What Money Couldn\'t Buy

The hospital air was cold, too clean, smelling like death trying to hide.

I was running, lungs burning, clutching the $50,000 I'd scraped together-every cent Dad and I had, plus loans and extra shifts-desperate to save my father.

He'd helped me raise the money for Izzy' s "crippling debt," a desperate plea from the woman I loved and planned to marry.

I believed her, truly.

Then the doctor delivered the blow: "Your father, Michael... he passed away an hour ago. He collapsed because he hadn' t been taking his prescribed medication. The expensive ones for his condition."