Chapter 4: What My Mother Never Told Me
I took the call in the corridor beside the service entrance, standing between a linen cart and a rack of pressed jackets that smelled of dry-cleaning chemicals and other people's evenings.
"Ms.
Miller?" The voice was professional, careful.
"This is Dr.
Anand Mehta at St.
Luke's.
I'm calling about your mother, Mary Miller."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"Is she all right?"
"She's stable," he said.
"But her creatinine levels have risen significantly since last week.
We need to discuss accelerating her placement on the transplant list, and there are some financial considerations attached to the next phase of treatment that I think you should be aware of."
"How much?"
A pause.
"The pre-transplant protocol, the specialist consultations, and the bridging dialysis schedule — we're looking at approximately forty thousand dollars above what her current insurance covers.
Over the next four months."
I leaned my back against the wall.
The linen cart was cold through my uniform.
"I'll call you tomorrow," I said.
"First thing."
"Of course.
Ms.
Miller — she's asking for you."
"Put her on."
There was a soft shuffle, the sound of a phone being transferred, and then my mother's voice — thinner than it had been six months ago, but still unmistakably hers.
"Casey, baby."
"Hi, Mom."
"They called you."
"They did."
"I told them not to bother you at work." A small breath.
"You're at the restaurant?"
"I'm finishing up," I said.
"Everything's fine."
"You don't have to—"
"Mom." I closed my eyes.
"Stop."
A pause.
Then: "How are you?"
"I'm good," I said.
"I had an interesting night."
She laughed — quiet, a little tired, but real.
"Tell me."
"Tomorrow," I said.
"I'll call you in the morning and tell you everything."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
I stood in that corridor for another minute after we hung up.
Forty thousand dollars.
Four months.
The number sat in my chest like something physical.
I went back into the restaurant.
The Russo booth was empty.
The document was gone.
But Arthur Belin's card was still on the table, exactly where I had left it.
And underneath it, placed there while I was on the phone, was something new — a folded piece of paper, cream-colored, heavy stock.
I opened it.
It was a number.
A dollar figure.
Written by hand, no context, no explanation.
One hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
Below it, four words: *Three months.
Full review.*
I folded the paper and put it in my apron pocket beside the card.
I finished my shift.
I cleared four tables, ran two dessert orders, and helped the junior server restock the bar cart.
I did not think about the number.
I thought about my mother's voice on the phone — the way she'd said *Casey, baby*, the way she always said it, like I was still small enough to be carried.
I clocked out at eleven forty-five.
On the subway home, I took out the folded paper and looked at the number again.
Then I took out my phone and searched for Albrecht Voss.
The results were sparse — a few academic references, a footnote in a 1974 German legal journal, and one digitized record from a postwar Allied property commission.
But the second name from the document margin — the one I hadn't mentioned to Dominic or Arthur Belin — appeared in none of them.
I searched for it separately.
Three results.
All recent.
All American.
The most recent was a federal court filing from eight months ago.
A civil asset case.
The plaintiff's attorney of record was listed at the bottom of the document.
The name was Arthur Belin.
I put my phone in my bag.
The subway car rocked through the dark tunnel, and I sat very still, thinking about what it meant that the attorney Dominic had introduced as his own was already on the opposing side of a case involving the same buried name.
One of them didn't know I'd seen it.
Or both of them did, and this was something else entirely.
I got off at my stop and walked the four blocks home in the cold, and by the time I reached my door I had made a decision.
May you like
I was going to call Arthur Belin in the morning.
But first, I was going to call my dissertation advisor.
