“I want you to take my number. If you or your father need anything, don’t hesitate to call me.”
“Why are you being so nice?” I ask as I pull back so I can blow my nose.
“I’m just repaying the favor, Leigh. Your father has saved my father’s life so many times. I’m in your debt for life.”
“You don’t owe us anything.”
“My father is the only parent my friends and I have ever had. If he had died after the first, or second, or third, or even the fourth heart attack, we would’ve been fucked. You’ll never know how thankful we are for the gift of his life. There’s no doubt in my mind that without your father, mine would be dead.”
A knock at the door makes Carter dart up. He opens for Dad, and I hear them whisper before they come into the living room.
My legs feel weak as I stand up.
When I see Dad, it feels like I shatter from all the tension of trying to keep it together through the night.
He wraps me in his arms, and for the first time since we spoke, I feel something familiar.
I still have a part of my home left.
I still have one parent.
I have a father, and I know he will carry me through the next few days.
“Sweetheart,” he whispers as he pulls back. His eyes search my face.
He pulls me down onto the couch and holds me tightly to his chest.
“Dr. Baxter had just finished a nineteen-hour shift. She fell asleep while driving home.”
My whole body quivers as sobs seize my body. This is what I needed. The facts. No one understands me better than Dad.
“The car crashed into a tree. A branch entered the windscreen and ruptured her thorax. It severed her aorta.”
Dad frames my face and makes me look up at him.
“Do you understand, Leigh?”
“Traumatic aortic rupture is a condition in which the aorta is severed,” I repeat what he just said.
“That’s right, sweetheart. There’s nothing anyone could’ve done.”
I stare at him and see the moment he realizes his mistake.
“When did she die?” I ask.
He shakes his head as tears fill his eyes.
“Leigh, nothing could be done to save her life.”
“She didn’t die on impact,” I whisper as I pull away from Dad. “Did they clamp off the aorta?”
“They did, sweetheart,” Dad whispers as his eyes beg me to stop. “She was hemorrhaging and sustained severe trauma to her lungs.”
“They could’ve used a transplant assist device,” I start to argue.
Dad frames my face and holds me still.
“Sweetheart…”