Page 27 of What You left in Me

“Hey,” I say, because what else am I supposed to say anyway? I take the chair, pull it close, put my forearms on the rail like I’m leaning against a bar we both liked and he’s about to tell me the same story he’s told me for fifteen years. “You made a scene. Eleanor’s going to send you an invoice.”

The corner of his mouth twitches. I think. I’m imagining things. For a second, I can almost see him on the dock in the summer, his pants rolled around his knobby-ass ankles, waving a beer at the water like it owed him money.

I don’t take his hand. Can’t bring myself to.

Instead, all I can do is stare at the chart of his heart on the monitor, watching the peaks and shallow valleys etching out a landscape I don’t understand but would burn cities to fix.

“Doctor says you’re stable. Says we’re going to talk about stents and saws and salad,” I tell him lamely. “Don’t sweat it, though. I’ll sneak you a cheeseburger when Eleanor’s not looking. It’ll be our secret, okay, Dad?”

He looks at me with such sadness; I find myself finally reaching for his hand anyway.

Fuck me, it’s cold.

I wrap my fingers around his and try to rub life into the knuckles I watched turn white on the steering wheel when he taught me to drive. He squeezes back, weak but alive.

“You scared her,” I mutter hoarsely. “You scared Ariane. You scared me.”

His hand trembles between both of mine.

“I’ll take care of what I can,” I say. At this point I don’t know if I’m talking to him or to myself.

Eventually, his breath evens. The machines keep counting. He drifts, not asleep so much as unhooking himself from the pain for a minute. I sit and watch the numbers, because numbers have never lied to me. People do. Numbers will tell you when a line rises, when it breaks, when a thing that beat eighty times a minute decides to stop.

I let a memory in, just one, because the room is merciless and I need to feed it something or it’ll take everything.

I’m ten. Mom is still alive. She runs with me on the trail behind the house, laughing when I pretend I don’t need to breathe. Later, when she’s gone, Dad stands at the same trailhead with shoes that don’t know what dirt is and says, “Show me the route.” He runs like a dad—slower than me but stubborn. He’s still there at the end, hands on hips, chest heaving, sweat everywhere, smiling like he found a piece of the map he was missing.

I squeeze his hand again. “Don’t make me learn a third version of home,” I tell him. “Two was fucking plenty.”

His mouth moves. Maybe he heard. Maybe I imagined it. I sit with it anyway.

A nurse taps the door frame. “Two more minutes,” she says softly.

“Got it.”

I lean close to dad.

“They’re going to cycle the family through for the next couple of days,” I say, low. “Eleanor will tell you how to breathe. Ariane will ask you not to leave. Julian will hover. I’ll be the one who tells the doctors to cut, sew, fix. So, you gotta do your part, okay? Stay.”

I get up to walk away. At the door, I still look back—and the fatigued body in the bed is still Dad but also every version of him at once: the guy with the daisies, the man swearing at a skipping stone, the father figure in a suit coaching me through a meeting.

###

Outside, Eleanor is waiting in the hall. She has questions I won’t answer and rules I won’t follow. Ariane is there too, eyes red and mouth pouting. Julian stands a polite half-step behind her like an irritating shadow.

I step into the space they make without asking. “He’s fighting,” is all I offer.

Ariane’s shoulders drop a fraction. Eleanor nods once like she built the outcome with stubbornness. Julian gives me a public smile, which I refuse to return.

“I’ll stay here tonight,” Eleanor declares. Her tone is clipped, already rehearsed, like she’s giving instructions to thestaff. “Julian can stay with me. Someone responsible should be at my side in case any media personnel come.”

The way she says ‘responsible’ makes my jaw clench. Though, not as much as when her eyes flutter past Ariane. She’s already dismissed her.

I’m almost shocked when Ariane’s head snaps up, unwilling to be set aside this once. She’s a fucking mess, but her chin juts out stubbornly, defiant. “I’m going to stay too,” she insists. Her fists are clenched bundles at her sides. “I’m not going home while he’s like this. He’s my stepdad.”

Eleanor exhales through her nose, like a goddamn dragon. It’s a warning. “Ariane, you won’t be valuable here. You need rest. You’ll come back in the morning, fresh, and you’ll be more useful then.”

Ariane opens her mouth, but Eleanor’s hand cuts the air like a blade, shutting her down before she can speak.