Tears spring at the corners of my eyes as we step into an elevator. I wipe my tears away, hoping Max hasn’t seen anything. I can’t let this happen. I’ll cry later, when I’m alone. My family can’t see me like this. I have to pull myself together. The elevator doors open all too soon, and I force myself to put one foot in front of the other, urging myself to go on. The corridor seems to grow narrower with every step, closing in on me. My brother is behind me. I force myself to take deep breaths, but the opposite happens. The waiting room is completely white. Even the air smells white. Austere and stinging, a mix of medicine and alcohol that raises the hair at the nape of my neck. Bile rises up my throat as I try to shut off the smell. I hate hospitals.
With each breath, less air reaches my lungs. I stop dead in my tracks when I see my family. The image before me is jarring. My mother sits on the first chair, her eyes vacant. Alice has an arm around her; the other one clutches the phone in her lap. Summer sits on the chair on Alice’s other side, hugging her knees to her chest, her nose red. My baby sister has cried. Daniel and Blake occupy two chairs on the other side of the room, sitting next to each other in silence. Sebastian and Logan are both at the far end of the corridor. Sebastian leans against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, and Logan paces back and forth.
Seeing them like this, all my fears come crashing down on me. Dad is in a surgery. My daddy.
I don’t know where to start, whom to comfort first. Mom, who looks more lost than I’ve ever seen her, or Summer, whose fresh tears break my heart.
I decide to find out more details first. Pulling myself together, I stride down the corridor, right to Sebastian.
“How is Dad?”
“In surgery,” he replies in a seemingly calm tone. To an outsider, this might be reassuring, but I know my brother. This is his alarm voice—trying to keep anyone else from panicking.
“How long will it take?” A knot settles in my throat.
“No idea,” Logan replies in a whisper, joining us. “Apparently, they’re not certain about the extent of the damage. Lung surgeries can take anywhere from one to six hours.”
“There’s nothing we can do but wait,” Sebastian continues. I can tell by his voice that this frustrates him more than anything else. Sebastian isn’t one to sit by and wait. Neither is Logan.
“Did anyone tell Christopher?” I ask.
“I talked to him,” Max answers, appearing by my side. “He’s on his way from Hong Kong.”
“Okay,” I say, pulling myself together. “I’ll go buy supplies for everyone. Water, sandwiches—”
“Nadine and Ava are taking care of it,” Sebastian interrupts.
“Oh, great. That’s great. Then I’ll….” My voice fades as I point at the rest of our family, but I don’t need to spell out to my brothers what I want to do. Sebastian and I always could communicate with our eyes only, and Logan learned the language over the years. As the oldest trio, it’s our duty always to be there for our younger siblings. This time for Mom too, it seems.
“Mom and Summer were at the ranch,” Max tells me. “They rode with him in the ambulance.”
Which explains why both of them are more affected than the rest of us.
Biting the inside of my cheek, I walk over to Summer and sit next to her. Without saying anything, my sister leans her head on my shoulder, still hugging her knees to her chest. A little sob escapes her mouth, and I hug her tightly with one arm like I did when she was a toddler and came seeking comfort. I often forget my sister is a grown woman, and this is one of those times. Now she’s just my sister, the family baby, and I can’t stand to hear her cry.
“Dad will be okay. We have the best doctors here.” Even though I say this in a whisper, Alice, Blake, and Daniel look up at me. They all want to believe this.
“Pippa,” Alice whispers, pointing to Mom. “Can you talk to her a bit? She hasn’t said one word since they’ve taken Da—” Her voice wavers. “Since the surgery started.”
I nod, and Alice and I quickly trade places. Up close, my mom appears even more disheveled.
“Mom,” I say softly, “do you want to take a walk with me outside?”
Mom doesn’t reply, and Alice darts me a worried glance.
“Mom?” I press. Ever so gently, she turns to me.
“No. What if the doctor comes out and—”
“The surgery will go on for another few hours. Come on. Let’s go out.”
“Not outside,” Mom whispers. “It’s too far away.”
“All right.”
We go to the cafeteria on the sixth floor, and I leave her to sit at a table while I buy her a tea. In the short time it takes me to buy it, Mom’s stare becomes vacant again. I shove the hot tea in her hands and search for the right words to soothe her.
“I’m afraid he will die,” she says unexpectedly. Her words whip my breath away. “I don’t know what I’ll do if he—”