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“Do you want an autograph?” I ask as he pulls his hood off.
He shakes his head and water splashes onto my dashboard. “I have a favor to ask.”
I groan. I should have kept driving.
“What is it?”
“My father is your biggest fan,” he says as he starts to get teary-eyed. “He got hit by a car last month and he’s in pretty bad shape.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” I say, putting a comforting hand on his wet shoulder.
He aggressively wipes away his tears, trying to keep it together. “He’s not going to walk again.”
My stomach sinks as he lists all of his father’s injuries and the surgeries he’s going to need. The man is lucky to be alive.
“It’s been so hard on our family,” the kid says. “And he’s been really down.”
“What can I do to help?” I ask. “Do you want a signed jersey? I think I have an extra one in the trunk.”
“He already has four of them hanging in our basement,” he says. “I was hoping you could come visit him.”
I shift in my seat. “I don’t know…”
“It would mean so much to him,” he quickly says. “He’s at the hospital around the corner. It would only take ten minutes. Please, Mr. Sutton. Please. He needs this. Our whole family needs this.”
I look at the poor kid who’s soaked to the bone and so cold his hands are shaking. My heart goes out to him for waiting six hours in the rain for his old man. I don’t have anyone in my life who would do that for me.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go.”
“Really?!” he says, his face beaming as he wipes away his tears.
“Buckle up.”
A few minutes later, this kid named Arthur is leading me through the hospital to his father’s room. He tells me what a big fan his dad is and how he used to bring him to the games when he was younger. They’d both wear my jersey and have a great time watching me kick ass.
“Just a second,” he says when we arrive at the room. My stomach is in knots, not knowing what to expect. “I’ll go prepare him.”
He disappears into the room and then comes back a minute later, smiling his head off.
I walk in and force out a smile at the broken man lying in the bed. It’s worse than I expected. He looks like he got hit by a whole fleet of trucks.
He has two black eyes, a metal contraption on his head, more wires than I can count attached to his body, and casts on both his arms.
It doesn’t take a genius to know that the poor fuck has had a horrible month.
“Is that…?” he says, staring at me in shock. “Harris Sutton?”
“It sure is, Dad!” the kid says, beaming.
I sit beside his bed and clasp his hand. “You got a good son here,” I tell him. “He stood in the cold November rain for six hours to get me here.”
“Arthur is the best,” he says, beaming at his son. “He’s hardly left my side even though I keep telling him to go be a kid.”
Arthur’s cheeks start to blush as he smiles at his dad.
“I was there when you scored four goals against The Calgary Nighthawks,” the man says, suddenly full of energy. “I screamed so loud I couldn’t talk for two days!”
I spend two hours in the room.
