Della Brought Her Hospital Dates In A Green Library Folder

By Monday, Preston's version of me had reached farther than my job search.

Our former office manager, Mara Voss, called during her lunch break. She still worked there, though I had already started thinking of everyone as former.

“He's saying you erased studies,” she said.

“Were you there when I returned the laptop?”

“You know I was.”

“Please write down what you saw. Just that.”

“I can't afford to get fired.”

“Then keep it somewhere safe. You don't have to send it to me.”

I understood. My rent was $1,075. Understanding was easier when I looked at the number than when I heard fear in her voice.

I applied for unemployment, scanned my dismissal sheet, and made a list of the clinics that had stopped calling back. I did not post anything online.

That afternoon, Della phoned.

“I called the clinic,” she said. “They told me you weren't there anymore.”

“That's right.”

“They also told me you were mixed up. I thought that was odd. You kept six wires straight while I couldn't find my own sleeve.”

I laughed for the first time in days.

Della Running Crane was sixty-two, a Native American woman with a silver braid, square glasses, and a quick, sideways smile. She had retired from library work, but she still liked to know who had written a thing and where they had found it.

She had my number because, months earlier, she had asked if she could send thanks after her completed study. I had told her that medical questions still had to go through the clinic.

“Did you get your equipment trouble sorted?” I asked.

“Yes. I'm sleeping better. You caught that mask strap rubbing my ear. Small thing, big blessing.”

Then her voice sharpened.

“But my statement says I slept there again on January sixteenth. I was hoping you knew why.”

I sat down.

“Where were you that night?”

“In a hospital bed. Bad place for a secret trip across town. They had an alarm on me.”

I asked her to bring only her own papers if she wanted help sorting the dates. I told her I no longer worked for Preston and could not look up her account.

“I can supply paper,” she said. “It's practically my crop.”

We met at my kitchen table the next morning. She carried a green folder with tabs cut from old index cards.

Her hospital discharge sheet showed admission on January twelfth and discharge on January twentieth. A dated nursing summary placed her there overnight on the sixteenth. Her clinic statement listed an overnight sleep study that same night.

The clinic had billed $2,220. Her insurer had allowed $1,240, paid $930, and left her owing $310.

“I haven't paid it,” she said. “Even the pillow wasn't worth that much.”

“Don't give me your originals.”

“I wasn't planning to. I lent a neighbor a cake pan in 1987. We both remember how that ended.”

She let me copy the relevant pages. We covered unrelated details on the copies she planned to share. Her originals stayed in the green folder.

“Can this get your job back?” she asked.

“It can show your bill needs a real check.”

That was all I could promise.

She called the number on her insurance statement while sitting across from me. With Della's permission, I listened. She reported a service she said she had not received and asked for a case number.

The clerk gave her one. Della wrote it twice.

“Once for them,” she said, “once for when they forget.”

I found a Helena employment lawyer named Leah Orr who offered a short first meeting for $125. I paid with the grocery money I had set aside for March.

Leah read the retention policy before touching the archive case.

“Keep this sealed for now,” she said. “We'll confirm how an outside examiner can receive it. You had permission to retain these service records. Let's keep every step just as clear.”

She sent Preston a notice to preserve the clinic's billing records, staff messages, closure logs, and equipment records. She requested my personnel file and the reason for the bad references.

“Will he stop?” I asked.

“He'll know we're keeping track.”

That evening, Della called again.

“The insurance people want my hospital dates,” she said. “A real person called. Not a menu.”

The person was an auditor named Nora Vale. Della had given her permission to speak with me about the equipment question.

I wrote Nora's name on a fresh page.

Before I could call, an envelope slid through my mail slot. Preston's lawyer had sent it by local courier.

The first page demanded $48,000 for the destruction of clinic records.