Story code: ST-001684
Part 3: The Beneficiary
The phone vibrated violently against David’s palm, Sarah’s name flashing like a warning beacon in the dim, cramped manager’s office. He stared at the screen, his thumb hovering over the green button, but his throat had completely closed up. He couldn’t speak to his daughter. Not while his chest felt like it was tightly wrapped in rusted barbed wire, and certainly not while his polyester uniform was plastered to his skin, reeking of souring milk and artificial matcha syrup.
He shoved the phone deep into his pocket. His hands were shaking so badly he could barely manage the knot at the back of his neck, but he finally tore the ruined apron off and dropped it onto the metal folding chair. He had to leave before the district manager arrived. He had to get to his car, drive home, and figure out a new lie before Sarah came looking for him.
He slipped out the heavy steel back door, bypassing the kitchen entirely. The transition from the air-conditioned restaurant to the suffocating mid-afternoon heat of the asphalt alleyway hit him like a physical blow. The humidity pressed down on his damaged lungs, forcing a wet, rattling cough from deep in his chest. A sharp, familiar pressure flared behind his sternum-the exact same terrifying ache that had landed him in the emergency room three months ago. He gripped the brick wall of the building, waiting for the wave of dizziness to pass, before shuffling toward his rusted decade-old sedan parked by the dumpsters.
He had just reached for his door handle when a blue Honda Civic turned sharply into the back lot, its tires emitting a short squeal.
David’s failing heart gave a painful lurch. It was Sarah.
She threw the car into park at a crooked angle, blocking him in completely. The driver’s door flew open. Sarah was still wearing her blue nursing scrubs from the clinic, her stethoscope tangled around the strap of her purse. Her face was flushed, her eyes wide and frantic as she rushed across the greasy asphalt.
“Dad!” she cried out, stopping a few feet away as she took in his appearance. Her eyes darted from the dark, sticky stain covering his chest to the exhausted slump of his shoulders. “Dad, what is going on? Someone at the clinic showed me the video. Why are you in a Westside uniform? You told me you were doing remote data entry for a logistics company!”
“It’s… it’s just a misunderstanding, sweetie,” David wheezed, leaning heavily against the hot metal of his car to keep his knees from buckling. “The data entry fell through. I just needed something temporary. Don’t worry about the video, I’m already handling it.”
“Handling it?” Sarah’s voice cracked, pitching upward in disbelief. She pulled her phone from her scrub pocket, her fingers aggressively tapping the screen. “Dad, it has a hundred thousand views. But that’s not even the worst part. Your manager, Tyler? He just posted a GoFundMe link on Twitter to defend you against that woman’s video.”
David froze. The sweltering heat of the alley suddenly turned ice-cold against his skin. Tyler. The kid had felt guilty for suspending him to appease corporate, trying to do damage control the only way a teenager knew how.
“He set up a donation page for you,” Sarah continued, her voice trembling violently as she stared at her screen. “He wrote this whole paragraph about how you’re a kind, dedicated old man. He’s begging people to donate to clear your name… so you can afford your wife’s supplemental oxygen tanks.”
The heavy, humid air seemed to completely solidify in David’s throat. He couldn’t draw a breath.
Sarah lowered the phone. Tears were spilling over her lower lashes, carving clean lines through her makeup. “Dad… Mom died in April.”
David looked down at his cheap, syrup-stained sneakers. He had told Tyler that lie on his very first day, a desperate, reflexive deflection when the young manager asked why a man his age was applying to work the fryer station. It had been infinitely easier to invent a living, breathing Martha than to explain the gaping, terrifying financial void her final hospital stay had left behind.
“I just… I needed a reason,” David whispered, the raspy sound barely carrying over the hum of the restaurant’s exterior exhaust fans. “For them to give me the hours. I didn’t want them to think I was a liability.”
“If you aren’t paying for Mom’s oxygen,” Sarah stepped closer, the grief in her face hardening into sharp, terrifying realization, “then what is this job for? Why do you need two hundred and eighty dollars by Friday?”
David didn’t answer. He turned away, fumbling blindly in his pocket for his car keys. His left arm felt heavy and numb.
“Answer me!” Sarah demanded, grabbing his forearm. “You told me you were going to the community center! You told me you were doing Dr. Evans’s grief counseling every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. That’s right now, Dad. I’ve been paying a sitter extra to watch Leo because I thought you were at the clinic talking to a therapist about Mom. But you’re here? Getting hot drinks thrown at you in a drive-thru?”
“I have to go, Sarah. Please let go of my arm.”
David tried to pull away, but his hands were trembling uncontrollably. As he yanked his keys from his pocket, his cheap, overstuffed wallet caught on the fabric. It tumbled from his grip, hitting the asphalt and bursting open. Receipts, crumpled dollar bills, and loyalty cards scattered across the dirty ground.
“Leave it!” David barked, his voice laced with sudden, raw panic as he dropped to his knees.
But Sarah was already kneeling beside him, helping gather the mess. She reached for a thick, yellow carbon-copy paper folded into a neat square.
“Sarah, give it back,” David begged, his breath hitching painfully. “Please, don’t look at it.”
She ignored him, unfolding the thick yellow paper. Her eyes scanned the bold black ink at the top. *Valley View Memorial & Mortuary.*
Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Valley View? Dad, Mom’s arrangements were handled by Greenwood. What is this?”
She kept reading. The ambient noise of the alleyway-the idling engines in the nearby drive-thru lane, the hum of the AC units, the distant traffic-seemed to drop away into absolute, ringing silence.
“‘Pre-Need Direct Cremation Plan,'” Sarah read aloud, her voice dropping to a hollow, breathless whisper. Her eyes tracked down the itemized list, moving past the basic urn fee, past the transport charges, stopping at the bottom line. “‘Beneficiary: David Miller. Remaining balance for final installment: Two hundred and eighty dollars.'”
She looked up from the paper. The color had completely drained from her face, leaving her looking as pale and sickly as David felt. She stared at his sunken chest, at his trembling hands, and finally up to his hollow, exhausted eyes.
“You’re not going to counseling,” she whispered, the horrifying truth clicking into place as she looked at the dying man kneeling in front of her. “You’re working yourself to death… to prepay for your own funeral.”