But he's alive.
I move to his bedside slowly. Afraid if I move too fast, he'll disappear. Or I'll wake up and discover this is all a nightmare.
My hand finds his where it rests on the white sheets. His skin is warmer now. Not cold like before. That has to be a good sign.
"You scared me," I whisper. My throat is tight, words barely making it out. "You really scared me."
He doesn't respond. Just lies there, chest rising and falling as the machine forces air into his lungs.
I sink into the chair beside his bed. The vinyl cushion creaks under my weight. I don't let go of his hand.
And then the memories come.
Not of tonight. Of before. Of being fifteen years old and sitting in a room that looked so much like this one.
Mother's hospital room.
Same machines. Same monitors. Same awful smell of antiseptic trying to mask decay. She'd been dying for six months by then. Cancer eating through her from the inside out. The doctors said she had days left. Maybe a week.
I'd sat exactly like this. Holding her hand. Watching her chest rise and fall with decreasing frequency. Wondering how long until the next breath wouldn't come.
"Don't leave me," I'd whispered to her. "Please. I'm not ready."
But she'd left anyway.
Slipped away in the middle of the night while I was sleeping in this exact type of chair. Reilan had woken me at dawn, his eyes red, and his hands shaking, when he told me she was gone.
I was fifteen. Barely old enough to understand what I was losing. Old enough to know I'd never get it back.
The grief had been immense. All-consuming. It swallowed me whole for months. I'd stopped eating. Stopped sleeping. Moved through the world like a ghost, unable to connect with anything real.
Father had tried to help. Brought in therapists. Took time away from business to sit with me. But he didn't know how to fix this. Didn't know how to fill the hole Mother left behind.
And now I might lose him, too.
The thought makes my chest tighten until I can't breathe. Not again. I can't do this again.
"You have to wake up," I tell Father. My voice is steady despite the tears streaming down my face. "You have to fight, because I can't lose you. Not now. Not like this."
The machines beep their steady rhythm. Father doesn't move.
I lean forward, resting my forehead against our joined hands. "When Mother died, you told me that O'Rourkes don't quit. Thatwe're survivors. That no matter what life throws at us, we get back up and keep fighting."
The memory is sharp. Clear. Father sitting on the edge of my bed three months after Mother's funeral, watching me cry myself sick yet again.
"You're an O'Rourke," he'd said. "That means something. It means you're stronger than you know. Tougher than anyone expects. Your mother was the strongest person I ever knew, and you have her strength. So get up. Fight. Live."
"So you have to fight, too," I tell him now. "You have to get up. You have to live. Because you're an O'Rourke, and O'Rourkes don't quit."
I use his own words against him. Hope they'll reach wherever he is. Hope they'll give him something to hold onto in the dark.
The door opens behind me. I don't turn around.
"Aoife." Reilan's voice, soft. "It's been an hour. We should let him rest."
An hour? It felt like minutes.
I stand slowly, my back protesting after sitting hunched for so long. I smooth down Father's hair where it's sticking up from the bandages. Press a kiss to his forehead.
