She tells me she was about to get some coffee, that she’s afraid to fall asleep. She tells me not to go anywhere and then leaves me alone for a moment.
Inside the room, Dad is sleeping. He doesn’t look frail, because he’s always been kind of big, with a hefty belly and thick fingers that I now think would be good for a butcher, because they look like Vee’s. There are breathing tubes in his nose, saline solution dripping into his arm, those little electrode things hooked up to his chest. The TV on the wall is on but muted, and there’s a blanket crumpled on the chair where Mom was fighting off sleep. It’s a difficult sight, mostly because he doesn’t look peaceful. It’s hard to see someone sleeping and not be at rest.
Not wanting to wake him, I roll my suitcase to the corner and then take a seat. There’s no real beeping going on, just the calm sounds of breathing, the quiet hum of fluorescent lighting in the hallway. The more I look at Dad the more I start to see a gauntness there, hollowed cheeks. I wonder if he’s really deteriorated over the last couple of months like Mom said or if it’s just the hospital lighting.
I have no idea what I’ll say when Dad wakes up. I look at my phone; even now, every other thought is still focused on Emma. Death or Emma. Everything just ends up floating away.
Mom comes back a few minutes later. She tells me I can go home if I want, but I say I’m okay here. Despite the coffee, she falls asleep a few minutes later, perhaps some of her restlessness disappearing when I arrived.
I don’t feel particularly tired, so I grab the Italo Calvino book I bought with Emma and try to read, using the book for company more than distraction. Mostly, I just sit there, staring out the window at the parking lot. A few times a nurse comes in to check on Dad, young, stern but with a nice smile, which she offers when she sees I’m awake. Mom snores beside me, curled up beneath her blanket. She looks even frailer than Dad.
It’s hard not to think of death, and for once I don’t try to stop it, just let my mind drift to the subject. I think of myself and everyone I love as living, breathing beings who will one day die. I think of the days I’ve lived, of the last two months, all that I managed to fill them with.
At dawn, Felix makes an appearance. Felix as Felix, in that stained white shirt, no bullet holes or blood or any evidence that he’s gone. Almost at the same time, Dad stirs. Mom seems to sense this and jolts awake, scurrying to his side, to give him some water. She cradles his head as he drinks baby sips from a straw. Then his eyes flit toward me.
“Mijo,” he says, moving the straw away from his mouth. He tries to sit up, but Mom tells him no. She readjusts the pillow so he can see me a little easier, but she doesn’t let him work himself up.
“Hey,” I say, rising a little.
“Come give me a hug,” Dad says. “A kiss. I’m so happy to see you.”
And just like that, whatever ill will I felt toward my father, whatever rancor or resentment or disappointment, it’s gone. It practically floats right out of my chest and through the window. I get close and lean over Dad and we embrace to the fullest extent a hospital bed will allow. Relief finds its way to every corner of my body. Dad’s still alive.
When I finally pull away, I can tell Dad is trying to hang on, to move an arm toward me. But Mom says no, again. “You have to take it easy.”
“Why? The surgery was hours ago, and it was only a single bypass,” he says with a wink. I forgot this about him, his sense of humor. Felix got it from somewhere.
Felix has summoned himself a chair, and he’s sitting on the other side of the bed, his body turned slightly away from me, angled toward Dad. He’s leaning forward, arms on the railing, chin on his arms, eyes glazed over, stuck on some distant point.
“I’m gonna get the nurse to sedate you again,” Mom says, raising a threatening finger at him.
Dad smiles and rolls his eyes. “Fine, fine. Can I hear about my son’s trip then? Is listening too strenuous?”
“Being a smartass is,” Mom says, but she relaxes into her chair, looking happy. Felix says nothing, moves not an inch.
So I talk. I run through the whole summer, even if I’d already told Mom most of it over the phone. I start from the very first day and this time don’t skip a thing. Going to Provecho in Felix’s honor, how delicious the food was, yet how unsatisfying the meal itself. The motel room, the trips with Emma to the lake. Dad gets a funny look on his face when I go into detail of the long hours standing at the sink but refrains from comment. I talk for nearly an hour without any interruptions other than the occasional question. Felix lays his forehead on his arms for a bit as he listens. He doesn’t crack a joke, doesn’t interject in any way. Mom doesn’t stop smiling.
They beam when I regale them with the dishes I created for staff meals, mutter bilingual curse words when I tell them the kind of things Chef would say to me during our training sessions. Always vague about the girls I’ve dated, I surprise myself when I tell them exactly what me and Emma did on our first date, how things progressed from there.
I’d forgotten what it was like to have someone who inherently cares about what you’re saying, who responds as if it’d happened to them. Yes, Emma helped bring that feeling back around every now and then. Elias too. But I didn’t have a family on the island. Not one that was alive, anyway.
When I’m done talking, the stern nurse comes in again, a little more talkative now that everyone’s awake. She fluffs Dad’s pillow, checks the tubes in his arms. Even if he’s still an imposing physical figure, it’s hard to see him reduced to such weakness by his own body. He keeps his eyes on me, smiling. The nurse leaves, and I start to feel the exhaustion of staying up all night. I think maybe I’ll go home, shower, eat something that Elias would appreciate. Before I get up, though, Dad clears his throat. “Right before the heart attack, I thought to myself, shit, I’ve done it again.” I’m taken aback, not just by what he’s just said but by the fact that there seems to be tears in his eyes. Mom stops fussing; Felix freezes.