AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Don’t speak about me as if I am not here,” my father snapped. “I am not incompetent.” The nurse blushed; she was a pretty thing. Had it not been for Emma, I might have asked for her number. My father must have noticed my stare. “My son finds you attractive. Would you like him to take you out?”
The nurse’s eyes widened. “Oh,” she said, “uh —”
I held up my hands in an “unarmed” gesture. “I’m married, Miss,” I said. “Please accept my apologies. Padre and I are having a disagreement, and he’s trying to make a point.”
Her blush deepened, and I was sure she was sick of our shit. “Your father is going to get sick in the next few hours. He won’t be able to hold down food, and he’ll probably develop a massive headache. Do your best to keep him hydrated.”
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” When she started removing his IV, I asked, “Can I take him home then?”
“Dr. Spalding wanted to speak with you,” she said, eyes on her work. “If you’ll give him a moment, and then I’m sure you’ll be discharged to go.”
She breezed out of the room, and I whirled on my father. “You’re propositioning women for me now?” My voice came out far too loud; we were both shocked.
“Yelling?” Padre asked. “You’re yelling now?”
There was no way for me to respond. I could apologize, but we both knew that I would be lying, and my father couldn’t stand liars. “Let’s just talk to your doctor, Padre,” I said with a sigh. “We can discuss the rest at home.”
My father had murder in his eyes. “Yes,” he agreed. “We will.”
It took Dr. Spalding another twenty minutes to arrive, flustered and with a manila folder tucked under his arm, and Padre and I sat in silence that entire time. I stood and shook the doctor’s hand. “I’m glad Gustavo brought some support this time,” Dr. Spalding said. “You must be one of his children.”
“Angel,” I said in answer. “The oldest.” I glanced at my father, and that pitiful, fragile look was back. It was like he shrunk in the face of his doctor. “What’s going on with my father? Is all of this helping?” I gestured to the empty chemo bag hanging from the IV pole.
The doctor took a breath and walked over to the lightbox that was hung on the wall. Pulling a film out of the folder, he put it up on the lightbox and turned the light on. For the next five minutes, he walked me through my father’s prognosis, and it was bleak. My father’s liver was shutting down, and his cancer appeared to be spreading into his small intestines.
He was using medical jargon that I couldn’t follow, but I got the gist of what he was saying: Padre didn’t have long left, and it would be for the best if we made our arrangements sooner rather than later. “What can we do?” I asked. “More chemo? Is there surgery?”
Dr. Spalding put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. “Gustavo and I have discussed this at length. The chemo can give him more time, but it’s not a cure-all. The fact that there are new growths in different parts of the body shows us that the chemo isn’t doing what we’d hoped.” He looked at my Padre, who had stubbornly remained quiet and passive. Like if he ignored the doctor, the news would somehow be different. “I’m sorry to you both, but there’s not much else to be done. Continuing the chemo is your choice, of course, but you’d be subjecting yourself to torture for very little outcome.”
“Are physicians allowed to just…give up like this?” Padre asked, still refusing to look at the doctor. “I thought the oath said, ‘do no harm’?”
Dr. Spalding nodded. “It does, which is why I’m suggesting that you cease treatments because all you are going to accomplish is making your final months miserable.” He handed me a stack of papers. “Everything we’ve talked about is in there,” he said. “Your family should sit down and discuss next steps.”
When he was gone, my father pushed himself to his feet. “Throw that out,” he said. “It’s not going back to the compound.” If there was a way to hide it, I would have snuck it out, but under his watchful gaze, I tore the pages up and tossed them into the trash can. “Come,” he said. “We’ve a lot to discuss at home.”
There was no point in arguing, and I doubted he would talk about what Dr. Spalding had just told us. But the whole drive home, I imagined what six months from this point would look like. Padre’s life was spiraling downward. Home plate was in sight, so to speak.
CHAPTER21
Emma
Angel was lying beside me, snoring. I hadn’t woken up with him beside me since our honeymoon. Since I went to bed on my own, I fully expected to wake up that way. I did my best to relax back into the mattress, but every little movement seemed to set off bigger ones. I overcompensated by not moving at all, but that felt uncomfortable, which only made me wiggle more.
“I’m awake,mi esposa,” Angel said, though he hadn’t opened his eyes yet. “Relax.”
“Sorry,” I said and turned toward him and let out a gasp. “Angel, what the hell?” His face was a mess. There was a cut on his lip, and one of his eyes was nearly swollen shut.
“I’m fine,” he said, but when he tried to roll over onto his back, he winced.
“You’renotfine,” I said and sat up. “Did your father do this to you? Again?”
He glared at me. “You don’t need to know.”
My hands clenched into fists. “How bad is it?” I asked, taking the bite out of my voice as best I could. “Should I go get the first aid kit?”
Angel shook his head. “I’m just stiff,” he said. “Nothing’s broken, and what was bleeding, I took care of before I came to bed.”
“What can I do?” I asked. I hated feeling helpless, and I hated that the wall that had been slowly coming down between us had come up again. Angel was three inches to my right, but he was so far away that I couldn’t feel him. My chest ached for him…and I tried not to prod at that feeling, but it was hard not to. “Let me help.”
