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Rufus’s eyes widen, like his mind has been blown. “Whoa. Did you know that?”
“I know that.” Seriously, if it’s not his first week on the job, Jared’s got to be on some forty-hour shift. “I still want to say goodbye.”
Jared gets his act together and stops questioning me. I get his initial resistance, rules are rules, but I’m happy when he doesn’t drag this out any longer by asking me for proof. He takes photos of us, prints out visitor passes, and hands the pass
es to me. “Sorry about all this. And, you know . . .” His condolences, while hardly there, are way more appreciated than the ones I received from Andrea at Death-Cast.
We walk toward the elevator.
“Did you also wanna punch the smile off his face?” Rufus asks.
“Nope.” It’s the first time Rufus and I have spoken to each other since getting out of the train station. I press the visitor pass across my shirt, making sure it sticks with a couple pats. “But thanks for getting us in here. I would’ve never played the Decker card myself.”
“No problem. We have zero time for could’ve-would’ve-should’ve,” Rufus says.
I push the elevator button. “I’m sorry I didn’t join in on the party car.”
“I don’t need an apology. If you’re fine with your decision, that’s on you.” He walks away from the elevator and toward the staircase. “I’m not cool with us riding the elevator, though, so let’s do this.”
Right. Forgot. It’s probably better to leave the elevators available to the nurses and doctors and patients at this time of night anyway.
I follow Rufus up the stairs, and it’s only the second floor but I’m already out of breath. Really, maybe there’s something physically wrong with me and maybe I’ll die here on these steps before I can reach Dad or Lidia or Future Mateo. Rufus gets impatient and sprints up, sometimes even skipping two steps at a time.
On the fifth floor, Rufus calls down to me. “I hope you’re serious about opening yourself up to new experiences, though. Doesn’t have to be something like the party car.”
“I’ll feel ballsier once I’ve said my goodbyes,” I say.
“Respect,” Rufus says.
I trip up the steps, landing flat on the sixth floor. I take a deep breath as Rufus comes back down to help me up. “That was such a kid fall,” I say.
Rufus shrugs. “Better forward than backward.”
We continue to the eighth floor. The waiting area is straight ahead, with vending machines and a peach-colored couch between folding chairs. “Would you mind waiting out here? I sort of want one-on-one time with him.”
“Respect,” Rufus says again.
I push open the blue double doors and walk through. Intensive Care is quiet except for some light chatter and beeping machines. I watched this thirty-minute documentary on Netflix a couple years ago about how much hospitals have changed since Death-Cast came into the picture. Doctors work closely with Death-Cast, obviously, receiving instant updates about their terminal patients who’ve signed off on this agreement. When the alerts come in, nurses dial back on life support for their patients, prepping them for a “comfortable death” instead with last meals, phone calls to families, funeral arrangements, getting wills in order, priests for prayers and confessions, and whatever else they can reasonably supply.
Dad has been here for almost two weeks. He was brought in right after his first embolic stroke at work. I freaked out really hard, and before I went ahead and signed off on Dad’s contact information being uploaded into the hospital’s database, I spent the night of his admittance praying his cell phone wouldn’t ring. Now, I’m finally free of the anxiety that Dr. Quintana might call to notify me my dad is going to die, and it’s good to know Dad has at least another day in him; hopefully way more than one.
I show a nurse my visitor pass and bullet straight into Dad’s room. He’s very still, as machines are breathing for him. I’m close to breaking down because my dad might wake up to a world without me, and I won’t be around to comfort him. But I don’t break. I sit down beside him, sliding my hand under his, and rest my head on our hands. The last time I cried was the first night at the hospital—when things were looking really grim as we approached midnight. I swore he was minutes away from death.
I hate to admit it, but I’m a little frustrated Dad is not awake right now. He was there when my mother brought me into this life and when she left us, and he should be here for me now. Everything is going to change for him without me: no more dinners where instead of telling me about his day he would go on remembering the trials my mother put him through before she finally agreed to marry him, and how the love they shared was worth it while it lasted; he’ll have to put away the invisible pad he would whip out whenever I said something stupid as a promise to embarrass me in front of my future children, even though I never really saw kids as part of my future; and he’ll stop being a father, or at least won’t have anyone to parent.
I release Dad’s hand, grab a pen that’s on his bedside chest of drawers, pull out our photo, and write on the back of it with an unsteady hand:
Thank you for everything, Dad.
I’ll be brave, and I’ll be okay.
I love you from here to there.
Mateo
I leave the photo on top of the chest.
Someone knocks on the door. I turn, expecting Rufus, but it’s Dad’s nurse, Elizabeth. Elizabeth has been taking care of Dad during the night shift, and she’s always so patient with me whenever I call the hospital for updates. “Mateo?” She eyes me mournfully; she must know.
