The Collection Agency Called About My Late Wife’s Hospital Bills Every Day for Two Years. The Veterinarian Who Saved My Daughter’s Horse Ended It

I don’t know why I answered. Exhaustion, maybe.

The man on the other end started reading the account number. Shannon’s name. The balance. The threat about a lawsuit and wage garnishment.

I stood in the barnyard with the phone against my ear, not saying anything.

Rebecca was watching me.

When I hung up, she said, “That’s not normal. Collectors aren’t allowed to call at four in the morning.”

“They call every day.”

“Every day?”

“For two years.”

She looked at me for a long time.

“Mr. O’Connor,” she said. “Can I see the letters they’ve sent you?”

I showed her the next afternoon. A shoebox full of them.

She read them at my kitchen table while Molly did her homework in the next room.

“My sister is a consumer protection attorney in Portland,” she said finally. “I’m going to send her this. Some of these calls are illegal. Calling before eight. Threatening a lawsuit they can’t file. Some of this debt may not even be collectible.”

“Why would you do that?”

She put the letter down.

“Because I’m divorced,” she said. “Because my ex-husband left me with a pile of debt, and I spent three years getting calls like that. Nobody helped me. I promised myself that if I ever saw it happening to someone else, I’d help.”

She looked toward the living room, where Molly was humming over her math worksheet.

“And because your daughter just asked me if I could come back and check on Sunny every day this week,” she said. “I said yes.”