“About two weeks ago, maybe three, it’s hard to keep track. She’s not doing so good, Laur.”
I close my eyes against the sound of my nickname in his mouth. One tragedy at a time.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, me, too. Listen, where are you?”
I squint out the window. We are crawling along the 10.
“LA,” I say. “Just landed. My dad is in the hospital.”
“Shit, I’m sorry. I haven’t seen him out the past few mornings, I was wondering what was up. He comes down most mornings, even to just bring the guys coffee and towels.”
“Yeah, well, now you know.”
We are silent for a moment. My eyes start to burn, and I close them. I close them against the rising tide, against this feeling of my father—generous and kind. Present. Here.
“Why are you calling?” I ask.
“I went to the Greek the other night and thought of you.” I hear his breath through the phone. It comes in low hums. “I guess with everything going on I just wanted to hear your voice.”
I see us there, feet over the edge of the deck, in the quiet dark. I see him taking my hand.
Does he remember, somehow? Does he know?
“Oh,” I say, because it was so long ago that we were connected, so long ago that he would think to reach out to me. When was the last time we were alone, for him? Eight years? Ten?
I think about Stone in the car. Stone saying, “I never should have left.” Does he believe that? Or was that only true that night, in that car, unclothed? Was it only true because of everything that led up to it?
I push the memory away. Because it isn’t a memory. Something can’t be a memory if it never actually happened.
“What’s going on with Dave?” he asks. I can hear the concern in his voice.
“It’s his heart,” I say. “I don’t know much. My mom called while I was in New York, and I got the next flight.”
Traffic starts to move now, like the flush after an acupuncture treatment. Open channels.
“I should go,” I say, before he can respond to what came before.
“Yeah, no, of course.”
“I’m so sorry about Bonnie.” And then, “This isn’t my place, but you should give her morphine. I know she doesn’t want it, but you should anyway.”
Stone doesn’t say anything; I just hear him inhale.
It seems impossible that this is happening, again. That she has to go through this, again. For a moment I wonder if I’ve inadvertently gifted her two declines, two deaths. Two sufferings.
“Where are you going to stay while you’re here?” he asks quietly. Finally.
I remember our place is rented, of course it is.
“The beach,” I say, as we merge right toward La Cienega Boulevard.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Cedars-Sinai is the third-leading cardiology hospital in all of the United States. It ranks only behind Cleveland Clinic and the Mayo Clinic. Its offices are filled with award-winning research doctors and surgeons. But it is still a hospital. The staff is overworked; the waiting rooms are oozing with sick people; the paint is chipped. There isn’t enough—money, resources, time.
I check in downstairs to be told that I’ve showed up in the middle of rounds. I will have to wait for them to call up to the nurses’ station. My father is on the cardio floor, not the ICU—a good sign, I think. I step into the driveway and call my mom.
