Page 56

‘WHAT?’ Alex screamed. ‘When? What hospital!’

‘Medford City. Can you come there now?’

‘I’m coming.’ She hung up the call.

Right away, she tried to order an Uber on her phone. But her thumbs didn’t seem to be obeying her, the little fuckers. She accidentally opened Uber Eats instead.

‘I don’t want teppanyaki; I want a fucking cab!’ she muttered, frustrated, close to tears.

‘Alex?’ Leigh asked. ‘Do you need me to get you a cab?’

Alex looked at her. ‘Yes, please.’

***

Five minutes later, Alex and Leigh were in the back of a cab. Alex didn’t exactly know why Leigh was here, but she was glad she was. Alex had now calmed down enough to explain what her dad had said.

‘She fell?’ Leigh asked.

‘Yes. I have no fucking idea how my dad would know that, but that’s what he said.’

Leigh nodded. ‘It’ll be OK.’

Alex knew Leigh was saying that to be comforting, and she didn’t actually have the slightest fucking idea how this would pan out. But Alex had to admit, it lowered her panic a smidge.

‘You don’thaveto come,’ Alex told her.

‘I’ll just get you there, OK?’ Leigh said.

That wasn’t as crazy an offer as it should have been from Leigh. She might have hated Alex, but Leigh was, at heart, the sort of person who would escort an enemy to the hospital if they needed it. Alex knew that much.

***

It took a minute to find the right ward. The hospital was a labyrinth, and she was still struggling to get her brain to function properly. But Leigh took over the map reading and led Alex right to her father.

Alex rushed up to him. ‘What the fuck!’ she greeted him.

Her dad looked tired and old. Alex hadn’t seen him in a few years, and he was greyer than the last time she’d clapped eyes on him.

‘She fell in the bath,’ he explained. ‘She wouldn’t wake up.’

‘And it’s acoma?’ Alex checked.

‘Yes.’

‘Fuck.’ She gave him a searching look. ‘What the hell were you even doing there?’

He looked sheepish.

‘She’s remarried,’ Alex growled.

‘I know,’ he said apologetically.

Alex didn’t care what he’d been through today, she was furious at him. ‘You justcouldn’tleave her alone, could you? When you get that bottomless mark, that endless supply of cash and sympathy, you have to keep your claws in, right?’

‘Don’t talk to me like that. I love her!’ her dad said, raising his voice.

In anger, he looked younger and towered a little bit higher. For a split second, Alex felt fear. Before remembering she wasn’t a child anymore. If she ever had been.