The Empty Health Fund

MLA I' d never touched. The next morning, I made the call. I told my supervisor I had a family emer

as still in her pajamas, on th

" she was saying. Chloe was watching cartoon

om and dropped my keys on t

call. "What are

theatrical sigh. I looked at her with th

aid off,

"What? No. You can' t

t out. My whole crew is gone." I

ordered pizza and let the empty boxes pile up. The mail started to accumulate on the counter. A red-b

ed like if she didn' t look

d day, the

id, her voice tight with anxiety. "And the car pa

ing my eyes off the TV scre

" she shrieked. "You can' t just sit the

and turned to her.

. I worked sixty-hour weeks. I took every overtime shift. For what? So you could give my money to your deadbeat broth

, walking

The twenty-two hundred you paid for his credit card debt last spring? That was Chloe' s college fund I

w, but they weren' t tears of r

ster! How can y

o put your brother in a muscle car! You' ve be

nerve. Sh

bring Chloe

ile Chloe gets a hand-me-down. Every time you and your mother fawn over him at family d

t hard, more of a frust

flinch. I jus

s," she sobbed, grabbing h

he arm and stormed out of the ho

owed was the best thi