he all right?”
“He’s stable,” he said, which wasn’t an answer. “Why don’t you come on back.”
I turned to Liam.
“I’ll be right here,” he said.
Dr. Saroyan led me down the hall into a small office.
“We’re not going to his room?” I asked.
“Not right now. Please take a seat.”
Reluctantly, I did.
“I understand you operated the defibrillator.”
“Yeah, I did. Look, tell me what’s going on with my dad.”
Dr. Saroyan sat and folded his hands on the desk. “Your father had a heart attack.”
I’d figured out that much on my own, but the news tightened my chest all the same.
“He needs to undergo a procedure.”
I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. “Are you putting in another stent?”
“I’m afraid it’s more serious this time,” Saroyan said. “Your father needs emergency bypass surgery. They’re prepping him now.”
“How risky is the surgery?”
“It would be riskier not to do it.”
I pressed my hands against my numb face. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was only sixteen, and I’d already lost Mom. I couldn’t lose him, too.
Dr. Saroyan shifted in his seat. “Our cardiac surgeon, Dr. Houts, performs these procedures every week. His success rate is far above the mean.”
I bit my lip. “We don’t have . . . There’s no insurance.”
Dr. Saroyan glanced at the door, then leaned toward me. “Patients can’t be turned away for lifesaving treatments. You can work it out later.”
“How long will it take?”
“With no complications, three to four hours.”
I gripped the arms of the chair. “What should I do?”
“Stay close. The front desk has your cell. You’ll get a text message when we have news.”
I nodded.
“Have your friend take you down to the commissary on the first floor.” He gave me a weak smile. “Stay away from the tuna salad.”
Liam and I ate Froot Loops from single-serving boxes and drank Starbucks coffee from paper cups. I asked him to distract me, so he started telling me about his senior trip to New York. About what it was like to crunch the snow in Central Park and drink whiskey in a speakeasy behind a Laundromat. I tried to nod and smile in all the right places, but the adrenaline from the emergency was waning, leaving me even more exhausted than I’d been before. Liam saw me crashing and insisted that I take a nap. So after two hours with no updates from the doctor, we returned to his buddy’s girlfriend’s Prius, tilted the seats back, and tried to sleep. Despite the maelstrom of thoughts twisting my neurons, I felt my eyes droop. Sleep came more easily in the gray—maybe because it was so much more pleasant than being awake.
Then my phone chirped, and my eyes shot open: it was a text from the front desk. I scrambled out of the car and ran for the hospital door.
CHAPTER 29
THIS TIME IT WAS DR. HOUTS who met me at the receptionist’s desk. When he smiled, I let out a gasp of relief and had to wipe my eyes.
“Is he okay?” I said, trying to catch my breath.
Liam caught up and took my hand.
“The procedure went smoothly,” Dr. Houts said. “Your dad is recovering in the ICU.”
“When can I see him?”
He glanced at an expensive watch. It was past midnight. “Go home and get some sleep. Come back around six a.m. He should be awake by then.”
Liam insisted on staying with me, crashing out on the other bed. I was grateful; I didn’t want to be alone.
I awoke to Liam’s hand on my shoulder. Orange light poured in through the gauzy hotel curtains, and it took me a moment to remember where I was. I felt drugged. There was a cold burning in my head, and my thoughts were slow.
“What time is it?” I asked. My mouth tasted like old tires.
“Seven fifteen.”
I sat up. “I was supposed to be there at six!”
“You needed the sleep,” Liam said. “The hospital sent you a text. Your dad just woke up, and he’s asking for you.”
“Shit. Okay, let’s go.”
I pulled my hair into a ponytail and brushed my teeth while Liam made us hotel room coffee to go. We were at the hospital by seven forty-five.
Only family members were allowed in the ICU, so I left Liam in the waiting room and followed the signs down a long second-floor corridor until I reached Dad’s room. Someone had written DANTE, ELIAS on a whiteboard next to the door. Somehow, seeing his name on that whiteboard made everything more real. I dug my nails into my palms and walked into the room.
Dad