She looked at her sleeping daughter. “She doesn’t complain. Ever. She tells me she’s sorry she got sick. Sorry she’s costing so much money. She’s six years old and she apologizes for having cancer.”
I stood up. “Not anymore. I’m making some calls.”
I walked outside and called my club president, Hammer. Told him the situation. Within fifteen minutes, I had commitments from forty-seven brothers to come to the hospital.
But I also called someone else. A woman named Jennifer who’d been in my daughter’s support group years ago. Her daughter survived leukemia and Jennifer became a child advocate. She now worked for a nonprofit that helped families exactly like Sarah’s.
Jennifer answered on the second ring. When I told her the situation, she said, “I’m twenty minutes away. Don’t let them take that child out of the hospital.”
The administrator came back with an older man in a suit. The hospital director. He looked nervous when he saw me.
“Sir, I understand you’re upset, but we have policies—”
“Your policies are killing children,” I said flatly. “Do you understand that? You have a dying six-year-old whose mother is homeless and you’re sending her away because her insurance is maxed out. How do you sleep at night?”
The director’s jaw tightened. “We’re a business. We can’t provide free care to everyone who—”
“She’s six years old!” My voice echoed through the lobby. Other people were watching now. “She’s a dying child and you’re treating her like a billing problem!”
That’s when the first of my brothers arrived. Big Tom, all 6’5″ of him, wearing his road vest and carrying his helmet. He walked up and stood next to me silently. Then came Rattlesnake Jake. Then Moose. Then Frank. Within twenty minutes, there were thirty bikers standing in the hospital lobby. All quiet. All just standing there.
The director looked around nervously. “This is intimidation.”
“This is witnessing,” I said. “We’re bearing witness to how your hospital treats dying children. We’re not doing anything wrong. We’re just standing here. And we’re going to keep standing here until Aina has a bed.”
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