Chasing Spring(56)

I wanted Lilah to be there. I wanted her to tell me everything would be all right, and even if it wasn't all right, I wanted her to be there so I'd know that at the end of the day I still had the one person I cared about, the only person that truly mattered.

I reached down for my phone in my pocket, but didn't feel it.

“I think I left my phone in your car,” I said, already moving to stand with my plate of food.

“No. Stay, I'll go grab it.”

Lilah was probably wondering why I hadn't met up with her after school, but gossip spread like wildfire in our town and hopefully someone thought to notify her. Still, when Kimberly handed me my phone, I dialed her number from memory and waited through the rings so I could tell her to come down to the hospital myself. When her voicemail picked up, I hung up and tried calling her again.

“I'm sure she's eating dinner or something,” Kimberly said, trying to exude positive energy. My gut knew better. My gut needed Lilah to answer her phone.

…

By the time my dad’s surgeon called me back from the waiting room, I still hadn’t heard from Lilah. I pocketed my phone and pushed past the swinging doors. Dr. Williams was in charge of my father’s care and I was surprised by how young he looked.

I tried to keep up as he explained how well the surgery had gone, how likely it was that my father would have a full recovery. They'd gotten the internal bleeding under control and they were going to reset the bones in his forearm and wrist. He had a punctured lung and a few gashes that needed stitches, but Dr. Williams explained that he'd be able to leave the hospital in a few days.

“Is it just you and your father at the house?” he asked, trying to get a feel for who might be handling my father’s care.

“Yes, just us,” I answered, leaving out the fact that I hadn't been living with him for the past few months.

“All right. We'll get him set up with a homecare nurse, but you'll be an important part of his recovery over the next few weeks. He won't need you as much once he's off the medications, but the first few days will be a little rocky.”

I nodded, recalling all the times throughout high school I'd taken care of him after he'd drunk himself sick. Caring for him after surgery would be no different, really. Dr. Williams started walking down the hallway and instructed me to follow after him. We reached another set of double doors and he scanned his ID and ushered me into the critical care unit.

Nurses were rushing to and from rooms with metal clipboards in hand and bleak expressions covering their faces. We kept walking deeper down the hallway until we stopped outside room 178. I stood in front of the glossy wooden door willing myself to go inside.

“You can go on in, but he'll probably be sleeping,” Dr. Williams said, patting me on the shoulder. “His nurse will come in soon and discuss the recovery plan with you so everyone is on the same page.”

I nodded and gripped the door handle. Time to face the music. The hospital smell that had lingered faintly in the hallway hit me full force as I walked into my dad’s room. The sterile chemicals practically burned my lungs.

My dad was lying in a tangle of cords, IVs, and monitors. His face was covered in bruises and scratches. What parts I could see were stark white. I hadn't realized how thin he'd become in the recent months, but his sunken cheekbones emphasized the bruising around his eyes and nose even more. His right arm was hoisted in a sling mounted to a pole over his head, and the left side of his robe protruded out from the padding they'd wrapped around his lungs.

I wasn’t sure how long I stood there on the other side of his bed in a catatonic state. Nurses flitted in and out of the room, checking whatever they thought needed checking and leaving me alone for the most part. I think they knew I didn't feel like talking and maybe they were relieved by that. They could do their job in peace and then move on to the next patient.

Sometime later, they woke him up while I stayed rooted to the same spot. The orthopedist needed him awake while he reset his arm. He was groggy when the nurse woke him up and I couldn't understand most of what slipped out of his mouth. It was the ramblings of a lunatic as far as I was concerned.

When he could focus long enough to see me standing at the foot of his bed, he swallowed slowly and then glanced away, unable to meet my eyes for long.

Pathetic.

I watched the orthopedist reset his bones and then wrap his arm tightly in gauze and an elastic bandage before fitting it back into the sling. My father winced and moaned the entire time. I was sure it was incredibly painful, but I didn't have much sympathy for him.

When they were done, the medical staff left the room and the heart monitor was the only thing disturbing the ominous silence hanging between us.

He spoke first. “I don't want to hear it.”

His ambivalence pissed me off even more and I narrowed my eyes on him. “You're such an *.”

The layer of respect that's supposed to underpin a father-son relationship no longer existed for us. He was a pathetic excuse for what a father should have been and I was so angry with him I couldn’t control it any longer.

“Watch your mouth. You think you can disrespect me now that you're eighteen and going off to some fancy college?”

I rolled my eyes at his empty words. He was currently constrained to a hospital bed, probably still half-drunk. Respect wasn't even an option any more.