In the early hours of the morning, I piloted my borrowed car through the streets of Bayfield and pulled into Our Lady of Mercy Hospital. In my panic, I hadn’t thought about visiting hours, so I curled up in the back seat to get a couple of hours’ sleep. My phone vibrated against the front seat, and I ignored it, the same way I had for the entire drive. The guys were looking for me. I was being a coward and relying on Harvey and Otis to pass on the message of my departure.
Sleep didn’t come easy, and as the sun peeked through the windshield, I dragged my tired body out of the car and headed for the hospital.
The front desk sent me to a ward on the third floor, and the staff member kindly pointed out the stairs when I couldn’t face the elevator. I waved down the first nurse I found when I reached the ward.
“I’m looking for Dorothy and David King, please.”
He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, but his eyes looked old as he directed me to a seat and asked me to wait for the doctor.
The chairs were cold and hard, the kind that didn’t invite long stays, but were easy to clean should any bodily fluids spill on them. My phone burned a hole in my pocket as I waited, but I reminded myself that family came first. I was here for my parents. Everything else could wait.
When the doctor arrived, her carefully neutral expression made my stomach sink to my shoes.
“Are you the next of kin for Dorothy and David King?”
I jumped up, wiping my hands on my thighs. The stupid dress rode up, and I cursed my lack of foresight. Dresses left you vulnerable. I wanted the protection of denim right about now.
“Yes. I’m their daughter. I had a call saying they’d been admitted? Can I see them?”
“Maybe we should step into a consulting room for a minute and talk.” She pressed a gentle hand to my arm, and I flinched away. My stomach crawled as her expression didn’t change.
“No. I think I’d like to see my parents now, please.”
“Your father is in room fifteen. I can take you to him in a moment, but we really do need to talk.”
Her hair was tied back in a neat bun. Fresh blue scrubs hung from her body beneath a pristine white lab coat. She could have stepped off the set of any medical drama show, but her face…stern with just the softest touch of empathy. Her hands were folded in front of her. Steady. Confident. This was an everyday conversation for her, but as she continued to calmly suggest we move to a more private setting, I felt my world begin to crumble.
“Where’s my ma?”
She glanced around before her face hardened ever so slightly. “I regret to inform you she passed away overnight.”
“No, that’s not possible. My dad has been unwell, but Ma is…Ma.”
“I’m afraid your mother had undiagnosed cardiovascular disease. It’s not uncommon in elderly spousal caregivers. Her heart gave out, and we were unable to revive her. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Gravity shifted, and the doctor caught me by the elbow as my knees gave out, guiding me down into a chair.
Ma was gone. The words didn’t compute. Dad was the one we worried about. We’d had a life insurance policy in place for him for years. Ma had always been a rock. Unflappable.
I thought back to our visit home the week before when she’d ordered my men around, making them help with the cooking and cleaning.
Tears leaked down my cheeks as a hospital bed was pushed down the corridor by two nurses discussing the upcoming weekend and a baseball game they were attending. A soft chime preceded an announcement of a code gray in Emergency. Life continued around me while I quietly fell to pieces in the sterile corridor of a public hospital. The doctor quietly stepped away and returned with a cup of water that I didn’t drink. After a few more minutes, another woman stepped up and introduced herself as the hospital social worker.
“I want to see my dad,” I choked out.
“I’m sure he wants to see you too.” The new woman led me to a door halfway down the corridor, discernible from the others by a small placard naming the room number and ward.
The first thing I noticed was the perfectly made bed. The sheets were tucked tight, the pillow perched at the top like it had just been removed from the packaging. Perfectly plump and wrapped in a white cover.
This was where she died.
“Dottie?” Dad’s voice came from the other side of the curtain, and I hurried around to find him sitting up straight in bed. “I’ve had a frightful night. The poor woman in the next bed died. My heart hurts for her. She was all alone, but I heard her last breath. She—Tatum? What are you doing here? Where’s your mother? Dot? Dorothy? Where’s my wife?”
Alarms sounded as David King returned to lucidity in a panicked rush. He tore at the fluid lines in his arms and rattled the sides of the bed as nurses rushed in with sedatives. Slowly, his struggles eased, his heart rate dipping to a normal beat as he eased into a drug-induced sleep. Fresh tears leaked from my eyes as I sank into a chair and held his hand while he slept.
The days became a blur as Dad’s condition deteriorated rapidly. While the sedatives wore off within the first day, he didn’t regain consciousness. I didn’t blame him. Ma was his entire world, and now he knew she was gone, what was the point in staying here? I didn’t resent him his choice, even if my heart hurt at the evidence that I had never been enough for him.
I didn’t bother to count the days, just stayed in my childhood bed every night before heading to the hospital for visiting hours. Showering was hard. Eating was impossible. And so I waited in this suspended state.
