Chapter 6 - The high cost of care
Martin pulled onto the shoulder. His hands were steady. That was the thing about Martin Gray. In a crisis, his hands were always steady. He had built a fortune on steady hands and fast decisions. He did not call 911. He called a number saved in his phone under a medical transport company his business used, a private critical care service that could have an ambulance with a cardiac nurse on that stretch of highway faster than anyone else. Then he called a man he knew on the board of the Belmont Heart Institute in Denver, a glass building with a fountain in the lobby, the kind of hospital that appears in magazines. "I need a bed," he said. "Cardiac valve today. Put it on my account."
Walt half conscious gripped Martin's sleeve. "VA," he said. "I go to the VA. Not your easy..." "Walt, just breathe. I've got it."
The ambulance came in 18 minutes. Caleb rode with Martin behind it all the way to Denver. His face pressed to the window, counting something under his breath that Martin couldn't hear. At Bellmont, everything went the way money makes things go. Fast, quiet, polished. A doctor met them at the doors. Walt was taken upstairs for tests and given something to help him rest. Martin signed papers at a marbled desk while a fountain splashed beside him. And he felt for an hour the old satisfaction of a problem being handled.
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Walt woke that evening in a private room with a view of the mountains. And the first thing he said was, "Who's paying for this?" Martin in the doorway didn't answer. "I told you no," Walt said. His voice was weak and it shook. "I told you no in plain English." "You were having a heart attack on the side of the highway." "I was having my heart attack. Mine." He turned his face to the window. "Get out."
For a day and a half, the hospital bent what it could. Walt was conscious and still Caleb's guardian. So, the boy slept on a foldout chair in his grandfather's room and ate in the cafeteria where Martin paid for his meals with a card the boy never saw. Caleb ate everything on the tray and said thank you to the cashier every time.
