He practically died when I said that I’d listen to Pink over The Rolling Stones, any day. I mean, I literally think I wounded him. He put his big hand over his heart and threw back his head in devastation and everything. It was very dramatic. And funny. I tried not to laugh, but it was hard not to when his hardened, over-exaggerated face was practically smiling, too.
And just as we went to leave after the sun rose, I stopped to look at him for a moment. A slight breeze brushed through his stylish brown hair. He cocked his head to the side, smiling at me and waving me into the cab. “You’re still coming, right?”
I smiled warmly back at him and nodded. “Of course.” And I took his hand and slid into the backseat with him.
What I had been thinking about when I looked at him was that I realized I haven’t smiled or laughed this much since before Ian died. Not even Natalie could get a genuine elated emotion out of me and she tried really hard. She went out of her way to help snap me out of my depression, but nothing she ever did came close to what Andrew has managed to do in such a short time and without even trying.
My throat closes up when we step foot inside the hospital, like a wall of blackness came out of nowhere and engulfed me. I stop for a second at the entrance and just stand here with my arms heavy at my sides. And then I feel Camryn’s hand touch my wrist.
I look over at her. She’s smiling so warmly that it melts me a little. Her blonde hair is pulled into a messy braid around to one side, lying freely over her right shoulder. A few strands that escaped the rubber band rest freely down the side of her face. I have this urge to reach up and brush them softly with my finger, but I don’t. I can’t be doing shit like that. I need to get rid of this attraction. But she’s different from other girls and I think that’s exactly why I’m having such a hard time with it. I don’t need this right now.
“You’ll be fine,” she says.
Her hand falls away from my wrist when she sees that she has my attention. I smile faintly back at her.
We follow the hall to the elevator and ride up to the third floor. Every step of the way I feel like I should just turn around and leave this place. My father doesn’t want me to show emotion when I go in there and right about now I’m about to explode with it.
Maybe I should go outside and punch a few trees and get it all out of my system before I go in there.
We stop at the waiting area where a few other people are all sitting around reading magazines.
“I’ll wait here for you,” Camryn says and I look right at her.
“Why don’t you come with me?”
I really do want her to. I don’t know why.
Camryn starts to shake her head no. “I-I can’t go in there,” she says, looking uncomfortable now. “Really, I … I just don’t think it’s appropriate.”
I reach out and gently take her sling bag from her shoulder and put it on mine. It’s light, but she’s starting to look discomforted by it.
“It’s fine,” I say. “I want you to go with me.”
Why am I saying this?
She looks down at the floor and then carefully gazes around at the rest of the room before her blue eyes fall on me again. “OK,” she says with a subtle nod.
I feel my face break into a small smile and I instinctively take her by the hand. She doesn’t pull away.
I’m comforted by her, needless to say, and I get the feeling she’s happy to oblige. Surely she knows how hard something like this would be for anyone.
We walk hand in hand toward my father’s room.
She squeezes once, looking over at me as if to give me more encouragement. And then I push open the hospital room door. A nurse looks up when we walk in.
“I’m Mr. Parrish’s son.”
She nods solemnly and goes back to adjusting the machines and tubes hooked up to my father. The room is a typical bland and sterile space with bright white walls and a tile floor so shiny the lights running along the ceiling panels blaze off of it. I hear a constant and steady beep coming from the heart rate monitor next to my father’s bed.
I still haven’t actually looked at my father. I realize I’m looking at everything in the room but him.
Camryn’s fingers squeeze around mine.
“How is he doing?” I ask, but I know it’s a stupid question. He’s dying; that’s how he’s doing. I just can’t get anything else out.
The nurse looks at me expressionless.
“He’s in and out of consciousness, as you probably already know.”
No, I didn’t know, actually.
“And there hasn’t been any change, good or bad.” She adjusts an IV running from the top of his rugged hand.
Then she walks around the bed and picks up a clipboard from the side table and tucks it underneath her arm.
“Has anyone else been here?” I ask.
The nurse nods. “Family has been in and out for the past several days. Some left about an hour ago, but I expect they’ll be back.”
Probably Aidan, my older brother and his wife, Michelle. And my younger brother, Asher.
The nurse slips out of the room.
Camryn looks up at me, tightening her hand around mine. Her eyes smile carefully. “I’m going to sit over there and let you visit with your father, OK?”
I nod, though everything she said just kind of slipped through my head like a wispy memory. Her fingers slowly fall away from mine and she takes a seat against the wall on the empty vinyl chair. I suck in a deep breath and lick the dryness from my lips.
His face is swollen. Tubes are running from his nostrils, feeding him oxygen. I’m surprised he’s not on life support yet, but this gives me a small sense of hope. Really small. I know he won’t get better; that’s pretty much already been established. What’s left of his hair has been shaved off. They had talked about trying to perform surgery, but after my dad found out that it wasn’t going to save him he, of course, complained:
“You’re not cuttin’ into my fuckin’ head,” he had said. “You want me to shell out thousands of dollars so you boys can have these cereal box doctors crack my damn skull open? Dammit, boy!” He had been talking to Aidan specifically. “You are one nut shy of a man!”
My brothers and I were prepared to do whatever it took to save him, but he had gone behind our backs and signed some kind of ‘stipulation’ that when things got worse that no one would have the right to make these decisions for him.
My mom was who alerted the hospital of his wishes days before the surgery was to be performed and provided them with the legal papers. We were upset by it, but my mother is a smart and caring woman and none of us could ever be pissed at her for what she did.
I move closer and look the rest of him over. My hand sort of has a mind of its own and the next thing I know it’s slithering up beside his and taking a hold of it. Even this feels odd. Like I shouldn’t be doing it. If it were anyone else, I’d have no issue holding their hand. But this is my dad and I feel like I’m doing something I shouldn’t. I can just hear his voice inside my head: “You don’t hold another man’s hand, boy. What the hell is wrong with you?”
Suddenly, my dad’s