Excerpt from The Lightness of Hands by Jeff Garvin, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

As I stood at the kiosk trying to decide, an overly cheerful man's voice came over the PA:

"Got the sniffles? Stop by our twenty-four-hour pharmacy today and pick up some homeopathic remedies, or get your prescription filled!"

I left the phone card hanging on its rack and headed toward the back of the store.

The graveyard-shift pharmacist blinked down at me. "Date of birth?"

"February twenty-second, 2004."

"Prescription number and insurance card?"

I slid my card across the counter. The Rx number was written on the back so I wouldn't forget it.

She typed at the register, frowned. "Just a moment." She went into the back and came out two minutes later with a bearded man whose name tag read: Greg Fredericks, Assistant Manager. He typed, glanced at the screen, looked up.

"I'm sorry, miss. It looks like your coverage has lapsed."

The weight that had settled on me seemed to multiply, hanging on me like a backpack full of gravel. Dad hadn't paid our insurance bill. Of course he hadn't. What would he have paid it with? And how long had it been since he got a refill on his heart pills?

The assistant manager gave me a patronizing smile. "Do you still want your prescription?"

I put my hand in my pocket and felt the two hundred-dollar bills. "How much is it?"

He pushed more keys. "Without insurance, it comes to ... one hundred ninety-seven dollars and eighty-eight cents."

I closed my eyes and held in a scream. Food, gas, phone, meds: pick two.

"That's okay," I said, backing away from the counter.

"Would you like to apply for a Walmart Visa?" the assistant manager asked. The pharmacist shot him a look.

"No, that's okay. It's okay."

Stop saying okay. Ella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh ...

My face went numb as I pushed the cart toward the register.

There was another rack of prepaid phone cards at the checkout line. Fuck it. I grabbed a hundred-dollar card and tossed it onto the conveyor.

Excerpted from The Lightness of Hands by Tim Garvin. Copyright © 2020 by Tim Garvin. Excerpted by permission of Balzer + Bray. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.