The settlement didn't fix Arthur’s lungs, but it changed the air in their home. The crushing weight of medical bills vanished. He knew Martha would be taken care of, and they were able to fly their grandkids in from California for one last, long summer by the pier.
He remembered the dust. It had been everywhere in the sixties and seventies—clinging to the pipes he insulated, coating his coveralls, and dancing in the shafts of light inside the hulls of submarines. They hadn’t told him then that the "white dust" was asbestos, or that it would wait decades to steal his breath.
"We need a plan, Artie," his wife, Martha, said softly from the doorway.
A week later, they sat in a sun-drenched office in Providence. The attorney, a woman named Elena who had grown up in Pawtucket, didn't lead with legal jargon. She led with a map. She pointed to the very docks where Arthur had spent his youth.