Free Ark by Julian Tepper Page B

next week. How’s our music section coming along?”
    Sheila had asked Oliver to develop one. She would section off one-fifth of the store. He would sell records, posters, T-shirts. Had he put any thought into it?
    â€œI’ve had my mind on other things.”
    â€œThanksgiving is coming,” she said. “You’ve got to have it up and running by the day after.”
    Oliver said that he couldn’t put time into it now. He had other pressing demands. “And, you know,” he said, suddenly, “my father needs money from the sale of the apartment. And…and…and here you are, going on about a music section.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    Oliver’s face suddenly looked crushed. Tall yet stooped, with his arms held out to his wife, he said, “My father…he has a colossal debt from the lawsuit with Sondra. Almost a million dollars.”
    â€œAnd he wants you to pay if off?”
    â€œHe says he’s out of money.”
    â€œWhat about the loft?”
    â€œHe won’t sell it. It’s where he works.”
    â€œWhere he works?”
    â€œYes!” Oliver snapped.
    â€œWe were going to use that money to pay off the debt from the stores.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œIt’s what we talked about, Oliver.”
    â€œI know we did.”
    â€œYou promised me.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Sheila.”
    Her blue eyes stormy, she said, “So how much?”
    â€œHow much what?”
    â€œHow much are you going to give him?”
    â€œI think about a…about half a million.”
    â€œHalf a million!”
    â€œAnd the rest we’ll use to cut our debt.”
    â€œWhat rest? There is no rest! We’d lose the stores.”
    Instead of pointing out the pleasure this would give him, Oliver said, “Sheila, my parents are more important than these stores. I’m their son. I have to do this for them. After everything they’ve given me, they deserve this. It’s just what any person who loves his parents would do. And their other children have been so absorbed in their own lives. Doris with her new company. And then Sondra with her lawsuits. I’m all they’ve got. And I’m not even in New York. Well, no, no, I have to do this, Sheila. I just do.”
    Sheila shook her head, the expression of devastation strong through her face. She had thought that she would finally get above financial insecurity and start breathing normally again. And now? She would have to continue with that fight? Sheila smacked the head of the racquet into the floor. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me!”
    On the way home that evening, Oliver and Sheila stopped at the Ralph’s for groceries. Sheila ushered the rickety metal cart through the aisles, propelled by debt stress, cynicism, temper. Oliver reminded his wife of her heart condition. She shouldn’t get so upset. It was dangerous. The doctors had said so. Besides, couldn’t they discuss something else for one minute? They’d been talking about the money all day.
    â€œAnd you can’t eat that,” Oliver said, returning a pack of bacon to the shelf. “Or that!”
    Sheila had her hand on a tube of breakfast sausage. She said, “Don’t tell me what to do,” and she threw it in the cart.
    Oliver snatched up the meat. “You want to kill yourself?” Oliver, as awake as he’d been all day, said, “I can’t be on you every minute. You have to take care of yourself.”
    â€œIf my heart needs anything right now, it’s half a million dollars.”
    â€œOh, give me a break, Sheila.”
    â€œI lie awake every night thinking about that debt. I have no peace from it.”
    Oliver felt heat spreading through his face. He said, “We’ll have to figure out another way to pay it off. That’s all there is to it.”
    Thirty minutes later, they arrived home. Oliver said he