Chapter 6: Monday
The pharmacy was a small independent one on Northern Boulevard in Flushing that Hannah had been using since Ellie was eighteen months old.
The pharmacist, a soft-spoken Korean-American man named Mr.
Park, knew Ellie by name and always kept a lollipop behind the counter for her.
Hannah had called ahead, as she always did.
She arrived at ten in the morning with Ellie in her good coat and Rosie tucked under Ellie's arm.
Mr.
Park looked up when they entered.
Then he looked past them at the man who had come in behind them.
Adrian Moretti in a pharmacy on Northern Boulevard was approximately as incongruous as a cathedral in a parking lot.
He wore a dark coat and no expression in particular, and the two men who had driven him there waited outside on the sidewalk.
"Mrs.
Carter," Mr.
Park said carefully.
"Hi, Mr.
Park," Ellie said.
"I need more medicine."
"I know, sweetheart." He looked at Hannah.
"I had a call this morning from a Dr.
Greene's office.
He said there was a new prescription authorization and a billing arrangement."
Hannah had known this was coming — Adrian had told her the previous evening, quietly and without fanfare, that it was arranged.
She had tried to object.
He had looked at her in a way that ended the conversation without raising his voice.
She had spent most of the night sitting at her kitchen table trying to understand what was happening to her life.
"That's right," she said now.
Mr.
Park nodded.
He disappeared into the back.
Ellie leaned against the counter and looked up at Adrian, who was standing slightly to the side.
"Do you like lollipops?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said.
"I haven't had one in a long time."
Ellie considered this seriously.
"Mr.
Park gives me one every time.
I think he would give you one too if you asked."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Mr.
Park returned with a white paper bag.
He set it on the counter.
"Two EpiPens, properly labeled.
And a standing authorization for monthly refills, billed to the account Dr.
Greene's office provided." He looked at Hannah.
"No more restriction issues."
Hannah's hand went to the counter to steady herself.
"Thank you," she managed.
Mr.
Park looked at Adrian.
He seemed to be deciding whether to say something.
He decided.
"She's a good mother," he said simply.
"She's been in here every month for three years, always making sure Ellie has what she needs.
Sometimes she had to choose between the copay and something else." He paused.
"I always filled the prescription."
Adrian looked at the pharmacist for a moment.
"I know," he said.
Mr.
Park nodded and reached under the counter.
He produced two lollipops — one for Ellie, and one that he set on the counter in front of Adrian without comment.
Ellie unwrapped hers immediately.
Adrian looked at his for a moment.
Then he picked it up and put it in his coat pocket.
Outside on the sidewalk, Hannah stopped walking.
"Mr.
Moretti."
He turned.
She was holding the white paper bag against her chest.
Her eyes were bright in the cold morning air.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked.
"Really.
Not because she saved your life.
People don't do things like this just because of that.
There's something else."
He stood on the sidewalk and looked at her for a long moment.
"Lily would have been seven," he said.
Hannah went very still.
"She had a stuffed bear," he said.
"Not a rabbit.
A bear named Captain." He paused.
"She used to count to ten when she was nervous.
She said it made the scary things smaller."
Hannah's eyes filled.
"Ellie counts to three," she said softly.
"I know."
Ellie had moved ahead of them on the sidewalk and was examining a crack in the pavement with great interest, Rosie dangling from one hand.
"I'm not trying to replace anything," Adrian said.
"I want to be clear about that.
I'm not confused about what this is." He looked at Ellie.
"But she did something that most adults in that house would not have done.
And she did it without thinking about the cost." He looked back at Hannah.
"I don't know how to do nothing with that."
Hannah wiped her eye with the back of her hand.
"She's going to want to visit Rosie's cousins," Hannah said.
Her voice was unsteady but there was something almost like a smile underneath it.
"That's what she calls other stuffed animals.
Rosie's cousins.
She's going to want to come back to the house and find them."
"The house has several," Adrian said.
Hannah laughed — a short, surprised sound that she immediately covered with her hand.
It was the first time Adrian had heard a laugh inside the Moretti estate in three years.
He realized, standing on a sidewalk in Flushing with a lollipop in his coat pocket, that it did not sound like something ending.
It sounded like something very small and very careful beginning.
Ellie looked up from the crack in the pavement.
"Can we get soup?" she asked.
"Rosie is cold."
Hannah looked at Adrian.
Adrian looked at Ellie.
May you like
"There's a place on the next block," he said.
They walked.
