“That’s my brother,” Lacey said, scowling from the bed.
The nurse watched him for a second. “We don’t usually like to have more than two visitors at a time.” Her stare moved pointedly to each of them.
“I’ll go,” Lilah said finally.
“What? No.” Linc glared at his dad, but he wouldn’t meet Linc’s eyes.
“It’s fine.” Lilah picked up her coat. “We left the boys with a neighbor. They’re probably hungry. I’ll go home and make dinner.”
“Don’t let Troy just eat ketchup,” Lacey said.
Lilah went to the bed and kissed her older sister’s forehead. “I’ll call you later.” She didn’t acknowledge their father at all, but she squeezed Linc’s hand. “Don’t you dare leave until I get a chance to see you properly.”
Instead of waiting for a response, Lilah walked right through the hospital room door. Linc glanced toward Lacey, picking at a blanket, and then at his dad, tearing open a packet of powdered creamer.
“Excuse me,” Linc said, then rushed out the way Lilah had gone. She was only a few steps ahead of him, and he caught her shoulder before she got around the corner. “Hey. Wait.”
She gave him a big smile but kept walking. “I’m so glad you’re here. We really missed you.” Like he’d been gone seven days, not seven years.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“What do you mean?” She was carrying a small purse and rummaged inside of it.
“What do you mean, what do I mean? What the hell is going on with Dad? What the hell is he doing here?”
“Well, he found Lacey, and when he said he was her father, they let him ride in the ambulance while I got the boys settled.”
Linc gripped his hair hard enough to hurt. “What do you mean he found Lacey?” What the fuck was going on? Lilah had called him, hysterical, less than three hours ago, and now they were hanging out at the hospital like it was no big thing while the ghost of their father brought them donuts and coffee? “Why are you the one leaving? Why does he get to stay?”
She sighed. “Lacey doesn’t want to leave the boys alone with him.”
“Fucking right. He’s no babysitter.”
“He’s dying.”
He stumbled, bumping his hip on a fire extinguisher. Pain radiated down his leg and through his gut.
“What do you mean?” A sick feeling pricked at his chest. The man in Lacey’s hospital room had barely been his father. He was withered, shrunken. All this time, Linc had been running from a memory.
“Lung cancer.” She shrugged and pulled out a tube of bright pink lip gloss, smearing it on with casual disinterest. “It’s terminal. Lacey thinks that’s why they let him out of prison.”
“They kicked him loose so we can pay for his treatment?” That would be just like him. Mean and nasty in his life, a weight dragging them all down in the end.
“He’s refusing treatment.” She was still walking. They were through the sliding doors of the hospital, and she was talking about this like the weather.
“Wait. Stop.” He grabbed her shoulder, and she shrugged him off.
“What for?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you would if you’d been here.”
“Lilah, hey. Stop.”
She whirled on him, pink-and-purple hair flying. “For what? So you can waltz back in like some superhero?”
“You called me.”
