Chapter 9
“Just call me back.”
The voicemail ended.
I lowered the phone and stared at the ceiling.
Pregnant and scared.
During ninety seconds of talking, Lauren hadn’t once asked how I was.
Still, something beneath her anger caught my attention.
Fear.
Real fear from someone who had never been required to stand alone.
I didn’t return the call.
But I didn’t delete it.
On the third day, as Tessa wheeled me back from a scan, Marisol stopped us in the corridor and lowered her voice.
“There’s a man in the family lounge,” she said. “He’s been there since seven this morning. He hasn’t asked to see you. He just sits. He won’t leave, and he won’t eat.” She hesitated. “It’s your father.”
I’d expected this somehow, yet my stomach tightened.
“Does he look angry?” I asked.
“No,” Marisol said. “He looks like a man who has run out of things to be angry with.”
Tessa gripped the wheelchair handles. “You don’t owe him anything, you know.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to see him.”
“I know that, too.” I looked toward the double doors. “But I think I want to.”
There was a small second floor hospital garden, a quiet courtyard with benches and potted maples. I asked Tessa to take me there and wait by the entrance. She stood with folded arms like a tiny, fierce guard.
Dad sat on a sunny bench with his hands between his knees.
He looked smaller. His navy jacket was wrinkled, and the hair he meticulously combed every morning stuck up on one side.
I doubted he’d slept in two days.
When he saw me, he stood and seemed unsure where to put his hands.
“Thank you for coming out,” he said, and his voice cracked. “I didn’t think you would.”
“You have five minutes, Dad. I’m still tired.”
“That’s all I need.” He sat, reconsidered, then awkwardly knelt on the paving stones before my chair. His knees cracked. “Mira, I have to tell you something, and I want you to let me finish, because if I stop, I won’t be able to start again.”
I nodded.
“Yesterday morning, when you first called, the phone lit up on the counter in Lauren’s kitchen. It said Miranda, Hospital. I saw it. Your mother was carrying a box of dishes, and I looked right at the screen.” He closed his eyes. “And I turned the phone over.”
The courtyard suddenly felt airless.
