Leaving Amarillo(81)
I reach for him, to hold him, to kiss and console him, to tell him everything. That I am in love with him, that I’ll never sit out again, that he is so much more to me than he realizes. But I don’t get the chance.
“Garrison! What the f*ck, man?” My brother’s voice lands on both of us like a sledgehammer shattering our perfect moment.
Gavin whirls around to where Mandy and Dallas are charging toward us. His hands go up and he takes a step away from me. “Easy, Dallas. It doesn’t mean what you think it does.”
It doesn’t mean what you think it does?
What does he think it means? What does it mean? The questions sting my mind like angry hornets. The neon lights blur on the darkened street before me.
“You two bailed on me in there. We should be meeting people and introducing ourselves. Not hiding outside.”
“If Dixie was feeling so ill she couldn’t perform, I think it’s time to call it a night.” Gavin stands like a proper doorman ignoring my brother’s obvious annoyance.
Mandy goes first and Dallas follows. I wait a beat, picking up my previously discarded purse and allowing my eyes to meet his with an unspoken uncertainty.
Once we’re all in the car and Mandy gives the driver the address to our hotel, I feel my purse vibrating and remember the notifications I meant to check earlier. Both of the guys are sitting with clenched jaws staring out the windows. Mandy is smiling to herself and I’m pretty sure she’s checking her makeup in the driver’s rearview mirror.
Pulling out my phone I see several missed calls from Mrs. Lawson’s number. Probably more updates on her cats, but she left a few voice mails so I press the button to listen to them anyway.
The first one is so shrill and panicked that I can barely understand it. But the second one is crystal clear.
Papa had a heart attack. She found him in the front yard early this morning, and he’s at St. Anthony’s in critical condition.
“We have to go home,” I say, feeling the phone slip from my grasp. “Now.”
Chapter 28
THE DRIVE FROM NASHVILLE WAS A BLUR. I DON’T THINK I SPOKE A single word. After the initial chaos of deciding if the three of us could afford a flight and realizing none of them left until eight the next morning anyway, we loaded into Emmylou and hit the interstate. I think they might have tried to get me to eat and I know I took a drink of someone’s gas station Big Gulp at some point, but that’s about all I can remember.
I was hurt and upset but I can’t remember why. I can’t remember anything. Nothing feels consequential enough to matter.
My thoughts are muddled in a foggy tunnel of fear and uncertainty.
The intensive care unit waiting room is bathed in the grayish blue of the cloudy afternoon. Faint hints of human waste and the overpowering sting of strong antiseptic hit me hard, like running into a wall. We made it a few hours earlier than we should’ve arrived had we been obeying traffic laws. Dallas finds a nurse in charge and we’re told that a doctor will be in to speak with us during afternoon rounds, until then, all we can do is sit by Papa’s bed and watch machines breathe for him and drip fluid into him. They beep out a rhythm but for the first time, I don’t hear music. I hear finality. I hear time passing.
Moments and breaths measured, rushing us toward the end and reminding me that there isn’t a promise of tomorrow. We assume so much—take so much for granted. If I could break out from beneath the heavy weight of the shock, I’d launch myself into Gavin’s arms. I’d announce to my brother and anyone who would listen that I love him today, I loved him yesterday, and I will love him until machines count out my last heartbeats. But right now, with Papa looking frail and ten years older than I remember beneath a thin white sheet, it all feels selfish and indulgent. Loving, having love, being loved. Like any energy I spend on something as mundane as showering or eating is wasted when I could be focusing it on willing him to be okay.
So we sit, Dallas, Gavin, and I, in a lopsided triangle around Papa’s hospital bed with the beeping and CNN playing with black-and-white captions at the bottom of the flat-screen television in the corner of the ceiling because no one has bothered to change it or turn up the volume. There are only supposed to be two visitors at a time, but somehow Gavin works his charm and is allowed to stay, for which I am grateful. Nurses come in and nurses go out, asking us our names, introducing themselves, and taking Papa’s never-changing vitals.
Lunchtime comes and goes and no one comes to explain what’s going on. Dallas calls Mrs. Lawson and she cries and carries on about her cats and how they predicted a tragedy was coming.
“She found him near the mailbox, said he was on his back and gurgling fluids but nonresponsive. She called 911 and they tried to instruct her on how to perform CPR but she couldn’t clear the foam from his mouth.”
Dallas is relaying their conversation and I’m nodding because it’s all I can manage. He might as well be punching me in the stomach. It wouldn’t feel much different.
“It took the ambulance about twenty minutes to get there and the paramedics were still working on him when they pulled away. Mrs. Lawson said to keep her posted.”
More nodding.
I’m fighting off unconsciousness when a tired-looking blond man in a white coat steps into the already overcrowded room. Dallas has nodded off with his head on his fist and Gavin is slumped in his chair.