Isaac complies, wiggling the toes on both his feet.
“Okay, good.” She looks up at me. “Talia, will you grab a backboard and a blanket?”
I go grab what we need, and when I get back, the room has been cleared of everyone but Isaac, Carter, Lucien, Dad and Melina. A towel has been placed over Isaac’s midsection. I set the board, which will keep his back immobile until Caroline can examine him, next to him.
She instructs Carter and Lucien on how to help her lift him onto the board. I did internships with two minor men’s league hockey teams and a women’s college track team, and I learned that it’s important to not just treat a patient’s body, but also to keep them from panicking.
Isaac’s teammates are doing a good job with that.
“We’ve got you, man,” Lucien says. “Just breathe.”
“I think I’m okay.” Isaac isn’t agitated anymore. “But I get it, and I’ll stay still until Caroline gets here.”
They lift him onto the board, Lucien’s defined biceps flexing with the movement. I’m probably a bad person for admiring his body at a time like this, but at least I’ll be a happy woman while I burn in hell.
“Does anything hurt?” Melina asks him.
“Just my pride.”
“Shit, man, we’re all used to it,” Carter says. “That’s why we got you the seat belt and crap cap.”
I move out of their way and stand next to my dad, who’s off to the side with his arms crossed.
“I thought that seat belt and helmet were ridiculous, but I guess not,” he says.
“How does he seat belt himself on a toilet?” I ask.
He runs a hand over his short salt and pepper hair, scoffing. “You should see the damn thing. He has to put the big loop around his chest and it attaches to the back of the wall in one of the stalls. So if he passes out, the loop keeps him upright. It’s kind of ingenious.”
“He needs a padded toilet stall,” I say softly. “And yeah, a fiber supplement. Like Melina said.”
Straining on the toilet can cause vasovagal syncope in some people. It starts with lightheadedness and can lead to passing out. I learned about it in school, but I’ve never seen an actual case.
“We’ll see what the doc says,” Dad says.
Melina leads the way out of the bathroom, Lucien and Carter carrying the board Isaac is now strapped to.
“I hate oatmeal!” Isaac is griping. “It’s mushy.”
“You don’t have to like it,” she counters. “Don’t tell me you’ve never eaten something gross. I’ve seen the women you date.”
I smile at Dad. “Hey, can I run something by you real quick? In your office?”
“Sure. I need to talk to Bruce for a minute. Meet me there in five.”
Dad’s office is more inviting than his home. The walls of his four-bedroom home have impersonal art chosen by an interior designer, every room looking like it belongs in Architectural Digest.
Here, though, you can see him everywhere. There are photos of him on the walls spanning nearly the last three decades. He’s grinning with teammates in some of the pictures, including one with Walter Denton, his former best friend and teammate, who died in a car crash a few years ago. A recreational golfer, he’s shown posing with celebrities at golf tournaments and with pro golfers he’s become friends with.
A bookcase is lined with personal photos, his second wife Angie scrubbed from the collection after their recent divorce. She deserves it after what she did to him. He was the last to know about her and their contractor.
Dad has his arms around my stepbrother, Chase, and my stepsister, Chloe, in one of the photos of them on a ski trip. I’ve always gotten along well with both of them, but I don’t see them much anymore. Chase is a senior and Chloe is a freshman in college now.
In an older photo, Dad’s down on one knee at Disney World, a six-year-old me grinning on one side of him and Audra, who was four at the time, on his other side.
I smile as I remember that trip. He’d married Angie, and we were spending a month of our summer with them. Dad went out of his way to make sure Audra and I felt included, and the trip to Disney World was just him and us. He must have paid a bundle for the white-glove service we got, bypassing all the lines.
Audra got an ice cream cone with three scoops of ice cream covered with rainbow sprinkles on that trip, and before she’d even tasted it, her ice cream plopped onto the ground.
