truly. (Part 26)
It wasn’t long – or at least, it didn’t seem that long, before I woke up to find dad sitting next to me, holding my hand. He looked a bit ragged, and older than I remembered him.
The thought occurred to me that he’d been aging all along and I’d just missed it, as if at twenty-five too much of my life had gone by without my noticing. The realization was painful, but not as painful as the throbbing in my leg. A push of the button would send me straight back into dreamland, but I needed to talk to dad first.
“Hey peanut.” He smiled tenderly, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. Dad hadn’t called me peanut since I was about six. I was pretty small for my age and dad found this annoyingly cute. I, on the other hand, always hated feeling small.
“When did you get here?” I tried in vain to reposition. The twisting movement sent shards of glass up through the left side of my abdomen. I grunted with the exertion, and began sweating again, trying to breathe through the pain.
Dad got up to retrieve a cool washcloth from the sink. He placed it on my forehead and took my hand again. So natural, as if he’d done it a thousand times. How many nights he must have sat by mom’s bed, trying to provide some small comfort, knowing full well that no amount of comfort would stay the tide of loss that crept steadily toward our shore.
I hardly ever saw him with her in the hospital, because we mostly took turns. I was there when he was at work and he was there when I was asleep or doing homework or laundry or grocery shopping or any number of other things I did to try to pick up the slack in our lives.
I stared up at him. In all honesty I hadn’t spent much time thinking about how mom’s loss had affected him. After Jenny died, dad was all I had left, but I guess I’d never realized that I was all he had left too, and for some reason, today, it scared him. I could see it like a ticker tape across his face; the fear running in circles around his head.
Was I worse off than Becky had let on? Or was he still in shock from being summoned to a hospital in New Haven not knowing what he’d find on arrival? He’d been summoned the night Jenny died, and mom too. I’d been with each of them when it happened, but he’d missed it both times, being called in only after the fact.
“I just got here. Maybe a half hour ago.” He managed.
“Is it still Sunday?”
“Yeah, peanut. It’s Sunday. Barely though. It’s about 11:30.”
“What about work? You’ll never get enough sleep to drive back in time.”
“I’m not going to work tomorrow.”
I took a minute to digest that information. It made sense, but dad making sacrifices for me seemed like a juxtaposition. “Where will you sleep?”
“Nurse says that chair in the corner folds out to a twin-sized bed. She brought me some blankets. I’ll be just fine. Don’t you worry about me.”
I glanced over at the chair. Sure enough it was piled high with pillows, sheets and blankets.
Just then Kate came running into the room, obviously out of breath. “Oh my God, Truly! Are you ok?” She slid to a stop when she saw the huge cast on my thigh. Then she just started staring at my head. “Oh, sweetie…” She crossed to the other side of the bed and stood fingering my hair. “What the hell happened?”
Dad’s eyebrows went up. “Yeah, I’d like to know that too. They wouldn’t tell me a whole lot.”
My eyes went wide. “What?! But you’re my father!”
“I know, but you’re not a child anymore. You’re an adult, and apparently you get to say whether or not they can talk to me about your medical condition.”
Although I continued to act surprised, the thought was somehow comforting, knowing that some things were still within my control. “Finn and I were coming back from our date when the accident happened.”
“Finn? The one from the Yankees game?” Dad was nearly grinning remembering the story.
Kate was shaking her head. “Wait. Your date was in New Haven?” She decided she’d better take a seat for this story.
I smiled sheepishly. “Actually the date was in Hartford.”
She folded her arms. “What, there weren’t any good restaurants in Manhattan?”
You had to love Kate. She and I were so similar.
“That’s what I thought at first. But this restaurant was one of a kind. He took me to the Mark Twain house.”
“Mark…Twain? As in the writer?” Kate was obviously perplexed.
“Yes.”
Dad was just sitting there with his eyebrows still up. “The one whose books you’ve read a million times? Isn’t he dead?”
I looked at him. “Yes. Yes, he’s dead. Of course he’s dead. But his house is a museum now and it has this awesome Japanese restaurant in it and–”
“Wait a minute.” Kate put her hand up to interrupt. “That’s what we got you all gussied up for? The Mark Twain house?”
I nodded, trying to keep the smile from my lips, but it was no use. Kate could see I was smitten, and she laughed out loud, then looked at my hair again and stopped short. “I’m sorry. This isn’t funny. Not at all. We can talk about the other stuff later. Please – go on.”
“What other stuff?” Dad wanted to know.
I looked over at his puzzled face. “Girl stuff. Don’t worry about it.” I grimaced. All this talking and moving my head from side to side was exhausting.
Kate looked me over. “Honey, just get to the part about the accident. What happened after the date?”
“I don’t really know. We were in the limo, and–”
“Limo?” Dad ran his fingers through his hair as if he’d have to meet Finn any minute and was somehow afraid he wouldn’t measure up. I thought of his blue shirts with the stains and the constant grease under his nails and his couple of beers to make it all go away. A hole opened up in the deepest pit of my stomach, and the pain I felt had nothing to do with broken legs or stitched up spleens.
“–The driver fell asleep at the wheel.”
Kate’s face fell. “Oh no…”
“I’d fallen asleep as well, so when I woke up I was strapped to a backboard.” Dad’s hand squeezed mine even tighter. “I only know what they’ve told me though. I don’t remember any of it. Apparently the car rolled down an embankment and hit a tree.”
Kate’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh my God.” She looked pointedly at my hair. “And it caught fire.”
I nodded.
Kate’s eyes filled with tears.
“The driver’s dead, Kate.”
“No…” She started shaking her head. “Finn?”
“He’s alive. But he’s in the burn unit.”
I watched dad’s head hit his chest. Tears were running freely down Kate’s cheeks but I was surprisingly calm, despite the excruciating pain in my leg and ribs. It took everything I had just to keep from pushing that call bell and slipping back into oblivion.
I jiggled dad’s hand until he looked up at me again. “He saved my life, dad. He pulled me out.”
I watched dad’s face as understanding dawned. He looked back over his shoulder as if he needed to go see Finn. To thank him for saving me. When he looked back at me his eyes were glassy and damp. “I think I’d like to meet this Finn some day.”
“I’d like that too dad, but he hasn’t woken up yet.”
Kate looked at me. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He has swelling in his brain, and a shattered ankle, and burns on his back.”
“Swelling from what?” Kate asked.
“I don’t know. They think he hit his head when he was thrown from the car.”
“Then how did he manage to pull you out?” Dad wondered.
I shook my head. “I don’t really know. He must have been awake at first.”
Dad rubbed his hand across his stubbled face. “And now he’s in a coma?”
“The nurse said they’re keeping him sedated on purpose, because of the swelling in his brain. I don’t understand that part, and I don’t know anything else.”
Kate leaned back and closed her eyes.
“You must be exhausted, Kate. Unfortunately dad’s taking the only bed in the room, but I don’t really think you’ll be missing much.”
“Oh don’t worry about me. I’m staying with a friend.”
“Who?”
“A girl I went to school with. Turns out her apartment is only about three blocks from here.”
I looked at her. “You shouldn’t walk the streets this late.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Dad sat up a little straighter. “I’ll walk you to her place and then just come back here.”
“Thank you, really, but I’ll be–”
“You don’t get to argue on this one.” Something in dad’s tone left no room for discussion. Maybe it was Finn’s heroics or Jenny’s getting jumped in the dark or the near miss of losing me. Whatever it was, the conversation was over and Kate sensed it.
“Ok. Thank you.”
Dad nodded with some satisfaction.
Kate fingered my hair again. “We’re going to do something about this. Don’t you worry.”
I shook my head, thinking about Finn. My frazzled hair would be cut and then grow again. No one would ever have to know I almost went bald in a fire. Finn, on the other hand, if he survived, would carry scars on his back for the rest of his life. A debt I could never repay, and neither could my father. The thought caused me to shudder and the shudder caused me to cry out in pain as a tight band of spasms gripped my abdomen. I could deal with the leg pain by limiting my movements, but the side was another story entirely.
“I really need to just lay here and be still. I might even ask for some more pain medication.”
Kate kissed me on the forehead. “It’s ok. I’m going to go to Kayla’s place and get some sleep. I’ll be back first thing in the morning, ok?”
“Sure. Thanks Kate.”
She waved me off. “Are you kidding me? What are friends for?”
She nodded to dad and he got up and slipped into his coat. After they left I wondered about that–about what friends are for. They were for hospitals and haircuts and picking out dresses. But they weren’t for pulling you out of a burning vehicle. No, that was another class entirely.
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