Daddy's Girls (6)

    She kept up the steady rhythm of the breaths and chest compressions for what felt like hours before she heard sirens in the distance. As soon as she did, Thad ran in and knelt next to her.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. I think he had a heart attack,” she said and continued CPR. The paramedics arrived in force then, and took over. The head paramedic was a man she’d gone to school with. Caroline had dated his younger brother in high school. He asked her for the details, as one of his men continued giving Jimmy CPR, and another took out a defibrillator. When the defibrillator instructed them to, they administered a shock, as Kate and Thad stood near, watching what was happening. Kate clutched Thad’s hand. She could tell the defibrillator hadn’t worked. They’d been working on him for an hour, when Kate’s old schoolmate turned to her and shook his head. He stepped away from JT then and came over to her. They had done everything they could, and Kate and Thad had seen it. None of it had worked.

“I’m sorry, Kate. Sometimes you just can’t bring them back. I think he went instantly. Did he have a history of heart problems?” She shook her head and had told them that in the beginning. It was just his time, with no warning. Kate looked as though she was in shock.

“How can that just happen? He was fine when I left him this morning.”

“It’s terrible to say, but sometimes it’s better like that. He led a great life and was a terrific guy.” They covered him then, put him on a gurney to take him to the ambulance outside, as the ranch hands stood staring, and Kate cried in Thad’s arms. He was crying too.

“Oh my God, Thad…he was sixty-four years old, in perfect health.” And now he was dead. Neither of them could believe it, as they stood there crying.

    Juliette ran into the barn. She arrived just in time to see them carry Jimmy out on the stretcher, with his face covered, and she ran to him, uncovered him, and bent to kiss him. They put him in the ambulance then to take him to the hospital morgue, until Kate could recover enough to make arrangements.

Juliette looked like she’d been hit by a bomb. They all did. The two women hugged each other and stood crying, and then went back to JT’s rambling ranch house, where Juliette lived with him. “I heard the sirens, and I thought someone got hurt. I never thought it was him,” she said in her still heavy French accent.

Kate was so shaken she could barely speak. They walked into the house, and his belongings were everywhere, a pair of tall, mud-covered rubber boots that he’d worn the day before, his riding gloves on the table, a jacket he’d thrown over a chair. The three of them sat down at the kitchen table, staring at each other, unable to believe that he was gone. Thad poured them all coffee and Kate looked at him and Juliette bleakly.

“I have to call my sisters.” She couldn’t think of what to say.

“Give yourself a minute first,” Thad said gently, and she nodded, but couldn’t drink the coffee. Juliette lit a cigarette, and was as shattered as Kate. She had loved him for twenty-four years.

After they’d sat there for a while, Thad walked Kate to her house, and she sat down again and looked at him.

“I don’t even know what to say to the employees. This feels like a bad dream and I’m going to wake up any minute.” Only she knew she wouldn’t. In a single instant, everything had changed, and her father would never wake up again. Thad stayed until she felt ready to call her sisters, and then he walked to his own cabin, with tears rolling down his cheeks, feeling as though his world had come to an end. What were they all going to do without Jimmy? It was unthinkable, unimaginable. As he walked into his cabin, he felt desperately sorry for Kate. For forty-two years, her whole life had been her father. That morning, in an instant, her world had changed, and so had his.





Chapter 2


Gemma was having lunch in her trailer on the set at the studio, her long legs stretched out, reading her lines for the next scene when her cellphone rang. She glanced at it, but wasn’t going to answer, so as not to get distracted from the script. Her hair was in rollers, and she was wearing the bathrobe she always wore between scenes on the set. It had been a long morning shooting, and it was a hot day in L.A. She saw that the call was from her sister, and picked it up.

“Hi, cowgirl, how’s life in the sticks?” Gemma teased her, as she always did. There was a long silence while Kate tried not to sob before she told her.

“Not so good.” Kate’s voice sounded like a stranger’s to both of them. “Something just happened to Daddy.” She hadn’t called him that in years. She called him Dad now, or sometimes JT when referring to him, like everyone else, but never Daddy.

“Like what?” Gemma asked as she frowned.

Kate lost it then and started to cry. “He had a heart attack. He just died, Gem. They tried to revive him, and they couldn’t. I gave him CPR until the paramedics came. He was just gone, instantly. Dickie Jackson was the head of the paramedics. He was really nice about it. He said there was nothing they could do.”

    “Oh my God.” Gemma didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t cry. She just stared into space, unable to believe what she’d just heard. “That can’t be. He was fine. He’s never sick.” She tried to remember the last time she had talked to him, and couldn’t. They never had much to say. Their father was a man of few words. He was better and more expressive face-to-face. He was a true Texan and a cowboy until the end.