Finals came and went, and it was summer. Somehow, I managed to get through them and score well. Now, I didn't have to worry about school any longer but about how I could pay for my mom's treatment. I couldn't just do it, because what kind of son would I be if I didn't try to save her? A horrible one, that's what.
I sighed, putting my head down on my desk. "There are so many things that I've got to think about now," I muttered to myself, and I wanted to sigh again. But I got my head off the desk and started figuring out how I could even start to pay for my mom's treatment. As it stood right then, I only had about $5,000 saved up from all of the time I had worked at In-n-Out. If I worked full-time shifts, maybe I could get enough money for the procedure. But what if I was too late? What if she died while I was working? I would never be able to get over myself. Then what other option did I have?
I was drawing blanks everywhere until I remembered someone. Someone who I would never, ever go within a mile of, and the one who had left us for absolutely no good reason: my dad.
I stood up and walked downstairs, stretching a little bit in the process. I went into the living room, and there, on a bookshelf, was a photo book. I took it down from the shelf, sat down on the floor, and opened it up. I started to look through the pages, trying to find out what my dad looked like, and I could only find pictures of my mom and me, and I was almost ready to give up when I found some pictures of a wedding. I looked at the pictures, and I couldn't believe my eyes. My dad…he was the nurse. The nurse who was always sitting at the front desk of the hospital. He…
I stood up, and immediately ran upstairs, grabbed a jacket, my car keys, and my wallet, rushed back downstairs, and sprinted out the door. I got into my car and started it up, anger burning within me. "That motherfucker," I said to myself, gritting my teeth. "You were here all this time? You could have prevented this. This would have never happened if you just stayed!" I put the car into drive and drove to the hospital at high speeds, not caring if I got pulled over. My dad…he could have saved her. But he didn't. But he wouldn't. Because he could care less about what we go through. The light turned red, and I had to stop the car. I slammed my hands on the steering wheel, and I screamed, "Fuck!!!" I waited impatiently for the light to turn green, and when it did, I slammed my foot down on the gas pedal, and I shot off like a bullet.
I reached the hospital, and I shot through the doors. There, sitting at the receptionist's desk, was the man who was my father. The nurse. I walked over to the desk, and he said, "Good morning, Mr. Ward. How may I-?"
"Don't 'How may I help you?' me right now," I said, trying my very best to keep my voice level and calm, and also failing spectacularly. "You…you son of a bitch. You…"
"Mr. Ward," the nurse said, his voice steely. "If you have a complaint, then you should have submitted it online or over the phone. Otherwise, there is no reason for you to be here." He went back to working on his computer. I wanted to smash that computer into bits so badly, but I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. "We're going to meet together later," I said, turning away from him. "McDonald's, the one on Birch and First."
He looked at me, and then finally he said, "I'll take my lunch break for that." He said it as if he was humoring me as if I was nothing but a nuisance. I left, my whole body shaking from me trying to control my anger. Once I was outside and in my car, I screamed in anger, letting out all of the anger and frustration that was pent up within me for so long. I panted, lightheaded, and I felt like I would pass out due to the blood rushing to my head. But I breathed slowly, letting the blood redistribute throughout my body. When the lightheadedness was gone, I started up the car and drove to the Mcdonald's, following the speed limit this time.
I was sitting at the Mcdonald's, sipping a drink, when the nurse walked in. He was still in his nurse uniform, and he walked over to the register and ordered some food, then walked over to my table and sat down in front of me. For a moment, we were both silent, neither of us saying a word to the other. I just kept sipping my drink, and he played with the receipt in his hands. He spoke first. "So you found out about me, son," he said.
"Don't start," I said, my voice quiet yet filled with anger. "Don't even think about starting with that fact. Do you have any idea how much my mom suffered?"
He was silent. It was good that he remained silent, because if he hadn't, then I probably would have exploded then and there. "She still thinks about you. You left when I was four. Four. Do you have any idea what that can do to a child? No, you obviously don't. What were you thinking when you left, huh? Tell me. Was it that you couldn't care for the two of us? Was there another person that you fell in love with, and you eloped with her only for her to dump you for somebody else? Oh, wait: did you find out that you were having a child and didn't want to pay child support?"
He was silent through all of my verbal abuse, taking it willingly. I kept talking. "How did it feel, huh? How did it feel to see your wife in the hospital room, laying there lifeless, not moving at all? How does it feel knowing that you could have prevented that from happening, by staying with the two of us?" I felt my voice start to rise, and I had to take a deep breath in order for me to calm down so that my voice wouldn't be too loud. "How does it feel knowing that your son has gone through so much in such a short period of time that it could possibly leave a large impact on him for the rest of his life, and you could have tried to help him through it? How does it feel, fucktard, to know that you were the cause of somebody's death?"
I finally stopped talking and was silent again. I noticed that his teeth were clenched as if what I had said had actually affected him on some level. He took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly, then his face relaxed, and his eyes had some sympathy in them. Seeing them filled with sympathy filled me with some anger. Then he said, "Christopher…there are many things in this world that you cannot understand, that you will not understand until you've reached my age." He looked away from me as if he wasn't able to look at my face for long. Guess it was hard to come to terms with your own son. "There are so many things that I wish I had done differently, Mr. Ward. I wish I'd stayed with you two. I wished that I could have seen you grow up into an amazing young man. I wish…I wish that I could have seen you fall in love. I wish that I could stand by your mother's side without having any regrets at all. But now…that's all wishful thinking. Your mother is on her deathbed unless you procure a cure for her illness." My hand curled into a fist when he said that. "But you won't be able to do that, will you?" He looked at me in the face. "Are you going to work full time this summer? Avoid all of your friends, take away a huge chunk of your life just so that you could have more time with her? Are you going to really do that? Waste your life? And for what?"
"Shut up," I muttered, my fists clenched, enough so that I felt my fingernails digging into my hands. If I went any further than that, my hands probably would have started bleeding. I was too angry and not thinking straight that I didn't care about what Ashley was feeling.
"As much as I love Jennifer, I want to respect her wishes." I looked up at him, anger flashing in my eyes and my mouth opening to say something not so nice. How dare he talk about my mother and say her name like that. Then I saw that his eyes were full of tears, which stopped me short of saying something that I might have regretted later. "Jenny…I kept in touch with her. I couldn't…I couldn't come back because of…" He hesitated a little bit. "...certain circumstances, but I still managed to keep in touch with her." I stared at him, my fingers slowly uncurling so that they were just flat on the table now. "I know that you might not believe me, Mr. Ward…Christopher, but don't you think it's strange that even though…even though I had left, your mother still kept her married name?"
The thought hadn't even crossed my mind. I had no idea. I didn't even think twice about it, and now…now, here was my father, sitting right in front of me, telling me that everything that my mom had told me about him, that everything that I had believed about him…that it was all a lie, something that was done in order to protect us.
"Why, then…why didn't you say something when she collapsed?" I asked, my voice quiet, but not so full of anger now. "Why did you wait until I found out about you?"
"Because that was something that your mother wanted," he said plainly. "She called me, a few days before she collapsed, and I knew that something was wrong. Normally, I'm the one calling her. And she told me everything about her heart problem, and how she had kept a secret from you and how it pained her to do so. I wanted to come back, to raise you for what little time I could, but she said no. That I had to stay away, that I had to keep you safe. She told me that you would find out eventually and that eventually, you would find out about me. She told me to tell you everything then, which is what I'm doing right now." He sighed, and he extended his arm out to me. "I know that I don't have a right to say this to you right now, but…I want to come back. I have to, and I want to honor Jenny's wishes. I want…I want to be your father again."
At that moment, I wanted to scream in anger, pound the table, punch him in the face, and just…well, throw a bigger temper tantrum. But…I didn't do it. Instead, I started to cry, the tears rolling down my cheeks. "Fuck…" I whispered, and I started to wipe my eyes. "This…this wasn't how it was supposed to go. I was supposed to yell at you, scream at you, make you leave me alone…not this…not this" I kept crying, the sobs shaking my entire body. I wanted to say something, but…I couldn't do it. I guess, deep down, I realized that he was really my father. He…he still cared about me, even when I yelled at him, made fun of him, and actively tried to provoke him. He had every right to get mad at me, every right to leave, every right…except he didn't do that. He cared like a father should. And that was what made me just lose all of the will to fight. Is this…is this what Dick felt like?
Eventually, I stopped, stood up, and said, "You've got to get back to work. I'm sorry for keeping you so long."
He stood up as well, letting his arm fall to the side, and he said, "No, it's alright. I'm glad that we were able to talk with each other. Thank you for calling me out here."
For a moment, we stood there awkwardly, then we both turned and left the place at the same time. We both walked to our cars, and as I started up mine, I turned to look at him, and he was looking at me. We didn't do anything, but there was a silent agreement between the two of us, and we both drove away, him going back to work and me going back to my house. I pulled into my driveway, parked the car, and leaned my head on the steering wheel. I took in a deep, shaky breath, my whole body shaking. My heart was pounding, and my chest felt compressed, making it a little hard for me to breathe. I felt like I wanted to cry, but at the same time that I didn't want to cry. Meeting him…meeting my dad for the first time had an effect on me that I'd never experienced before. I…I didn't know if I liked the feeling or not.
I took another deep breath, and I tried to calm myself down, and eventually, my body stopped shaking. I still felt a tightness in my chest, as if I was expecting something really bad to happen, and I didn't really understand why.
I would understand it soon enough.
I got out of the car and walked to the front door, and there on the porch was Ashley, unconscious and covered in bruises. She was sprawled on the floor, one of her hands extended out as if she was trying to ring the doorbell. I immediately rushed to her, the feeling in my chest growing tighter and tighter. "Ashley," I said, my voice full of panic as I turned her over and had her face me. "Hey, Ashley. Ashley. Wake up. Wake up." I tried to shake her awake, but she was not waking up at all. I didn't know what to do. Should I call 911, or should I bring her into my house so that I can treat her myself? My brain was torn between these two actions, but eventually, I decided that I should bring her into my house first to treat her injuries. Then I would try to figure out why she was here. So I slowly slid my arms underneath her body and lifted her up in a bridal carry, her entire body settling into my arms. I had carried her before, so I was doing a better job at it than before. I opened up the front door, and I balanced my body against it as I tried to get Ashley in without hitting any part of her body. I somehow managed to succeed, although her feet kind of scraped against the doorframe. I let the door close behind me, and I walked over to the living room. I walked over to the couch, where I laid her down. I immediately ran and got the first aid kit, and it was then that I started to realize that I was sore all over. I guess I had become accustomed to the pain that was appearing all over my body, but for Ashley…
I immediately rushed back to her and started to treat her wounds, first starting with her face. There were multiple slap marks and bruises, along with some cuts that seemed to be splattered all over her face. I couldn't understand what it was. I got out a cotton ball, poured some disinfectant onto it, and started to clean the cuts, so that they wouldn't get infected. Ashley was unconsciously wincing, and I felt the pain on my own face, too. I wondered if my dad had seen them on my face but just didn't say anything about it. Maybe…maybe he understood what was happening. He had predicted that I would fall in love with her, and he also knew about the connection between the two of us, and how it works. I looked back at that and couldn't help but chuckle to myself. To think that I had told my dad about something before I told the actual person.
I shook the thought from my head and tried to focus on cleaning Ashley's wounds. Once I had disinfected all of the cuts on her face, I took to covering them with bandaids, finding a steady rhythm so that I could finish it quickly yet efficiently. Next, I moved on to the bruises that were on her arms. I felt sore all over my body, so that meant that she probably had bruises in the same places. But…there was the matter of her consent and privacy. I felt my face heat up as I thought about it, but I immediately shook the thought from my head. I had morals, damn it. Besides, I couldn't be thinking about those things at a time like this. So, I just tried to treat the bruises on her arms as best as I could, and that was by going to my fridge and taking out the cold packs that we kept in there in case of bruises. I walked back over and started to put them onto her arms. She shivered unconsciously, and I wondered if she was going to wake up eventually. I continued to place them until I ran out of cold packs. There were so many bruises on her arms, and I had no idea what had caused them.
Also, I had only then realized that by bringing her into the living room, I was leaving her on full display for all of my neighbors (and possibly the one who hurt her) to see. So I hastily removed all of the cold packs off her arms and cradled her in my arms again. I was starting to take her upstairs, and I remembered the last time I had done this, and I made sure to be extra careful going up.
I made it to the guest room and laid her down gently. I went back downstairs, grabbed the cold packs, and made my way upstairs again. I put the cold packs in the same places, and I sighed in relief. "Jeez," I muttered. "I guess those tutorials and lessons in first aid really paid off." Since I had wanted to be a nurse, I had to learn how to minister first aid to other people, which meant that I had to sit through hours of videos, learning what to do and what not to do. I had to practice on dummies or other people in order to hone my skills, and while I wasn't the best at everything, I was actually pretty decent. I had stopped doing them because I stopped wanting to be a nurse, but those skills were coming in handy right now.
I went back downstairs to pack up the first aid kit, and as I was just finishing, the doorbell rang. I turned to the front door, wondering if I should get it. It rang again, and I sighed. I walked towards the door, leaving the first aid kit in the living room. I walked to the door and looked through the peephole.
Standing there was a man whom I had never seen before. He was a little bit shorter than me, maybe standing at about 5'8", 5'9". He had a scruffy beard that was already graying, and the beard was not doing any favors for helping him look more handsome. His face was a little bit rough, and there seemed to be scars all over his face, all of them white and faded. It made me wonder what he had done in order to get that many scars on his face. He was wearing…well, it was very clear that he didn't go outside too much. He had on a dirty, wrinkled dress shirt, with the top two buttons unbuttoned and revealing the massive amount of chest hair that was hidden underneath, the sleeves rolled up and revealing his arms, which were also covered in scars. It was untucked over a pair of grimy khakis, which seemed to be covered in food, drink, and…were those bloodstains? I couldn't really tell. He was wearing worn dress shoes, and I wondered if I should be opening my door for this man. The man rang the doorbell again, and I sighed. I opened the door, not letting him see into my house. "Hello," I said, nodding at him.
"Hello," he said. Now that I was almost face to face with the man, I was able to get a better look at his face, although I didn't want to. His eyes were bloodshot, and it wasn't doing any favors for his green eyes. His hair was very unkempt, more so than mine, and long enough so that you could probably tie it back in a ponytail. I couldn't help but wonder when this man last took a shower. His voice sounded rough and coarse as if he had done a lot of yelling when he was younger and had completely destroyed his lungs. Or maybe he was a smoker. I didn't really know. "I'm looking for my daughter. She ran away from home today, and I have no idea where she could be. Could you possibly help me out, sir?"
"Oh?" I said, and I had to resist the urge to raise an eyebrow. I was honestly surprised. Who, in their right mind, would have a child with this person? I know it sounds harsh, but…well, actually, I have no excuse for that. Aside from that, he was surprisingly articulate and polite. (And yeah I know, 'Don't judge a book by its cover' or whatever, but I couldn't help it, okay? When was the last time that you actually held to that principle?) "Do you have a description of what she looks like? I can keep an eye out for her."
He nodded, and he said, "She's 5'8", about as tall as me. She has…I forget the name of the color, but I believe it's light brown hair, and she also has different colored eyes. I don't remember what the colors are." With every detail that the man listed off, a bad feeling was developing in my chest. This description of his daughter…it was sounding a lot like Ashley. I managed to keep my face straight and emotionless. "Alright, noted," I said. "Can I get her name, please?"
"Her name is Ashley," he said, and I had to clench my fist tightly in order to take out my emotions. Everything that he had said was lining up with the suspicion in my head, but I still had to throw caution to the wind. There was only one last thing to do. I had to ask for his name. "Okay," I said, and I had to struggle to keep my voice from stuttering. "And can I get your name and address, sir? That way, if I do find her, then I could notify you."
He chuckled. "Ah, where are my manners?" He pointed to his right, and I looked. The blood in me turned to ice. It was Ashley's house, and I turned back to look at him. He extended his arm out as if to shake my hand and he said, "My name is Brandon Hendrickson. Thank you for taking the time to listen to me."