TeenDad2: I’m tired of waiting.

xVerity: These things take time. I know that it’s frustrating, but hang in there. It won’t be too much longer. You have an appointment, after all. Sometimes things just get… delayed. It happens.

Gage sighed. While he knew that xVerity was right, it didn’t make the wait any easier. The stiff plastic of the waiting room chair was charged with static, and it plucked at the back of his shirt and zapped him when he tried to shift his weight. Worse, Gage’s three-year-old son, Bo, refused to sit on his own. He’d settled on Gage’s lap, buried his face against Gage’s chest, and wheezed. Every now and then, when Bo’s lungs popped and crackled with greater severity, he’d shift on Gage’s lap, grabbing handfuls of his shirt that he refused to release until the noises stopped. Gage held him loosely and rested his chin on top of Bo’s head, breathing in the scent of his shampoo. Beneath its crisp, clean fragrance, Gage detected the notes of something sweet and rounded that he associated with Bo—it wasn’t the new baby smell that he’d fallen in love with from the first time he’d snuggled with Bo after a long, lonely labor, but it was reminiscent of it.

It was a jarring reminder that his little boy wasn’t a baby anymore.

TeenDad2: our appointment was at 10 and it’s… 11:15 now.

xVerity: Have they taken him in for triage?

TeenDad2: Yes

xVerity: Then it won’t be much longer. Sliding scale clinics are madhouses a lot of the time, and to find one with a pediatrician on staff is kind of bonkers. It’ll be okay.

“Wanna go home,” Bo murmured. One of his bony knees dug into Gage’s inner thigh dangerously close to his crotch, and Gage winced and dropped his phone onto the seat beside him to lift Bo up and reposition him. When he’d settled Bo on his lap, Gage wrapped his arms loosely around him and stroked his chest and stomach, hoping it might help ease some of his discomfort.

“I know, baby,” Gage said. “I wanna go home, too. But we need to stay to see our friend, the doctor. She’d really like to see you.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not feeling well, and she’s going to see if she can make you better.” There was a creeping, insidious dread in Gage’s chest that whispered that the doctor wouldn’t be able to help, but he pushed the thought aside. Bo had already been to see a doctor once, and he’d been diagnosed with asthma and given inhalers. The treatment hadn’t worked, but that meant that there had to be something else the doctor could do. If one medication was ineffective, then there had to be another. After today’s appointment, they’d have answers—and with Bo so sick for so long, answers were all Gage wanted.

“Oh.” Bo wheezed, then sniffled and pressed back against Gage’s chest. He said nothing more. Gage spent a little more time cuddling him, then, once Bo had settled, he picked his phone back up. In times of great duress, the Single Dad Support Group chat he belonged to helped him keep his head on straight. He had no idea how he would have raised Bo on his own without the help of the other Single Dads.

He pulled the chat window back up to see that the conversation had moved on.

xVerity: Any movement?

KnotMyProblem: Looks like TD’s disappeared. He probably made it to the appointment… or TD Jr. tossed his phone across the room. It’s kind of weird that he’s online, anyway. Didn’t he have to cancel his phone plan recently to save $$$?

xVerity: I think so. The office probably has free WiFi.

KnotMyProblem: We should set up a TD phone fund. Cheap monthly cards are what, like $40? Ten bucks each. Not bad.

xVerity: Is this some elaborate scheme so you can bug him all the time?

KnotMyProblem: ;)

Gage snorted. He kissed the top of Bo’s head, then replied.

TeenDad2: If you guys really want to help, you could put that $40 toward my electric bill or groceries.

KnotMyProblem: But TD, how are groceries going to allow me to bother you when you’re on the move? Don’t you want me traveling with you in your back pocket wherever you go?

TeenDad2: omg, kill me now.

KnotMyProblem: Nah. Give it a try. I bet you’ll like it when I’m pressed up against your ass 24/7 ;)

The comment struck a note of discord in Gage, and he turned off the screen and set the phone aside to take a breather from the conversation. For the most part, KnotMyProblem was harmless. He was an asshole, but he had a kind heart. Lately, though, KnotMyProblem’s behavior toward him had taken a turn toward the inappropriate. The suggestive comments he made felt more targeted and blunt, and Gage had no clue what to do about it. KnotMyProblem was his friend, and so were all the other dads in the Single Dad Support Group chat—Gage didn’t want to create strife amongst their group of mutual friends because of bruised feelings. It wasn’t like Knot meant anything he said, and it wasn’t like any of his comments were as bad as the ones that Gage got on the nights he worked.

But at least, when he was working, he knew the type of man he was dealing with. Hearing it from KnotMyProblem was like digging into a bowl of vanilla ice cream only to find out on the first bite that it was actually cold mashed potatoes.

“Love you, baby,” Gage whispered against the soft hairs on Bo’s head. “You’re my good boy.”

“Love you, Daddy,” Bo replied. He twisted at the hips and leaned back at an awkward angle to look up at Gage, and Gage ducked forward to kiss his forehead.

Everything was going to be okay. Discomforts were only temporary. Gage was working hard to make sure that Bo got better, and thanks to Alex’s help, they were in a far better spot than they had been at this time last year. As long as Gage could keep up his nightly sessions at work, he’d be fine. Medicaid had covered the cost of Bo’s inhalers, and he was certain that whatever other medication the pediatrician wanted to try would be covered as well.

“Bo Langston?” a nurse called.

Gage tucked Bo against his chest, stood, and grabbed his phone from where he’d set it. As he carried Bo toward the hall leading to the examination rooms, he returned the device to his pocket. It buzzed a few more times, then stopped, leaving Gage on his own.

The struggle was worth it. Soon enough, Aaron would come home, and Gage wouldn’t have to try so hard to make it on his own anymore. But until that day happened, he had to be strong. For Aaron, for Bo, and for himself.

“It’s not asthma,” Dr. Wilmot said. She smiled kindly at Bo, who closed his eyes and turned his head away, barely holding back tears. Gage trailed his fingers over Bo’s back, trying to show him it was okay, but no matter how sweet or attentive he was, Bo wasn’t comforted. “I’m afraid that this is beyond the scope of my expertise. What I can do is write you a referral to a respiratory physician.”

“Okay,” Gage said uneasily. “I think that’s a great idea. Thank you. Is, um… is a specialist visit covered under Bo’s Medicaid?”

“You’d have to talk to one of the clinic’s financial advisers,” Dr. Wilmot said. She tore free the top paper from a medical pad and handed it to Gage. “I believe that the visit should at least partially be covered, but oftentimes the tests needed to diagnose a patient aren’t.”

“Okay.” Gage clenched his throat to keep his voice from trembling. “How much are the tests?”

“Again, I’m not familiar. You’d really have to speak to someone in the office about the specifics.”

“I mean…” Gage let himself take a breath, pulled his thoughts together, and shut out his fear as best he could. “Can you ballpark it? You know, fifty dollars, five hundred dollars, ten thousand dollars…?”

Dr. Wilmot offered him a sympathetic smile. She straightened her lab coat and glanced at a chart on the wall. Gage followed her gaze, but saw nothing of importance. The fear he’d done his best to shut out burst through the dam walling off his emotions and flooded his chest—whatever she was about to say, she couldn’t bring herself to look at him when she said it, and that meant it couldn’t be good news. “Well, it’ll depend on what your respiratory physician wants to have done. X-rays will typically cost between three to four hundred dollars if you’re uninsured. A CT scan is typically north of a thousand dollars. If you need anything more invasive, the cost could rise—it depends on what your specialist will want to test for.”

“Okay.” Gage forced a smile and held it. It was the only way to hold back the floodwaters now rising in his chest. “Thank you.”

“Until then, you’ll want to make sure he takes it easy. No running around.”

“Right.” Bo hadn’t been the goofy, active boy Gage loved for the last few months, anyway. Play was the last thing on his mind when drawing breath while at rest was a struggle. “It shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I’d aim to get him in to see a respiratory therapist as soon as you can,” Dr. Wilmot said. Her gaze returned to Gage, but Gage was too crestfallen to meet it. Naively, he’d thought that Dr. Wilmot would give him answers—that with a few strokes of her pen, she’d write him a prescription for something that would make his boy better.

That Bo wouldn’t have to suffer anymore.

“I will,” Gage said. His voice was washed of its emotion, too drained from the onslaught of his panic to make the fake smile on his face reach his voice. He scooped Bo off the examination table and held him against his chest. “Thank you.”

Dr. Wilmot showed him to the door, where Gage thanked her quietly again before heading back down the hall and across the lobby. In a daze, he exited the clinic and strapped Bo into his car seat, kissed him on the top of his head, then buckled himself in behind the wheel and took a second to sit and stare out the windshield. He didn’t have thousands of dollars on hand to pay for testing, and another monthly payment felt like an impossibility. Where was he supposed to come up with a few extra hundred dollars a month?

Gage closed his eyes. He knew where the money needed to come from, and what he needed to do to get it, but it made him sick to think of working any more than he already was—and it made him sicker yet to imagine the things he’d need to do in order to bring that money in.

At last, he pushed the thought from his mind and forced a smile back onto his face. This time, it made it into his voice. It had to—he had no other choice. Bo needed him to be upbeat more than Gage needed to mourn what he was about to do. “It’s time to go home, baby. You ready for some lunch? Uncle Alex made sure that we have the mac and cheese with the animal-shaped pasta. Are you hungry enough to eat a zoo?”

“Yeah!” Bo exclaimed. His voice crackled, and he coughed. Gage’s heart broke.

“Then let’s go home,” Gage said as he turned the keys in the ignition. “Let’s see how many lions we can find in our lunch.”

That night, after Bo had settled down to sleep, Gage closed himself in his office, forgave himself for what he was about to do, and locked the door.