I did a double-take, sucking in short, quick breaths to keep myself from getting too overwhelmed by this news, which was being thrown in my face like a bucket of icy cold water.
"Hold on! Did you just say that my father had a heart attack?"
So that's what the whole delaying tactics and the meaningless conversation were about. How long were they going to hide that my father had a heart attack?
"Yes! We're sorry we didn't tell you immediately. We didn’t want to load you with that big news just after you arrived. We just wanted to protect you." Mrs. Garner now had a perplexed look on her face.
The look was doing the opposite of reassuring me at that moment.
"Mrs. Garner, I am no longer a kid. I know all you’ve done is protect me after mom’s death, but you can’t hide something as big as this from me.”
Mrs. Garner waved her hands around in confusion. The tears that immediately welled in her eyes broke my heart and I immediately moved forward to wrap her in a hug.
"Honey, your father told us that he’s afraid you’re battling with your business and not okay mentally. We just wanted to be sure you were in the right mindset to take the news, so you wouldn’t break down. You’ve had to face so much, Ella.”
I held her tight as she sobbed into my shoulder. “I understand. I’m sorry I was harsh on you Mrs. Garner.”
She bobbed her head and tried to smile through her tears. “I understand. I’ll need to learn to stop treating you as a child. Thankfully your father is with the best doctor around. So far, he has stabilized your father, and he’s now in the hospital."
"What hospital?"
"Coldport Medical Center,” Mr. Garner answered. I turned towards him, he was smiling with relief too and I went forward to hug him on the chair.
“Thank you, Mr. Garner.”
He nodded. “Now go see your father.”
I waved at them and I rushed out to jump into the car and drive off. My heart slammed into my chest as I accelerated. The speed limit was the furthest thing from my mind.
They’d said he was stabilized. But was he really?
I kept praying that my father was okay. Because, like the Garners said, 'this is my fault.' I'd not seen my father in months, and I had taken it for granted that he was okay, just because I was battling with keeping my business afloat.
“Fuck!” I screamed as I drove into the hospital's parking lot. I rushed out of the car towards the revolving doors of the hospital lobby, still praying with all I had in me that my father should just be okay
CHAPTER 4
- ARMAND -
I was standing in the nurses' station, listening in on reports for my patients while scanning over their files to ensure their recovery from the procedures I'd conducted earlier in the week were going well. I’d spent most of the day in the theater room.
The only food I’d been able to get was eight hours ago. Now I was sipping coffee and looking over paperwork, waiting for the evening shift change. I could hear the interns in the hallway where they were being brought up to speed by Leticia Brown, the other attending physician in the hospital. She’d complained about them being a pain in the neck, and I was glad they were Leticia’s headache and not mine.
My intercom started beeping a moment later. When I picked it up, I heard Sophia's cheery voice from the front desk.
“The daughter of Mr. Logan Smith is here to see you.”
Logan Smith was a patient who’d been rushed into the OR yesterday after a mild heart attack. I’d spent more than an hour tending to the man before he regained consciousness, and now he was recovering quite well. There had been no family members around because his wife was deceased and his daughter was in New York, but she seemed to have rushed home as soon as she heard if she was here already.
I took a quick look at the paperwork before me and then the clock. I decided that I should definitely see her if she was dutiful enough to be here so soon.
“Send her up,” I said to Sophia.
“Okay, doc.”
I went into the cubicle that I’d asked to be carved out of my office for meetings. I had done that because I would prefer clients and patients not to see the absolute disaster of paperwork and medical charts and garbs that was the rest of my office. I’d ensured the cubicle's design was welcoming for people, and I could get more out of my meetings when they were in a comfortable environment.
When Mr. Smith’s daughter came in, my eyes widened with shock.