The Insulin They Sent Her Home Without

What I did first

I asked him one question, and I asked it quietly.

“Mr. Hollis, isn’t a pharmacist allowed to give a few days of an emergency supply when the doctor can’t be reached?”

“On a rejected claim, with nothing valid on file, no ma’am. Not with what corporate sent me in August.” He said it to the counter and not to me. “I can’t do that today.”

I did not argue. I have been told many times since that I should have, and I have an answer. An argument at a counter has a winner and a loser. If I won, I would get a satisfied feeling, and my mother would still have six units. If I lost, Mr. Hollis would feel justified in front of eleven people. What I needed was not a winner. What I needed was a pen with insulin in it by bedtime.

So I put my arm around my mother and walked her three steps to the plastic chairs and sat her in the one by the wall.

“Mom, how do you feel? Truly.”

“Fine.”

“Mom.”

“A little shaky.”

I carry her meter in my purse, in a zippered bag with the strips and a roll of peppermints. I pricked her finger there in the chair, with the line watching and the store speaker playing a soft piano “Jingle Bells.” The meter took five seconds to think. It said 318.

That is not an emergency by itself. For a woman with her numbers it was high, and for a woman with six units in her pen and no more coming, it was the first step down a road I did not want to see the end of.

“Is it bad?” my mother whispered.

“A little high. We’ll fix it.”

“I don’t want to be a trouble.”

“You are never a trouble.”

I got her a paper cup of water from the cooler. She drank half and thanked me for it, and I wanted to put my head through the window.