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I look at my mom with her eyes closed and the machines breathing for her. Despite the machines, her SATs are low. Her lungs are barely using what the machines give her. Not only can she not breathe on her own, but her lungs have given up trying to bring oxygen to her blood. They’re just going through the motions now because they’re forced to do it.
My dad walks into the room. His steps falter for just a moment when he sees me, but it’s not too quick for me to catch.
I stand. “I’ll get out of your way.”
“You don’t have to go,” Dad says. “I was just going to sit here and work.”
I hesitate before I sit down again. Dad unpacks his briefcase and starts flipping through files. It’s strained in the room, even though he’s not saying anything, not even looking at me.
“I’m going to go,” I say. “Let me know if anything changes.”
I leave the hospital room, but Dad follows me out.
“Mason, can we talk?”
“What’s there to talk about?” I ask. “I’ve paid everything up so far, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
Dad shakes his head. “That’s not what I want to talk about.”
“I can’t imagine what else you might want to say to me.” I’m done playing nice, trying to be the guy my dad can be proud of when he’ll never be. After our last fight, so much has happened, and I’m tired. I don’t have the energy to care about my dad and whatever the fuck will make him happy when I have so much else to work through.
“Look, I know you and I haven’t seen eye to eye lately, and—”
“Try never.”
“We’re different people—”
“You blame me for mom’s condition. I’m the reason she’s sick; that’s all you see when you look at me. That, and a bank account.”
Dad looks pained. “I was wrong.”
I blink at him. “What?” It’s the last thing I expected from his mouth.
Dad looks around. “Let’s not do this here. Come to the coffee shop with me, and we’ll talk. It’s just across the road.”
I don’t know if I want to do this—talks with my dad never go down well. But he’s admitting he’s wrong, and that’s new. Am I willing to take a chance?
“Okay,” I finally say.
Dad nods and hurries inside to get his wallet and keys before we leave the hospital together and cross the road to the coffee shop. When we’re in a booth, we order two coffees with cream and sugar. I hate that we order the same thing—I don’t want to be my father’s son.
“I was wrong to put the financial pressure on you,” Dad says. “I should have thought about what it would do to you. Just because youcandoesn’t mean you should pay for everything.”
I watch him while he talks.
“The thing is…” his voice trails off and he takes a shaky breath. “I can’t do it.” It looks like it hurt to admit. “I don’t have what it takes to look after her. I don’t have enough money, the insurance only covers so much, and—” his voice catches in his throat. He looks like he might cry. I’ve never seen this side of my dad and I don’t know how to react to it.
“It’s hard, you know,” Dad says, his words tumbling out, laced with emotion he’s trying his best to hide. “It’s hard to admit that I can’t take care of my family. Hell, I’m supposed to the head of the house. I’m supposed to the guy who’s got it all together. I should look after her, and I can’t do that. I can’t protect her from all of this.” He takes a beat to swallow his emotions when it looks like they’ll overcome him. “And you…I didn’t know what to do with you when you arrived. I was already so terrified I would lose her, and then you came along, this tiny pink little thing, and I’m suddenly supposed to make sure you’re okay, too. Because she’s too damn sick to manage. And I can’t let her think she’s not enough, you know? So I have to pick up the pieces so she doesn’t feel like she’s dropping the ball, and me…I’m just all thumbs when it comes to babies.”
“I’m not a baby anymore, Dad,” I say gruffly.
“You’re right; you’re not. I don’t know when that happened. I was so busy trying to survive, to make things work, that I missed it. I blinked, and you were big, strong and independent. And I saw a way out.” The coffee arrives and I watch my dad pull himself together for the sake of the waitress and offer her a warm smile.
When she’s gone, he shakes his head and we add sugar and cream to our coffee in silence for a while.
“It was wrong of me,” Dad says. “But when you got on the team and the money came in, I saw a way out. A light at the end of a dark tunnel that I really thought was just a hole. And for the first time, there was hope again that we could figure it out, you know? But I didn’t think about what it does to you. And what it does tous.”
My dad looks me in the eyes, and his face is a mixture of emotions. His eyes shimmer like he’s going to cry, and I don’t know what to do with a man who looks like he’s about to fall apart.
