“I am calling from the Toronto Western Hospital, Emergency Department. Your father was admitted here an hour ago following a car accident. We need you to come in right away.”
Numbness enveloped Sassy, from her lips to the tips of her fingers.Come in right away.She wrapped herself in her winter coat and boots and ran to the elevator. On the ground floor, she tore out the door and sprinted toward Yonge Street, where she hailed a taxi. At the hospital entrance, she thrust cash at the driver then rushed to the front desk. There, they directed her to a room just off the Emergency Department waiting area, where she was told to wait.
“Someone will come to speak with you,” a nurse said.
“Can you tell me something? Anything?” she begged.
But the nurse knew nothing more.
Sassy paced between worn, plastic-upholstered chairs, trying not to hyperventilate. There was a buzzing in her head, louder and softer with her breaths, but it was not coming from the fluorescent lights. She dropped her gaze to the floor and covered her ears, barely registering the faded sparkles in the tile floor. She didn’t hear the doctor enter the room. Instead, she saw his shoes stop in front of her, and she sat straight up.
“Miss Rankin? Your father just got out of surgery.” His quiet monotone barely broke through the humming in her head. She opened her mouth to ask,Is he all right? What happened? Can I see him? Can we go home now?, but the doctor spoke first.
“His injuries were severe, Miss Rankin. We will do what we can to keep him comfortable, but the truth is, he has very little time left.”
The buzzing stopped. Surely she’d heard him wrong. “What?” she whispered. “What do you mean?”
He was older, his hair almost entirely grey. Slim, with deep lines cutting across his brow and around the corners of his mouth. His surgery scrubs were a dull sky blue with a small trail of dots near the neckline. Blood, she realized.
Her father’s blood.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “Your father was in a very traumatic accident. We did everything we could, but his internal injuries were too severe. He will not recover.”
It made no sense. She’d seen him yesterday, walking and talking with Tom. He’d been fine. There was no way this was happening.
“No. That’s not… You don’t know him, Doctor. He’s strong. He can recover from this. There has to be something more you can do.”
“We did all we could, but there was too much damage. His organs are failing, and we cannot help that. They will not heal. He is sedated now, to spare him pain. It’s the best we can do.”
The buzz started again, low and persistent. She shook her head, but it was still there. A hive of bees in the distance, coming closer. She couldn’tget enough air. “I don’t understand. Please, Doctor! You need to do something!”
“I’m very sorry, Miss Rankin. Your father will likely pass within the next few hours.” He stepped back. “Nurse Holly will take you to him.”
Sassy hadn’t noticed the nurse arrive. Could still barely register her presence. “But wait! Please!” she cried as the woman took his place. How could he just walk away?
The nurse put a gentle hand on Sassy’s shoulder. “Come with me, dear, and you can say your goodbyes.”
Sassy recoiled from the woman’s touch. “Don’t say that! My father is going to be fine. He just needs… Please, please, can you ask the doctor, can he… can he…” Her breath was coming in gasps now. She clutched at the nurse’s arm with violently shaking hands. “He’s all I have left.”
The nurse’s gaze was a deep well of sympathy, and her voice soft and soothing. “Miss Rankin, please come with me.”
The corridor was a blur, the fluorescent lights a dusky yellow. A million thoughts, a millionempty, uselessthoughts whirred through Sassy’s head, but she couldn’t grasp any of them. She had no answers. She had nothing. This wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be.
Nurse Holly pushed open a door, entered first, then looked away.
A sound between a cry and a sob broke from Sassy’s throat as she stood paralyzed in the doorway. Tubes and wires connected her father to machines that beeped and blinked, and somewhere in the confusion, his bruised, broken, swollen features lay still on a pillow. Beneath it all was his handsome face and loving soul, the man who had quietly taken care of everyone.
Through a blur of tears, she rushed in and grabbed his hand. It was cold, so she started rubbing it for warmth.
“Daddy?” she whispered, then a little louder. “Daddy? Wake up.”
A slight motion of his eyelids, then she saw the dark slits of his eyes. He closed his fingers slowly around hers, and she saw dried blood hardened on his fingers.
“Susan,” he breathed. “I’m sorry.”
She drew his hand to her lips and kissed it. He smelled like blood anddirt and sweat, but something much sharper tied it all together: the reek of alcohol.
After Joey had gone missing, Sassy had popped into her father’s office every day to visit, but she’d been quickly dismissed. She’d invited herself over for dinner more than once, but he had been distant, even cold. The house was uncharacteristically messy, and nothing appeared to have been cleaned or even tidied in a long time. She was bothered enough that she decided to spend almost a whole day there doing laundry, changing his sheets and towels, then washing up the entire kitchen.
