Buried Debt

The operating room doors opened again.

A doctor rushed out, his surgical gown soaked through and clinging to his body.

"Family! Where is the family?"

My mother-in-law, Marjorie Hayes, rushed over, frantic.

"Doctor! How's my daughter?"

"The patient has lost too much blood. You need to decide quickly!"

Marjorie shrieked.

"Save it! Save the organ! No matter how much it costs!"

The doctor looked at me.

I leaned against the wall and lowered my head to look at my new watch.

"What's there to save?" I said. "She can't afford the surgery anyway. I already spent all the family's savings."

The doctor froze.

Marjorie threw herself at me again.

This time she clutched at me even more desperately than before, her nails biting into my skin. There was something chilling about it.

"Jason! I'm begging you! I'll work like a dog for you! Please save her! If she loses that organ, her life is over! She's only thirty!"

My father-in-law, Richard Hayes, pushed in beside her too.

"Son, I'm begging you. Hannah is our only child. She's the Hayes family's only child. If she can't have children, how are we supposed to live? How is she supposed to live? And you... what will your future be?"

I took another step back.

"Dad, the way you're saying that makes it sound like I'm supposed to save her so I can enjoy myself later. You're my father-in-law. Isn't it a little undignified for you to be so focused on what happens below our waists?"

"That's not what I meant..."

"Then what did you mean?" I looked at them. "Besides, has your daughter let me touch her at all in the past two years?"

Richard's face turned livid.

Marjorie stopped crying.

"There are thirty days in a month. She spent twenty of them sleeping at the office. The other ten, she came home and collapsed into bed. Has she let me touch her even once?" I smiled. "Dad, whether she has that organ or not, it's not like I get to use it anyway."

The onlookers around us began whispering.

"That husband is so cruel. His wife is about to die, and he's bringing up old grudges?"

A woman beside them chimed in. "Exactly. It's already hard enough for women to fight for their careers outside. Is she supposed to come home after a full day and serve her husband every night too? Men like him don't treat women as people. Disgusting."

"He's so young. How is his heart that hard?"

Marjorie heard them and cried even louder.

"Hannah... Hannah was just busy with work, but she had you in her heart! Every time she came home, she told me Jason must be lonely at home alone and asked me to visit you more often, to bring you food..."

"Bring me food?" I laughed. "You've got some nerve saying that."