How much money is my daughter Erica’s life worth?

It’s an obscene question, one that my husband, Michael, and I were slated to negotiate last month in an obscene city, Las Vegas. But the mediation, scheduled since January, was called off two days out because an insurance company senior V.P. couldn’t find a room in Vegas. Big convention. Right. Whatever.

Today is exactly two weeks shy of four years ago that our daughter, Erica, died on her first full day in a wilderness “therapy” program. Three years and eight months since we got the Medical Examiner’s report that listed the cause of Erica’s death as heatstroke with dehydration. Three years, four months since the investigating officer called to say that Erica’s case had been forwarded to the Nye County, Nevada, prosecutor’s office with recommended charges of felony child abuse resulting in death.

Local Parents Of Murdered Children support groups, three-plus years. Bi-weekly counseling, three years last month. Our first civil suit was filed on the first anniversary of Erica’s death. Two years and ten months ago, Michael and I drove to Tonopah, NV to hike the Arc Dome Wilderness and find the place where our daughter died. We hiked, but didn’t find what we were looking for. Two years, ten months ago was the last meaningful contact we had with the Nye County D.A.. Around the time of what should have been Erica’s 17th birthday, two years, seven months ago, I gave up the fight to get criminal indictments. I got tired.

Our current civil suit was filed two years, two months ago. Michael and I gave our depositions one year, seven months ago. The day after that was Erica’s 18th birthday. Six days after that, my mother died, with me urging her on to go see her father, her son, Erica. One year, three months ago, I sat in on two days of testimony by the counselors who’d been on the trail with Erica. It was the first and last time I saw them since she died. None of us spoke to each other. For me, there was both nothing and too much to say.

It’s been eleven months since our first mediation, which was a bust. Eight months since the defense deposed our younger daughter, who was thirteen when Erica died. Since her only sibling’s death, she’s had her fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth birthdays, made it through four Christmases, taken the PSAT’s, watched her sister’s friends graduate from high school, acquired a cat, a driver’s license, a broken heart, a dog, one tattoo, three body piercings, a car and two jobs.

Back to the original question—what is the dollar value of your kid’s life or, more precisely, her death? The socially acceptable answer is a TV ad tagline: Priceless.

The truthful answer: As much as we can get.

Hopefully, it will be a sum that will inflict some real hurt. Hurt the individuals involved (probably not going to happen), hurt the corporation that runs the program (maybe, if their future insurance premiums take a steep jump), ruin the retirement years of some other people (ours are screwed because whenever we sit on a beach, we cry). Beyond that, I can’t imagine what we’ll do with the money. I only know that to me, in this instance, the dollar has become The Almighty Dollar. It won’t deliver justice, but it’s the only thing we’ve got.