My Professor's Secret

33|

thirty-three

As the night sky rests for morning's arrival on our third night in the hospital's ICU, the three of us gather around Dad's bedside. He looks just as lifeless as he had the past three days, though Dr. Monroe greets us back with incredible news. According to Dad's chart, his doctors felt it necessary to reduce his phenobarbital and paralytics which isn't as scary as Dr. Monroe made it sound. In layman's terms, the swelling on dad's brain had completely subsided so there was no reason to keep him asleep. Which led to her decision to stop the medicine that induced his coma. Dr. Monroe was confident in dad's recovery once the drugs were out of his system.

Neither of us speaks a word until Dr. Monroe finishes unhooking the tube from his throat and removing the I.V. of coma inducers. Before leaving us with a friendly smile, she encourages us to celebrate—that news like this doesn't come often for people in dad's situation.

For the first time in the past three days, a breath of relief spouts from Lorelei's lips as she takes a seat in the chair beside dad's bed. I wish I could say her joy was a sham, but it wasn't, mine was and it shouldn't have been. Especially if his doctors, we're certain of his recovery. Physically that is. Who knew what Christian and I would have to deal with once we took him home? What terrified me was the fact that now we'd have to live on constant eggshells around him. And the possibility of him not being who he was before the damage to his brain occurred. Would he be able to walk? Talk? Move?

Christian is on his way out of the room once I've finally decided to give his general direction a gaze following the good news we received about our father, though his interest lies elsewhere. He pulls his phone from his pocket, taps on the screen a few times then holds it to his ear. His voice recedes with hello until he's no longer in earshot.

"So," Lorelei sniffs, wiping away the stream of fresh tears from her cheeks. "Since the doctors are certain of your father's recovery, I think it's best if you and Chris head back to campus to finish out your semester." She grabs ahold of dad's hands and then turns towards me. "You heard Dr. Monroe. It could be days—weeks even before he might wake up. You know he wouldn't want you here. He'd want you there, working your asses off to get your degree."

She isn't wrong. Dad sacrificed more than I ever allowed myself to realize to get Christian and me into college. There were nights dad didn't come home because if he wasn't working for his salary, he was doing whatever other odd jobs he could find to provide for us after mom passed. Only I can't bring myself to accept it. Maybe she just didn't want anything more to do with us until dad gains consciousness. Maybe she'd tell him we were never here when he did finally wake.

"We're not leaving our father in a hospital in this condition. How could you even suggest that?"

Lorelei prepares to part her lips, but it's Chris' voice that steals both of our attention.

"Suggest what?" He says.

"She wants us to abandon dad and go back to campus."

"Don't think of it as abandoning him. I'll be here with him through it all. He's done everything to send you to college. Imagine him waking up to find you both on academic probation for truancy. You know he'd want you to be there."

By the look on Christian's face, that was all the convincing he needed to make that journey back to campus. His interest in Lorelei's suggestion wouldn't have bothered me if there weren't an ulterior motive behind his reasoning for wanting to return to Wisconsin. But it wasn't only that that made agreeing with my brother easier than agreeing with Lorelei.

My brother—who I'd consider emotionally void most of the time—spent every night crying about the state of our dad. It tore him up more than it did me, and that's saying a lot because truth is told, he was the one that carried the burden of my and dad's grief after mom.  Mom's death didn't seem to gain a tear, but dad's injuries tore him apart. Regardless of how I felt about him siding with her, I knew Chris would abide by the wishes of our father. Especially after witnessing his emotional distress play out.