Chapter 8 - The Winter Melts
Two weeks later, the Michigan frost began its first reluctant retreat under a gray, drizzling January thaw.
Arthur Vance sat on the front porch of the Charlevoix house, an old wool blanket wrapped around his knees, staring down the long, muddy driveway.
The beauty of the estate was gone. The heavy snow that had covered the cedar shakes had melted into dirty, slushy mounds. A blue tarp covered the living room ceiling where the pipe had burst, and the faint, sweet smell of damp drywall and woodsmoke clung to everything.
A white delivery van pulled into the turnaround and stopped.
A young man in a blue uniform stepped out, carrying an insulated medical package.
"Arthur Vance?" the driver asked.
Arthur looked up with dull, sunken eyes. "I don't have any money to pay for that. I told the pharmacy to stop calling."
"It’s already paid for, sir," the driver said, setting the box on the wooden porch railing. "Six months of Coreg and the companion beta-blockers. Paid in full by Stratix Holdings. Just need an initial here."
Arthur stared at the name printed on the invoice: *Stratix Holdings. Authorizing Officer: Ryan Vance.*
The pen trembled so violently in Arthur's hand that his signature was nothing more than an illegible, jagged line.
"Is... is there a note?" Arthur asked, his voice cracking like dry kindling. "Did my son send a letter?"
"No note, sir. Just the medicine. Have a good afternoon."
The driver climbed back into his van, turned around, and drove away, leaving Arthur alone in the damp cold.
Arthur picked up the box, walked inside, and handed the vials to Martha, who was sitting in the warm glow of the single electric space heater their neighbor had loaned them.
Martha took the bottles, looked at Ryan's corporate logo on the pharmacy label, and began to cry. She didn't scream or wail. The tears simply spilled silently down her hollow cheeks, falling onto her lap.
"He didn't let me die," she whispered. "Even after what we did... he didn't let me die."
"I have to go to Chicago," Arthur said suddenly.
Martha looked up at him. "Arthur, no. You heard Kevin. Ryan had him served. He'll call the police on you."
"Let him," Arthur said, his voice stripped entirely of the bellowing arrogance that had defined him for fifty years. "Let him put me in jail. I have to see him. I have to look him in the eye."
Arthur walked to the hall closet, took out his old Sunday suit—a wool blazer that hung loosely on his shrinking frame—and counted the remaining cash in his wallet.
Forty-two dollars.
Just enough for a one-way bus ticket on the regional Greyhound from Traverse City to the downtown Chicago transit hub.
He didn't take the car. The car had an expired registration sticker he couldn't afford to renew, and the gas tank was on empty.
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He simply walked down the muddy gravel driveway, an old cardboard suitcase in one hand, his head down against the cold Michigan rain.
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