Quiet As It's Kept Page 9

  “Yeah, used to. Memories don’t pay the bills,” Morgan said.

  Will took a deep breath. Morgan was hitting below the belt.

  “Look, it is a start, and at least I am trying,” Will said.

  “Well, try harder.” Morgan rolled her neck.

  “Morgan, you are talking like you are on a mission to try to hurt me with these snide remarks of yours. And snide remarks won’t pay the bills either. I was pretty happy about the job offer I received today. And I don’t ask for very much around here either. So was it asking too much for you to be happy for me for just a moment?”

  Morgan folded her arms without saying a word.

  “I hadn’t thought about daycare and the cost of it. You’ve shed light on that fact for me. And just as easily as you let those snide remarks roll off your tongue, you could have just told me the facts, plain and simple.”

  “Well, forgive me if my response to your news wasn’t as polished as you would have liked it to be.” Morgan stood. “Look, I’ve had a hard day. I need to go upstairs and wind down.”

  Will agreed. “Yeah, why don’t you do that.” He looked back down at his plate and picked up a spear of broccoli. He took a bite and chewed. It felt like rubber in his mouth.

  Morgan picked up her plate, set it on the kitchen counter, and headed upstairs.

  Will cut a piece of his steak and took a bite. A sharp pain shot through his tooth and gums. He realized that a piece of bone had been part of the hunk he’d cut. He spit out the meat and held his cheek as he tried to hold back the tears from the pain he felt. After a few moments, he let his tongue touch the area that was in pain. He felt a jagged area.

  Upon inspecting the food mass on his plate he saw the steak bone and the chipped part of his tooth. The pain in that area was intense. He wondered if the nerve had been exposed. He’d thought the pain from the branding in college was bad, and the pain from his heel being pierced, but this pain topped them both.

  He’d lost his appetite during the argument with his wife and should have stopped eating then. But now it didn’t matter because he wouldn’t be able to eat anyway with his chipped tooth. Isaiah hadn’t lost his appetite. He slapped his hands on the high chair again. Will spooned another mouthful of baby food into the baby’s mouth, and continued to do so in intervals as he cleaned the dining room and kitchen.

  The pain hadn’t subsided by the time he finished cleaning, so he took a couple of pain pills, hoping they would alleviate the pain quickly. He thought about calling an advice nurse at the insurance company to ask them what to do, but he didn’t want to ask Morgan for her insurance card to get the phone number. He would tough it out, hoping that, by morning, the pain would be gone, including the pain in his heart.

  Chapter 10

  Will had tossed and turned all night. The pain medication had only taken a slight edge off of the pain throbbing in his mouth. Not long after he opened his eyes, he realized that the pain hadn’t gotten any better. Whenever he let his tongue glide across the broken tooth, pain shot through his gums.

  He was going to have to ask Morgan for the dental insurance information so that he could call and make an appointment. There was no way he was going to be able to go through another day with the pain he was enduring. Since it was Friday, he didn’t want to risk not being able to go to the dentist that Saturday or Sunday.

  He rolled over and shook Morgan’s arm.

  She stirred and finally turned onto her back. “What time is it?” she asked.

  Will looked over at the clock on his nightstand. “It’s almost five.”

  “Did I miss the alarm going off?” Morgan asked.

  “No.” Will swallowed, and the mere pressure from swallowing pained him.

  “Is something wrong? Is Isaiah okay?”

  “Yeah. Isaiah is fine. Or, I think he is fine, I haven’t heard him on the baby monitor.”

  “Then why are you waking me up now?” Morgan’s throat was raspy.

  “My tooth hurts.”

  Morgan cleared her throat and turned back over. “And? What do you want me to do about it?”

  “I need the information for the dental insurance so I can call and get an appointment.”

  “Can’t you just take an aspirin or something?”

  “I’ve already taken over eight hundred milligrams of ibuprofen and one thousand milligrams of acetaminophen.” It was painful for Will to talk.

  “All at one time? That’s a lot of medicine,” Morgan mumbled.

  “I spaced it as far apart as I could, but after the first one didn’t work, I had to try something else.” Will swallowed again. “Look, it hurts to swallow, talk, and even move my head. I need to get to the dentist. And I want to call them as soon as they open to see if they can get me in for an emergency.”

  “When did it start hurting? You didn’t say anything about it last night.”

  Will was tired of talking, and was getting impatient. He wished Morgan would just go ahead and get him the information he needed; that way he wouldn’t forget to get it before she left for work. “I bit a piece of bone in the steak last night and it chipped my tooth. I think the nerve must be exposed because that area is so sensitive that everything irritates it.”

  Morgan sighed, almost as if she were the one in all the pain. “Well, I guess you’ll need to call the dentist then and get it looked at.”

  Will knew that if his head weren’t hurting so badly, he would have done a double take to look at his wife. She was acting as if he were coming to her for a consultation or something. He didn’t need her to confirm that he needed to go to the dentist. What he needed was for her to give him the insurance card—plain and simple.

  “Look, Morgan, I just need the insurance card. If you could just get it for me I would appreciate it. I don’t want to have to go through the entire weekend having to wait until Monday or some other time next week to be seen.”

  “Go ahead and make an appointment,” Morgan said.

  “Okay. Just leave the card on the dresser when you leave, just in case I am asleep. I’ve been tossing and turning all night, and with my luck I’ll fall asleep just when the dental office opens.”

  “Um, there’s a little problem,” Morgan said, her tone flat.

  “What kind of problem?” Will asked. Somehow, he knew that he wasn’t going to like the answer.

  “You are not on my dental insurance.”

  “I’m not? Why didn’t you add me during your open enrollment?”

  “Because I figured you would find a job before you would need to go to the doctor or dentist,” Morgan said.

  “Doctor? Does that mean you didn’t add me to your health insurance either?”

  Morgan shook her head. “That was a lot of money to be taken out of my check each month for the family plan. It was cheaper for me to just add a child to my insurance. I mean, we’re barely making ends meet. So I guess I took a gamble.”

  Will dropped his head in disbelief. Each movement of his head hurt. His mouth throbbed on the side where his tooth was chipped. “I wish you would have at least discussed all this with me before you did it. I may have come to the same conclusion as you did about the cost, but at least I wouldn’t have been in the dark about this.”

  “Sorry, Will,” Morgan said. This time she spoke as if she was truly sorry for what she had done. “I’d hoped that you’d be working by now.”

  “Well, is it too late to add me now?” Will asked.

  “I am pretty sure it is. The only time we can add or change our insurance is during open enrollment, unless there is a change in the family status. Like the birth of a child, a marriage, a divorce, or a death, I think.”

  “Well, can you at least check?” Will asked.

  “Yeah, I’ll call HR when I get to work. And I’ll let you know.”

  Will sighed. In addition to the pain in his mouth, he was now starting to get a headache, which he was sure stemmed from the fact that he was inevitably going to have to go to the dentist and pay cash. Th
ere was no way over-the-counter pain medication would be able to help him. Now there would be another bill to stack on top of all the other bills.

  It took almost an hour after Morgan left for work for him to finally stop shaking his head about not being added to her medical insurance. And that was only because he had to take about thirty minutes to pray about the whole situation. Overall he could see why Morgan had made the decision she had made, especially since they were barely living from paycheck to paycheck as it was. And he also had to realize that Morgan wasn’t making over six figures as he had been when he was working.

  But he still wasn’t pleased with the fact that his wife hadn’t consulted him about it. He always tried his best to keep Morgan abreast of anything and everything that concerned them as a family, and even some things that had nothing to do with them as a couple. He just thought that as long as the lines of communication were busily being used, there wouldn’t be any confusion between them. But obviously Morgan had not felt the same way, because if she had, she would have talked to him about her concerns. It wasn’t like this particular subject was trivial. It was a subject that shouldn’t have been swept under the rug.

  After he fed Isaiah his breakfast, he sat him in his playpen with a couple of his favorite toys. Will picked up the phone, called the manager at the retail store, and told him he would not be able to accept the job. Then he sat down at his computer, hoping to find an e-mail with more promising news about an interview. He realized Morgan had been right about the minimum wage job not being enough to really help them. He was going to have to find something better.

  Time passed quickly, and he looked at the clock on the computer, realizing that he had not heard from his wife. He pulled his cell phone out and dialed Morgan’s number at work.

  “Hello, GFM Technology, Morgan speaking. How may I help you?” Morgan spoke in a rush of words.

  “Morgan.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you talk to HR?”

  “Oh yeah. Sorry, I meant to call you back an hour ago, but I got so busy. And I was right. I can’t add you to my insurance until the next open enrollment.”

  Will shook his head. Deep down he’d known that that was going to be the answer. He’d just wished that maybe there was some kind of loophole in the process.

  “The woman at HR was helpful. She gave me a rundown of everything I currently have. Like how much I have in retirement, all the different types of supplemental insurance I have, and even the amount of life insurance I’m paying for. And, you know, if you died, you’d be worth more right now than you are alive.”

  Will did a double take, pulling the phone away from his head to look at it, not believing what he had just heard.

  When he put the phone back to his ear, he heard Morgan saying, “Will, Will, hello? Are you still there?”

  “Ugh, yeah. Did I hear you say what I thought I heard you say?”

  “I was just kidding. Didn’t you hear me say so right after? I am just kidding, baby. Sorry, not a funny joke. It’s just been pretty rough here today. It’s busy as I don’t know what. So please forgive me. I know your mouth is hurting. Go ahead and give the dentist a call, and we’ll just have to deal with the bill one way or another. It will be all right.”

  “I don’t like your sense of humor,” Will said, unable to get past Morgan’s little so-called joke.

  “Baby, please forgive me. I shouldn’t have said that. You know I’m nowhere near being a comedian.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  “Don’t stress yourself over a slip of my tongue. Give the dentist a call. Do you want me to call them?” Morgan offered.

  “No, I’ll call them myself.” He didn’t feel like talking to his wife any longer, and didn’t want to prolong any more time.

  “Okay. Call me back and let me know what you find out.”

  Will rolled his eyes to himself. He wasn’t accustomed to doing so. He couldn’t figure out why his wife was all of a sudden acting so attentive toward his needs when she hadn’t done so all morning. “Yeah, okay, hopefully someone can see me today.”

  “If they can, what are you going to do about Isaiah?” Morgan asked.

  “I’ll just take him over to Phillip and Shelby’s house.”

  Morgan didn’t reply to what he’d said. After a moment, he wondered if they had somehow gotten disconnected.

  “Morgan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, I thought we’d gotten disconnected or something.”

  “What if Phillip and Shelby can’t watch Isaiah, then what?”

  “Oh, they can. They were going to watch him for me today anyway,” Will said, knowing he was about to get some real emotions out of his wife.

  “What do you mean they were going to watch him for you today anyway?”

  Will knew that once he told Morgan about Phillip and Shelby watching the baby, she was going to be upset with him. “They’ve watched him for the past few days while I’ve been out to trying to find a job.”

  “Oh? And you didn’t tell me?”

  “No. I made the decision on my own. I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything.” Now that Will knew about the decision Morgan had made without consulting him, he didn’t feel bad about what he had been doing over the past couple of days.

  “Is that what you’ve been doing? Don’t you think you should have told me about that?”

  “What do you think?” Will asked, wondering if she would even get the hint about her blatant lack of communication.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Will let out a huff. “I need to go and call the dentist. I’ll talk with you later.”

  “Oh yeah, we will talk later.”

  “Gotta go, Morgan.” Will hung the phone up, focusing on the pain in his mouth. He didn’t have the energy to think about the degree to which Morgan was going to rant and rave about his taking their child to his godfather’s house.

  He called their dental office and was lucky to get an appointment for that afternoon. After packing up Isaiah’s things, he drove him over to Phillip’s home. Shelby greeted him at the door before he even had a chance to ring the doorbell.

  “Hey, I was wondering what happened to you two. I was just about to call and see if you were still coming.”

  “Yeah, I almost didn’t make it over here.”

  Shelby’s eyebrows furrowed as she looked at Will’s face. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s my tooth. I bit a bone last night and chipped it. I think the nerve must be exposed, because it hurts like crazy. It hurts to talk, to breathe, and almost hurts when I think too hard.”

  “Oh, come on in.” She put her arms out and Will handed her the baby. Isaiah smiled, now used to the familiar face.

  “I am on my way to the dentist to get them to look at it.”

  “Oh, goodness. Do you need someone to drive you? What if they decide to give you some medication and you can’t drive afterward?”

  “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “When’s your appointment?” Shelby asked.

  “In forty minutes. Across town on Martin Luther King Boulevard.”

  “I can take you over there.”

  “No, no, don’t put yourself out like that. I’m sure I can manage.” Will winced from a sharp pain that shot through his mouth.

  “Will, you don’t look like you can manage talking, much less concentrating on the road. How on earth did you make it over here in the first place?”

  Will looked up toward heaven. “On a wing and a prayer.” He made an attempt to smile, but failed as he put his hand to his cheek.

  “Wait right there, young man. Let me call Phillip and let him know where I’ll be. And let me grab my purse and keys.”

  “Thanks, Shelby, but you don’t have to—”

  Shelby cut him off. “Shush, I won’t hear of it. Hold tight; I’ll take you over to the dentist.”

  As Shelby left with Isaiah to make her phone call and get her things, Will couldn’t he
lp but to shake his head. His best friend’s wife was more concerned than his own wife was about how he was feeling and how he was going to get around.

  Instead of Morgan making arrangements to come home and help him, or at least even to come home and take care of the baby, she was fuming. He started to wonder just how he had made it over to Phillip’s home in one piece. He knew it had to have been the grace of God looking out for him and the baby.

  Once Shelby had her things she took Will to the dental appointment, and drove him back home. By the time he made it to his front door, he had already started to feel better. Shelby stayed with him for an hour, making sure he and the baby were okay. She even pulled out the leftovers Will had from their dinner the day before and heated them up. She stayed until Phillip came to pick her up.

  Even his friend showed more concern than his own wife had shown. Not once had Morgan called to check on him. And when he got home, he didn’t see where she had left any messages there, either. He tried not to dwell on any negative thoughts after Phillip and Shelby left.

  Once Morgan got home she asked him how the appointment went and commented that he didn’t look so good. She took the baby and told him to get some rest. Gladly he left the baby with his mother and went to bed early without eating any dinner. He was glad Morgan hadn’t mention anything about his leaving the baby over at Phillip and Shelby’s home earlier in the week. Nor had she mentioned anything about his taking the baby over to their home that day for the dental appointment.

  Will was too tired to tell her that Shelby had been the one to take him to the appointment and bring him home. And he didn’t say anything about her being the one to warm up their dinner and set the table for them that night. He figured he would leave well enough alone.

  Chapter 11

  When Will awoke the next morning, he’d found that Morgan had already gotten out of bed. Looking at the clock on the nightstand he saw that it was 10:30 A.M. He hadn’t slept that late in a long time. It had been so long that he couldn’t remember the last time.

  His gums, still a little tender, throbbed. But it was nothing compared to the throbbing he felt before he’d gone to the dentist the day before and had the chipped wisdom tooth removed. He felt around on the nightstand for his bottle of pain medication, but didn’t find it. Then he slipped off of the bed, and looked on the floor and under the bed for the bottle, but still didn’t see it.