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Timofey’s blue eyes are washed-out pastels in the hospital fluorescents. He stares down at me, and with every passing second, I feel smaller.
He’s uncertain and that is answer enough. I shouldn’t go with him. I’m being stupid. Desperate.
I start to say so, shaking my head and backing away from him, when I bump into a passing nurse. “Excuse me,” I mumble.
The woman utters a similar apology before she stops and turns back. “Piper?”
I look up and a frigid panic slips down my spine. I know this woman. “Oh. Hi. Hello. Good to see you.”
It’s not good to see her. The last thing this moment needs is a witness.
“It’s been a while.” Her smile falters, confusion creasing her kind face. “It’s after visiting hours. How did you get back here?”
My mouth opens with the hopes that an explanation will start to pour out, but it’s late and there is too much going on. I don’t know how to tell this nurse that I’m here with my employer-slash-kidnapper and the son that is legally not his because he has a congenital heart defect that he may or may not have inherited from his parents, whose origins and whereabouts are both unknown.
Thankfully, she waves away the question. “It doesn’t matter. Your dad has been asking about you.”
I can’t turn around to look at Timofey, but I can feel his eyes boring into the back of me.
The other last thing this night needs?My dad.
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PIPER
“Oh no, you don’t have to do that,” I say as politely as I can. “I’m sure he’s sleeping now.”
“He’s a night owl, you know that,” she says with a laugh. “And if you’re with me, no one will boot you out. Come on. I’ll get you in to see him.”
Again, I try to come up with the words to end this experience, but I can’t summon anything. How do I tell this woman that I do not want to visit my own father while he’s sick in the hospital?
She pulls ahead, walking through the halls with a confidence I don’t possess, and Timofey falls into stride with me. “Your father?”
I groan. “Cirrhosis of the liver. He’s back in the hospital right now. I… forgot.”
“No, you didn’t.”
My mouth pulls into an exhausted grimace. Why does this man have to be privy to every thought in my mind?
“You’re right. I didn’t,” I admit. “But I wanted to forget. I didn’t want to think about him tonight.”
“And yet now, we’re going to visit.” He gestures to the back of the nurse leading us to him. “You know her?”
“I think her name is Pam. I saw her the few times I visited.”
Timofey lofts a brow. “You visited him ‘a few times.’”
It isn’t a question, which makes it even worse. It’s a judgment. And a fair one, too.
“He… called,” I say weakly. “He was lonely. He just wanted someone to talk to.”
He wanted money, actually.
“There’s nothing left in the coffers, Piper,”Dad said through watery hacks when I last saw him.“When they shit me out of here with the bill, I’ll be up a creek.”
I told him he wouldn’t be up a creek, and we both knew what that meant.I’dfoot the bill.I’dpay his rent.I’dmake sure he didn’t starve in a gutter like he probably deserved.
I haven’t seen him since.
