i pulled my cell from my bag and Nora snatched it away to dial while I tried to hoist my father up. It was a losing battle—he crumpled quickly, slumping into the too-small Empire-style chair, the closest place for me to aim him.
“Yes, we’re at 15 Lincoln Center Plaza, the Amberley School, Room 501, Administrative Building. I’m with Martin Chertok and he’s having a heart attack. I’ll stay on the line.”
“N-no,” I sputtered. “That can’t be—”
“I’ve seen it,” Nora said. “My husband . . .”
He died, I remembered now. Her first husband died.
“I’ll flag them from the lobby.” Bill rushed off in a rapid glide.
“Dad, hang on,” I whispered, cupping his scruffy face in my hands. He was cold, clammy—conscious.
“Ruby?” He blinked, winced. “Ah. God.”
I glanced up after who knew how many matching breaths, seeing an avalanche of EMTs rushing at us, then I backed out of the room to give them access. I looked for Nora, to thank her for her quick thinking, but I couldn’t find her anywhere—only my cell phone propped up against the fleur-de-lis wallpaper, waiting for me to discover it.
She’d run off.
My gratitude burned to ashes as I bent to pick my phone up off the floor. She was my godmother. She was cotton candy and meadow bunnies. She’d dialed 911. She’d cheated on her husband. Stolen from the school. Manipulated Oscar. Manipulated me. Disappeared while my dad lay curled up on the floor, fighting for his life. She was probably locked downstairs in her office suite, calling her lawyer even now.
They stretchered Dad down the service elevator and out to the ambulance. A small crowd had already gathered outside, including a clutch of students. Some of them were crying. I felt like screaming at them, telling them they had no right—but they had every right, didn’t they? They spent as much time with him as I did.
The EMTs started to slam the ambulance doors, when I let out a wordless cry.
“Only family,” the female EMT said curtly.
“I’m his daughter.”
“Come on then, quick.”
I sat in front with the driver, peering through the grill to stare at Dad’s hair instead of all the gear covering him, the needle they were injecting into his arm, the defibrillator they were charging and pressing to his chest.
“Clear,” the EMT said, and a scream lodged itself in my throat, watching his chest judder upward.
We were at the hospital before I had a chance to orient myself, and before I could even find the name of the hospital they’d taken us to, Dad was rolling away through doors I wasn’t allowed to enter, a nurse pulling me to a harshly lit waiting room, crouching in front of me and telling me they’d give me updates and was there someone she could call for me?
“Your mom, honey?”
I let out a frantic laugh, then clapped my hand over my mouth. She pressed her lips together.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just really scared?”
She rubbed my arms. “It’s okay. He’s awake now, he’s with the best doctors here and we’re going to do everything we can for him. Now . . . how old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
Her shoulders relaxed. “Well, there’s coffee that way if you need it. I’ll be back with updates as soon as I can.”
I thanked her and settled in for a long wait, watching local news on the wall-mounted TV for God knew how long. Deaths, political scandals, protesters.
I closed my eyes, wanting the drone of it gone.
Bliss to anger to confusion to terror today, and it was only just after noon. A wave of longing washed over me, wishing Oscar were here holding my hand, but the bigger part of me hoped he hadn’t heard. That he had his music blinders on, nothing to distract him from his symphony.
I opened my eyes to see a flash of scrubs, a doctor. He kept passing, and I relaxed—but then the front desk receptionist pointed in my direction and he turned with a squint.
“Ruby Chertok?” he asked, mispronouncing my last name.
I nodded, tucking my legs tight under the chair.
The doctor crouched in front of me with a blandly cheerful expression. “I’m Dr. Singh.” He offered his hand for a quick shake. “So your father has suffered what we call a coronary spasm . . .”
“Oh,” I muttered, relieved. “I’m sorry, I thought he’d had a heart attack.”
“In this case, it did lead to a heart attack,” he said, almost apologetically.
“Okay.” I swallowed.
“He’s conscious, resting, responding well to treatment. But because this is a relapse occurrence and the medication he’s been taking isn’t affecting his arrhythmia as much as I would like, I’m recommending we install a pacemaker. It’s a simple procedure . . .”
Dr. Singh pulled a laminated info graphic sheet out of nowhere to show me where the pacemaker would go, what the risks were, how long the recovery would be, but it was too much to absorb. My mind was busy pinballing wildly between key words he’d said—medication, arrhythmia, relapse.
How long had my father had heart problems?
The doctor had stopped talking. He was watching me.
“Um.” My throat felt too tight to force words out. “When will he go into surgery?”
“We have an opening at four. Could be sooner, depending on how the day goes. He’ll be prepped by three.”
“Okay,” I got out. “Thank you.”
The doctor walked briskly through the sliding doors and I exhaled. Then I put my head in my hands and tried to rub sense into it.
“Rooster.” Alice’s voice drew me upward.
She was wearing a white T-shirt and shorts, practically a tourist. But her face was hollowed with worry.
I stood and hugged her with a gasp. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t call you, I should have called you right away . . . what was I thinking?”
“It’s okay,” she said into my hair. “I’m his In Case of Emergency, so it got to me.”
“You just missed the doctor.”
“And?” She bit the corner of her thumbnail, then stuck her hand in her pocket.
“Heart attack, basically. He’s getting a pacemaker put in at four.”
“That’s smart.” Alice rubbed her temple. “Okay.”
I stared, tiny memories taking the shape of puzzle pieces—the doctor’s card on Dad’s desk, the extra-long trip to the UK with time built in to rest, that “appointment” Nora had referenced, that frantic text about Dad not picking up his phone.
Alice, standing here, disappointed. Not shocked.
“You knew,” I said.
“Knew what?”
“That he was sick.”
“It’s not sick, exactly, it’s . . .” She sighed, then pressed a hand gently to my arm. “We didn’t want to worry you. You’ve got enough going on and it didn’t . . .” She peered unblinking at the doors to the ICU. “It didn’t seem like it would lead to anything serious.”
“You need to tell me things.” My face started to sting. “I am so sick of being shut out, you have no idea—!”
“Okay,” she said, sounding exasperated.
“I’m not the family pet. I’m your sister.”
“Okay.” Her voice was softer now, her eyes on mine. “I understand that, Roo. I’m sorry. I am. Okay?”
I nodded.
“Can we go see him?” She pointed to the doors.
I put my hands in my hair. “I forgot to ask. I . . . panicked. I don’t know.”
She strode to the front desk, uncowed by the stern woman manning it. A few seconds later, she pointed to me, got a nod from the desk lady, and walked back to me.
“We can have a quick visit.”
I braced myself as we walked into Dad’s cubicle in the ICU, thinking he’d look like he had on the paramedics’ gurney, oxygen mask, lines everywhere. But he was sitting up, shirtless, circular nodules connected to his chest, one IV line going into his hand.
He looked tired, otherwise okay.
Before we could say hi, the nurse bustled in to check vitals. Alice and I backed into the hall to give her room.
“You don’t have to hang out long, Roo. I’ve got this.”
I started to argue. “I want—”
“He’ll stay overnight after the surgery,” she cut me off quietly. “Whenever he’s allowed to get back, we’ll need the house ready for him. Do you think you could tidy a little, stock up on healthy food, that kind of thing?”
Tidy. It stung more than she could have known.
Still, there was a good reason my family always slotted me into that role. I wasn’t Alice, striding boldly up to the nurses’ desk to ask the obvious question. If I wanted them to see me differently, I was going to have to be different.
But this wasn’t the moment.
“Of course,” I said. “Don’t you have rehearsal tomorrow? I can come back, sub in for the night so you can rest . . .”
“I don’t have rehearsal.” Alice glanced behind her.
“You took a sabbatical?” I wasn’t sure whether to congratulate her.
“Actually, no.” Her voice had fallen even lower, but she was smiling. “Danny talked me out of it, and I think he’s right. It doesn’t have to be so all or nothing. I’m not Mom, you know? I can find a balance. I called Sherman on the way here, said I needed a few personal days. I had a whole speech prepared, but he didn’t push back. At all.”
She sounded incredulous.
“I’m glad you’re doing it this way,” I said quietly. “You should have it all.”
Alice’s eyes glowed before she rolled them. “Okay, enough about me—go say hi but remember, the important thing is for Dad to be . . .” She drew a horizon with her hands. “Calm, unstressed, you get it.”
“I do,” I said, mouthing thank you to the nurse as she hurried out. Then I turned back to Alice. “Wait—are you thinking I’ll stress him out if I stay here?”
“I mean, it isn’t your fault. He worries about you. If you stayed all night, he’d worry about you not sleeping.”
“He worries about me.”
“You’re his favorite!” She said it like it was obvious. “I know you don’t believe me, but he agonizes. A few weeks ago, you were out late and he wouldn’t stop texting me—what should I do, should I call the cops? I talked him down, you’re welcome. And the years of agita over you studying piano. I just want her to be happy, Al, how can we make sure she’s happy?” She groaned. “Dad is a mess where you’re concerned. He just doesn’t want any of what he’s dealing with to blow back on you. So he dumps it on the rest of us.”
“Because I’m the youngest?”
“It’s more than that,” she murmured. “You’re the only one of us he sees as a human instead of an instrument. He said once that you were the best thing he ever made. To me! His other daughter! That’s how much of a stand-in I am to him, he didn’t even think I would care.”
I should probably have said something about how much Dad whined about her to me, but all I could get out was “Wow.”
She swatted my shoulder. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
Dad shot me a tired smile as I tiptoed over and kissed him on his bearded cheek. He looked smaller, lying there. Mortal.
“Everything’s gonna be okay, sweetheart,” he said, gusto leached from his voice. “This is routine.”
“I know,” I said, remembering what the doctor had told me.
He seemed to consider his next words carefully. Then he looked past me at Alice. “Could you give me and Rooster a minute, Al?”
Her face betrayed surprise. Then she nodded and stepped out, shutting the divider curtain behind her.