She cocked her head as she typed. “Everything okay?”
“Well, I found out my dad’s dying, but other than that, I’m just swell.”
Exhaling, then nodding, she said, “I saw in the doctor’s report. I’m sorry.”
“You already knew,” I accused pointedly.
“Huh?” She continued typing, never looking at me.
“You said ischemic.”
“Right,” she replied, nodding. “Coronary artery disease. That’s what the doctor—”
“You specifically said ischemic, that’s the word you used, and that was before the doctor had even diagnosed him,” I said, putting my phone down beside me and studying the firm set of her jaw as she worked. “How the hell did you know that just by looking at him?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been doing this for a—”
“Do you work for his cardiologist?”
Her typing stopped abruptly; her fingers laying still against the keys. “W-What?”
Bingo.
“Is that how you knew he had ischemic heart disease?”
Andrea turned toward me and shook her head. “N-No, I’ve only ever worked here.”
“Then, explain to me how you knew what was wrong with him. Because the only thing that makes sense to me is that you work for his doctor, ‘cause,” I pointed to the point, “he already knew and apparently, so did you, so—”
One hand pressed to her chest as she gasped. “He knew?”
“Yeah,” I shot at her, unconvinced of her shock. “He’s known about it for years, apparently, and decided his kids didn’t need to be filled in. How nice, right?”
“I’m so sorry, Vinnie.”
She used my name like she knew me, like we were friends. But we weren’t. She was a liar and a fraud, and the longer she stared at me, with her big, blue, sympathetic eyes, the more I wanted to scream into her face. Anything to stop her from looking at me like that, and maybe to pull the truth from her lying lips.
“Knock it off,” I barked.
Only mildly taken aback by my tone, she asked, “Excuse me?”
“You’re lying.”
“I haven’t lied to you about anything.”
Her eyebrow twitched. It was nearly undetectable and if I hadn’t been watching her so intently, I would’ve missed it. But I hadn’t and now I knew for sure that something was up. I stared her down, as a thick tension manifested between us, foolishly believing that a staring contest would uncover the things she wasn’t telling me. But she was headstrong, despite her subtle tell, and there was no beating down her walls without more coaxing.
I broke the hold on her gaze and turned my attention to the floor. “They gave him six months to live.” I don’t know why I said it, let alone to her, the lying nurse. I guess maybe I just needed to feel the words in my mouth, try them on for size and make them real. They singed my tongue with the bitter truth and flicked my brain with medical facts I couldn’t pretend to understand. All while my heart begged to insist it was the biggest lie I’d ever told.
Andrea was quiet, save the gentleness of her breath. She swallowed, and then sighed, before saying, “It’s just an estimate, though.”
“Yeah, well.” I lifted a hand and scrubbed the back of my head with my palm. “They’re the doctors. So …”
“So, what?”
I looked back at her, furrowing my brow. “So, they know a whole lot more about this shit than I do.”
Nodding slowly, she crossed her arms over her chest and took a step toward me, keeping her eyes on the floor. “That might be true, yes. But what you have to keep in mind is,” she crouched down to the floor at my feet and purposefully sought my gaze, “the doctors are only going off of textbook information. They know the science behind your father's disease, but they don't know him.”
“Yeah, well, science is pretty important in this case,” I replied, chuckling bitterly.
“It is,” she agreed softly.
“So, then, what are you talkin' about?”
One of her hands, one of her small, delicate hands, lifted to cover my knee. “What I'm saying is,” she began in a near whisper, “they might know that your dad is going to die, but they can't tell you exactly when. So many people defy the odds and live years after their expected expiration date, while others are allowed a much smaller timeframe. Science tells us a lot, but when it really comes down to it, Vinnie, it's up to your dad to decide exactly when he's done fighting this.”
She spoke carefully, as though every word was chosen with