he gambled away my mother's savings. My mom had her first heart attack when she learnt we were broke. Her half a million dollars in savings was gone, just like that. When my mother confronted John, he gave her a crappy story about being scammed by some big shot Credit Union. But that was just another lie. John left us in the middle of the night with all of my mother's jewelleries and expensive family heirlooms. My mother sank into depression and had her second heart attack a few months ago when the bank came to repossess our home.

My mother told them that the house was fully paid for, only to learn that John Crow forged my mom's signature and took out two mortgages on our house. Having two hearth attacks so close to each other put a strain on my mother's health. She got so sick and so weak, she was unable to work anymore. She was a Financial Broker and a very successful one too.

Money stopped coming in and the stress of it all didn't help her condition and as the months passed by; she became worse. I had to drop out of college, so I could bathe her, feed her and make sure she was OK. I didn't mind doing it. My mother was my everything since my father left us for his Sugar Baby when I was four and, aside from his occasional Christmas and birthday gifts, I hadn't seen or spoken to him since I was ten.

"Miss Carver, there you are," Doctor Baldwin chirped. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

"Sure, Doctor," I said as I kissed my mother on her forehead and headed in the hallway to hear what the doctor had to say.

"I'm not going to beat around the bush, Miss Carver," the doctor began. "The surgery was a success, but it didn't work out the way we wanted it to."

"What do you mean, doctor?" I asked.

"It means that we only bought her eight months to a year tops. If she doesn't get a heart transplant, then she will die," he let out, clutching the clipboard to his chest.

My eyes pooled with tears. I couldn't let my mother die. "How much will it cost?"

Doctor Baldwin eyed me with pity. He handed me an invoice. "This is the cost of the surgery. There are programs that your mother might be qualified to get financial aid, but I'm afraid you still will be left with a hefty bill."

I looked down at the papers he gave me. My lips trembled when I saw the monetary services listed. I had already used most of them for my mother's first surgery, and they wouldn't grant me any more help. I gulped when I read the total on the invoice. "2,467,070.92." My knees wobbled. "Where will I find over two million dollars from?" Our insurance would cover maybe fifty thousand dollars if we were lucky.

"And that's not the worse part, Miss Carver. Your mother is still on the heart transplant list and if you even come up with the money and there's no heart then —"

"She still may die," I finished for him.

"Yes. I also have a list of a few support groups that may help you cope with all of this," he handed me another list. "Good luck Meredith. Your mother is lucky to have a daughter like you."

I shook his hand. “Thank you again, Dr. Baldwin. I appreciate all that you’ve done for me and my mother.”

“You’re welcome, Meredith. You take care of yourself now,” he smiled.

“I will,” I answered. I lingered in the hallway alone for a while, looking down on the figure once more. I shook my head. I felt defeated. I had to come up with this money to help my mother and I was willing to do anything to get it.