Chapter 136: Trustworthy
"Tell me more," she said. "What exactly you’re thinking. The structure, the scope, how you’d want it administered." She picked up a pen. "I want to understand the full picture before I say anything about whether I’m involved."
Sean looked at Max briefly.
Max gave the small nod of someone who had concluded what he’d come to conclude.
Sean turned back to Dr. Grace.
Dr. Grace put her pen to her notepad and looked at Sean across the desk with the particular attention of someone who had decided to take something seriously and was going to do that thoroughly.
"From the beginning," she said. "What exactly are you thinking."
Sean leaned forward slightly, his elbows on his knees, and laid it out the way he’d been organizing it in his head since Amara said the name.
"There are patients on this ward right now whose families can’t fully cover their treatment costs," he said. "Not because the system failed dramatically in some obvious way. Just because sickle cell is expensive to manage over time and most families weren’t built to absorb that kind of sustained financial pressure." He paused. "Some of those families are making choices between treatment frequency and other things that should never be in competition with treatment frequency."
Dr. Grace said nothing. Just listened.
"I want to create a fund," said Sean. "Not a one-time donation. A sustained fund with a recurring structure that covers treatment costs for families who qualify based on financial need. No complicated application process. No six-month waiting period. Something that a family can access when they need it and get an answer quickly enough that it actually helps."
"Who administers it," said Dr. Grace.
"That’s why I’m here," said Sean. "I need someone who already understands the ward, already has relationships with the families, and already has a clear picture of who needs what. Someone whose judgment I can trust without having to verify every decision they make." He looked at her. "Amara told me that’s you."
Dr. Grace looked at her notepad. "How much are you talking about."
"Initial fund," said Sean. "Five million dollars. With a structure that replenishes it annually based on usage so it doesn’t run out when the need doesn’t."
The pen stopped moving.
Dr. Grace looked up from the notepad.
She looked at Sean for a long moment with the expression of someone hearing a number and running it against what they knew about the actual cost of the actual problem and arriving somewhere they hadn’t expected to arrive.
"Five million," she said.
"As a start," said Sean.
She set the pen down carefully. "How can someone as young as you possess that amount of funds." She said in disbelief.
"You’ve mentioned that twice," said Sean.
"I’m going to keep mentioning it," said Dr. Grace, "until it stops being relevant. Which it currently is not." She looked at him steadily. "Where does five million dollars come from when you’re eighteen years old."
"Investments," said Sean. "I started with a small amount and made decisions that compounded quickly. I can provide bank statements, investment records, whatever documentation satisfies a legal review."
"It will need to satisfy a legal review," said Dr. Grace. "If I’m going to be involved in administering anything connected to your money, I need to understand completely where it comes from and that it’s clean."
"Completely reasonable," said Sean. "I’ll have everything sent to you later ."
She picked the pen back up and wrote something. Then she looked up. "The salary supplement you mentioned. Tell me more about that."
"The care on this ward," said Sean carefully, "currently depends in part on the individual generosity of certain staff members who are spending personal resources on patients because the official structure doesn’t cover everything it should." He looked at her directly. "That’s not sustainable. It’s also not fair. Someone should be compensated for doing extraordinary work, not quietly subsidizing it from their own pocket."
Dr. Grace was very still.
"I’m not asking you to confirm or deny anything about your own situation," said Sean. "I’m telling you that the supplement would be structured as a formal professional recognition payment for staff working in this specific capacity. Not charity. Compensation."
She looked at the child’s drawing on the corkboard above her desk. The crayon family with the white coat figure included.
"How did you know," she said quietly.
"Amara noticed," said Sean. "She said the rumor among long-term patients was about seventy percent."
Dr. Grace looked at her desk for a moment. Then she exhaled, something that wasn’t quite a sigh and wasn’t quite a laugh, the specific sound of someone who had been carrying something quietly and had just had it named out loud by a stranger in a small hospital office.
"It’s not quite seventy," she said. "Some months it’s more."
The office was quiet.
Max had said nothing since they’d sat down, which was Max operating at his best, the specific skill of someone who understood when presence was the contribution and words were not.
"Why," said Sean. Not interrogating. Just asking.
Dr. Grace looked at the drawing again. "Because I walked onto this ward eight years ago and saw what the disease actually did to a child and I understood immediately that the clinical component was only one part of what these families needed." She paused. "And then I watched what happened to the families who couldn’t afford the other parts. The treatment gaps. The missed appointments. The compromises that compounded into worse outcomes." She looked at Sean. "I didn’t make a dramatic decision. I just started doing what I could with what I had. And then I couldn’t stop."
Sean looked at her for a moment. At someone who had spent eight years doing quietly what he was proposing to do loudly.
"Then you understand exactly what the fund needs to address," he said.
"I understand what it needs to address," said Dr. Grace. "I’m still not certain I believe you’re actually proposing to fund it."
"Max," said Sean.
Max reached into his bag and produced a folder, which he set on the desk and opened.