The doctor’s eyes hold mine for a beat, like he wants to argue with that, then he just nods. “Okay,” he says quietly. “If you needanything at all, tell the nurse.” He steps back, pulls the curtain a little wider like he’s giving me space, and then he’s gone.
“Just me,” I whisper to him. “But you’re okay. You made it.” My throat tightens on the last part. I swallow and press my forehead lightly to his knuckles for one second before I force myself upright again. “You made it,” I repeat, thickly.
I lean closer, careful of the wires, and rest my forehead near his hand for a second, breathing him in—soap, hospital, something faintly familiar underneath it all.
I try to find the man who used to burn grilled cheese because he got distracted watching my soccer games on TV. The man who patched scraped knees and taught me how to change a tire. The man who pretended not to cry when I left for Rutgers.
“I’m here,” I whisper, and my throat aches around it.
My thumb keeps rubbing over his knuckles because if I stop, I might fall apart.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and I don’t even know which sorry I mean. There are too many.
I sit there with him while the machines keep time for me, and the room stays dim, and my hand stays wrapped around his like I’m anchoring him here.
The front door sticks for half a second before it gives, and the familiar scrape of it against the frame makes my throat tighten like it always does.
Only this time, there’s no voice from the kitchen.
No “Hey, kiddo,” drifting through the house like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
Just silence.
I step inside, and the door shuts behind me with a soft, final thud that sounds too loud in an empty house.
The air is stale in that closed-up way, like the house has been holding its breath all day. The porch light Dad insists on leaving on is off. The living room lamp is off. The TV is off. Everything is exactly the way I left it, and that makes it worse.
Because it feels like the house is waiting for him.
My keys clink when I drop them in the bowl by the door, and the sound echoes, thin and sharp. I wince like it’s a punishment.
Dad is in the hospital.
He made it through the surgery.
Those are facts. Solid. Real. I repeat them in my head like I’m reciting something I’m trying to memorize.
But the second I’m in here alone, the other thought slides in underneath them, quiet and cruel.
What if he doesn’t make it through the night?
What if he makes it through the night and doesn’t make it through the week?
What if I walked out of the ICU and that was the last time I saw him alive? With tubes and wires attached to him?
My chest squeezes so hard I can’t pull a full breath.
I take a step farther into the house, and it feels wrong, like I’m trespassing in my own life.
The couch is still covered with the throw blanket I folded this morning. The coffee table has the little stack of mail I keep meaning to sort. A water ring I never wiped up because I was rushing. Normal stupid things that matter too much right now.
I can see the hallway table from here—the one with the framed photo.
The one where my mom’s face smiles out at us.
The one Dad still dusts even when he can barely stand long enough to do it.
The house is quiet in a way that makes my skin prickle.
