Dad looked so old.
As Paige paused in the doorway of the hospital waiting room, deserted except for the man pouring a cup of coffee from a carafe, her stomach knotted.
In the six years since she’d said goodbye to her parents and walked out the door of the home where she’d grown up, bag in hand, to marry Andrew, her father’s hair had gone more gray than brown. Lines bracketed the corners of his mouth, and creases scored his forehead.
“Do you want me to wait in the hall while you talk to him?” Andrew spoke close to her ear, pitching his voice low.
“No.” She tightened her grip on his hand. “We’re a package deal. I made that clear when I left. If Dad didn’t want you here, he wouldn’t have let me know about Mom. He knew you’d come with me.”
“I think it’s your mom who wants you here.”
“Tough. You go where I go. And if he—”
Her father turned toward them, his hand jerking as his gaze collided with hers.
She braced. “Hi, Dad.”
For an infinitesimal second, his eyes softened. As if he was glad to see her. But then he dipped his head and peered at his watch in the subdued pre-dawn lighting. “You got here faster than I expected.”
“There wasn’t much traffic to slow us down. How’s Mom?”
“Sleeping. Her doctor is going to stop by in the morning to discuss next steps. They’ve decided she had a TIA.” He didn’t acknowledge Andrew or make any attempt to close the distance between them.
That hurt.
But she could deal with his welcome—or lack of welcome—later. Right now she wanted information.
“What’s a TIA?”
“Transient ischemic attack. Presents like a stroke but resolves fast with no lasting damage. Sometimes it’s called a mini stroke.”
“So she’s going to be okay?” It was hard to think at three thirty in the morning after nothing but an hour or two of fitful sleep while wedged into the corner of the truck.
“TBD. The symptoms are clearing up, but her blood pressure spiked in the ER and they’re waiting on test results.”
“Can I see her?”
“Yes. But only two visitors are allowed at a time, and I’m already pushing it by being here after visiting hours.” He flicked a glance at Andrew, finally acknowledging his presence.
Andrew angled toward her and motioned to a couch on the far side of the waiting room, weariness etching his features. “I’ll grab a few z’s here while you stay with your mom.” He gave her a quick squeeze, then directed his next comment to her father, who remained several feet away. “If I can do anything to help, sir, let me know.”
If he’d won an Olympic gold medal, Paige couldn’t have been more proud of him. Instead of responding to her father’s rudeness in kind, he’d chosen the higher road.
For a moment, her dad seemed taken aback. Whether by Andrew’s offer to help or by his graciousness and civility despite the less-than-courteous reception he’d been given, it was hard to say. Then he motioned toward the hall and addressed her. “I’ll take you to her room. It’s to the left.”
He waited. As if he didn’t want to pass by and get too close to Andrew.
Quashing a surge of anger, Paige rose on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to her husband’s cheek. “I’ll be back to check on you in a little while.”
“Focus on your mom. I’ll be fine. I’d like to clock some sleep before this place gets busier and noisier, anyway.” After touching her face, he crossed to the couch.
Only then did her father take a step closer. “Let’s go. I don’t want to be gone too long.”
Without responding, she exited the waiting room.
Dad fell in beside her as she walked down the hall, but she didn’t look at him. Nor did she speak. If the doctor was coming in the morning for a conference, she could ask him or her all of her questions. She was here because Mom had asked for her. If Dad didn’t want to communicate, so be it. She wasn’t going to try to engage him in conversation.
They kept up a brisk pace down the hall, but as they approached the door to Mom’s room, his step faltered.
She slowed her gait and peeked over.
“I hate hospitals.” Rather than make eye contact, he directed his comment to the half-closed door ahead.
She didn’t have to respond, but there was a plaintive quality in his inflection she’d never heard before. Induced, perhaps, by exhaustion and stress.
Or was there more to it?
He’d always been closemouthed about his past, making it clear his childhood was an off-limits topic. All he’d ever shared with her was that his parents had died within months of each other while he was in his late teens, leaving him to fend for himself with few assets to his name. If Mom was privy to any more than that, she’d been sworn to secrecy.
Could Dad’s dislike of hospitals be sourced from that period in his past?
Why not dig a little, see what she could learn?
“Why do you hate hospitals?”
Slowly he transferred his gaze from Mom’s room to her, an echo of sorrow filling his eyes. “I lived in a hospital for weeks when I was sixteen. Watching my mother die.”
That was a piece of information he’d never shared.
“What happened to her?”
He wiped a hand down his haggard face. “She had strep throat as a child, which led to rheumatic fever. The fallout from that was heart valve disease, only discovered later in life. Too late to treat. And heart transplants weren’t common yet. Watching someone you love slip away is . . .” His chest heaved, and he once again focused on her mother’s door. “It’s hell.”
For a man who’d never expressed much emotion, that succinct admission spoke volumes about the depth of his feelings.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that, Dad. But Mom’s prognosis doesn’t sound as dire.”
“I don’t know. I’ve been googling the subject for hours, and one article said up to 20 percent of people who have a TIA have a full stroke within a week.”
Paige’s stomach began to churn. “That doesn’t mean Mom will be one of the unlucky ones.”
“I hope not.” Dad straightened his shoulders and continued toward the door. “Let’s go in.”
She trailed along in his wake, trying to come to terms with the troubling statistic he’d rattled off—but talking with the doctor in a few hours might help reassure her on the TIA front.
The unexpected glimpse Dad had offered into his past, however, made all the questions she’d wondered about through the years bubble back to the surface. Like, what had happened to his father so soon after his mother died? Where had Dad lived after both parents were gone? How had he survived on his own at such a young age? What kind of sacrifices had been required to work a day job and go to night school to get the business degree he’d always prized? The one he claimed had opened doors and allowed him to rise on the corporate ladder despite the odds stacked against him after the early deaths of his parents.
But as she followed him into the quiet room, she put all that aside and directed her attention to the woman whose profile came into view.
Mom had aged too.
A lot.
Pressure built in her throat as she stopped beside the bed and scrutinized her mother.
As far as she could see, there was none of the sagging she’d expected in a stroke victim. But Dad had said TIA symptoms resolved fast. And Mom appeared to be sleeping peacefully. That had to be an encouraging sign.
“Go ahead and sit.” Her father murmured the instruction and waved her toward a chair beside the bed.
“I don’t want to take your seat.” She lowered her volume to match his.
“I’ll round up another one.”
A nurse came through the door and crossed to the computer off to the side. “The room next door is empty. I’ll get you a chair from there in just a minute.”
“I’ll take care of it. Thank you.” Her dad disappeared into the hall.
“How is she doing?” Paige studied her mom’s steady breathing, suppressing the urge to take her hand and risk waking her up.
“Improving by the hour. All her vitals are fine. Are you her daughter?”
“Yes.”
The nurse smiled. “Thought so. I can see the resemblance.”
Not surprising. Everyone had always told her she took after her mom. But she’d also inherited other, less visible traits from her dad. Like his fortitude and willingness to work hard to achieve a goal.
Dad returned and positioned his chair beside hers as the nurse disappeared again.
“How long has she been asleep?” Paige rested her hand on the bed beside her mom’s fingers, close but not touching.
“Three or four hours. They may be giving her medication in the IV to relax her. The whole ordeal was stressful and exhausting for her.”
“And for you.”
He shrugged. “I’m not the one with a medical issue.”
“Psychological stress can be just as draining. Why don’t you go home and get a few hours’ sleep? I’ll stay with Mom.”
He was shaking his head before she finished. “I’m not leaving. Besides, the doctor may come in at the crack of dawn. I don’t want to miss him.”
His definitive tone said he wasn’t going to budge, so she didn’t bother to argue.
They sat in silence, the even, reassuring cadence of her mother’s breathing slowly untwisting the kinks in Paige’s stomach. As the passing minutes became an hour and she began to relax, her eyelids grew heavier and heavier.
Since falling asleep in the chair and sliding onto the floor would be mortifying, she had to find a way to keep herself awake.
She peeked over at her dad.
His arms were folded, his eyes closed, but his taut posture indicated he was wide awake.
Was it possible that in the dark, early hours of this new day, he’d be willing to offer a few more glimpses into his past?
It was worth a try. If nothing else, a bit of conversation would help her stay alert.
“Dad.” She waited until his eyelids flickered open to continue. “Why wouldn’t you ever talk about your parents and what happened to them?”
His features contorted, as if he’d been dealt a physical blow. “I don’t believe in dwelling on unhappy subjects or looking back.”
“I get that, but why make all the details a state secret? It’s not like there’s anything shameful about your mom dying of heart disease.”
“No, but my mother’s heart issues and death set off a downward slide in our family that eventually spiraled out of control. It serves no purpose to revisit that terrible chapter in my life.”
Paige zeroed in on the key phrase in his reply.
“What do you mean by out of control? I know your dad died soon after your mom, but illness isn’t something most people can control. It’s not like anyone would choose to be sick.”
The steady, muted beep of the monitor beside Mom’s bed was the only sound in the stillness.
He’d shut down again, as usual. Apparently, his parents would always remain a verboten topic, even decades after—
“Dad wasn’t sick.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“He didn’t have to die.”
His answers weren’t adding up.
“I don’t understand.”
He zipped up his yard-work jacket, the one he’d had for as long as she could remember. Pushed his fingers into the worn pockets. Hunkered deeper into the garment that had always been his refuge from the wind and rain and occasional sleet that could hammer Portland.
“This coat was my dad’s.”
That didn’t clarify his comments, but it did explain why the jacket had always seemed outdated. It had to be decades old. It also explained why Dad had refused to get rid of the shabby, ill-fitting garment despite her prodding through the years.
“You never told me that, either.”
“If I’d told you that, you would’ve asked questions about my father.”
“So why did you tell me now?”
“I don’t know.”
But she could guess.
When the foundations of your world were shaken, priorities shifted. In a mutating landscape, the need to strengthen connections took on new urgency—because love was what got you through.
As she well knew from the past few months.
Perhaps he hoped at a subliminal if not a conscious level that answering her questions and sharing some of the information he’d always guarded so fiercely would help them reestablish a connection.
Maybe that was a stretch born of hope, but whatever the reason, she ought to mine whatever he was willing to offer before the door swung shut again.
“Did your dad give it to you?”
“No. After he died, the house and contents were sold to pay debts. But I took a few of his things first.”
“There was no money at all?”
“No. Dad’s insurance didn’t cover all of Mom’s medical bills. He owed a chunk of money to the hospital and the doctors, and there was still a big mortgage on the tiny house they’d bought. The wages of a daycare aide and custodian combined didn’t give them much to work with for a down payment.”
She already knew that neither of her parents had come from families with money. Mom had shared that years ago. But she’d had no clue her dad had been burdened with such economic fallout after his father died.
Which brought her back to his earlier comment.
“What did you mean a minute ago, about your father not having to die?”
He removed one hand from his pocket, turned up the collar of the jacket, and sank deeper into the folds. When he spoke again, his voice was ragged. “Dad chose to die.”
It took a few moments for his meaning to penetrate her fatigue, but once it did, her jaw dropped. “You mean he . . . did he commit suicide?”
“Yes.”
Dear Lord.
Her father had said that period of his life was painful, but this crossed the line from pain to tragedy.
Losing his mother would have been bad enough. But after his father’s death, he’d also been left to fend for himself as a teen barely on the cusp of adulthood.
What a terrible blow that must have been to a young man who could easily have interpreted his father’s choice as rejection. As evidence that his love wasn’t sufficient to motivate his dad to struggle through the dark valley and be the father he needed.
Instead, Dad had been left on his own to face the world.
And face it he had, growing up fast as he struggled to cope with the chaos that must have been his life.
Yet despite that rocky start, he’d gotten an education. Worked his way up the corporate ladder in the banking industry. Married a woman who loved him with utter devotion. Created a comfortable material existence for his family, keeping all the pain from his past in a locked corner of his heart where it could never hurt him again.
So many insights.
So much explained.
She leaned forward in her seat and reached over to rest her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Dad. I wish you’d told me all this years ago.”
“It wouldn’t have changed what happened. The past is the past.”
“It could have changed the future, though. Knowing where people come from can create bridges to understanding.”
“Are you saying if you’d been aware of all this, you wouldn’t have defied our wishes and married that carpenter?”
She tried not to bristle. “No. I love Andrew. But maybe we could have talked about it more. Found a way to alleviate your concerns about my future with him.”
“All of which came to fruition. You both ended up on the street. I’ve been there, and it’s not a place I ever wanted anyone I love to be.” Pain scored his words.
So her father knew about their circumstances. Not surprising, given his career and contacts in banking.
“We had a rough stretch, but we’re on the upswing now.”
“I thought you might ask for my help.”
You could have offered.
But she left that unsaid.
Not that they would have accepted anyway. But knowing there was a safety net if the situation had gotten any more desperate would have relieved some of their stress.
“We managed. Andrew is a hard worker. Like you’ve always been.”
“I applaud hard work when it leads to an education and a good job and financial stability. He’ll never be anything but a laborer.”
“He owned a company.”
“Past tense. His judgment and common sense must be lacking if he hired a thief.”
“Jack fooled everyone. He could even have fooled you.”
“I doubt it. I’m a decent judge of character.”
“Maybe not. You wrote off Andrew, and he’s the finest man I’ve ever met.”
He waved her comeback aside. “My concern with him wasn’t about character. I hardly know the man.”
“Your fault, not his.”
“Be that as it may, my issue with him was related to career potential and the security he could provide. And I didn’t take kindly to him derailing your college studies and depriving you of a degree. That piece of paper opens up doors and opportunities.”
“I may go back to school someday. But I wanted to be part of the company Andrew started.”
“Which is gone. A degree would have come in handy about now.”
“We’re doing okay.”
He crossed his arms again. “Are you both working?”
“Yes. Andrew landed a major renovation job.”
“What about you?”
“I’m helping him.” No way was she mentioning the waitress gig at the Myrtle.
His mouth tightened. “You’re doing manual labor?”
“Light labor. And exploring other options.”
“There won’t be many worth pursuing without a college degree.”
She took a deep breath. Counted to five. “I know that was your road to success, Dad, and I’m glad it worked out for you. But not everyone needs a degree to create a secure life. Andrew has street smarts. Those count for a lot.”
“I had street smarts too, but they weren’t ever going to get me anything other than a blue-collar job.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a blue-collar job. Andrew loves what he does, and he’s good at it. He’s also experienced. That matters too.”
“So does background. His wasn’t the best.”
So that was still a bone of contention too.
In hindsight, telling her parents about Andrew’s abusive father and alcoholic mother had probably been a mistake. At the time, though, she’d thought his ability to succeed despite the odds stacked against him would impress them.
She tipped up her chin. “People can’t help the circumstances they’re born into or inherit, but strong people can overcome the challenges life hands them. Like you did. Andrew is a smart, caring, principled man, and I’m proud to be his wife. I would think someone with your background would appreciate and respect all he’s accomplished and the amazing person he became despite formidable obstacles.”
Her dad didn’t respond to that, and she didn’t attempt to continue the conversation.
Instead, she shifted away from him and settled back in her chair.
No worries anymore about dozing off after that intense exchange. She’d be wide awake for the duration. Thinking about all her father had shared.
And wondering if the crack in his armor that had let secrets about his unhappy past slip out might also allow receptiveness to a happier future with his daughter and son-in-law slowly seep in and soften his heart.