When We Were Young

Just Breathe

I took a cab to the museum and dropped Skylar off on the way. She said she would be fine and that I didn't need to go with her. I was reluctant, but didn't want to push. My mind was elsewhere most of the day. I looked at my phone repeatedly, waiting for a text or a call. Finally, around three, she sent me a message.

Can you meet me here?

My response was short. Yes.

I only had an hour left and my boss, who happened to be Robert, was completely understanding. I explained in the morning what had happened, as much as I knew anyway, and he told me to leave whenever I needed. That was the good thing about having your boss also be your friend. We all just had dinner not more than two weeks earlier.

I made my way to the hospital and found Charlie's room. I wasn't sure what to expect. Would they be talking? Fighting? Not saying a word?

It was the latter.

Skylar sat in the chair next to the bed, her arms folded, staring at her father. He was sleeping, or unconscious, I wasn't sure. There was a breathing tube down his throat, tape crisscrossed over his mouth to keep it in, IVs in his arm, and loud beeping. His heartbeat was slow and steady.

"I've sat here all day, waiting for him to wake up," she said quietly. I rested my hand on her shoulder. She pressed her cheek to my hand and sighed. "And not one word. I wonder if he knows I'm even here."

I cleared my throat and quietly pulled up a chair. "What did the doctors say?" I was trying to be quiet. It felt like one should always be quiet in hospitals.

"His body is shutting down one organ at a time. He lost consciousness last night and they had to give him the breathing tube."

She looked at me. Her eyes were red rimmed and bloodshot. She was frowning and I could see her shoulders trembling.

"Eventually he'll be on full life support and I'm supposed to decide when to take him off. How is that fair? How can he come back in my life just for this? To put me through this?"

I shook my head. How could I answer? I knew nothing of her father, only what he did to her by leaving. He created a tough girl: stubborn and resilient, and also untrustworthy of most people, including me in the beginning. She kept a bubble around her that most didn't have the privy of getting inside of.

To Skylar, this was just one more thing for her to hate him for and frankly, I couldn't blame her.

"Did you call Zeb?"

She scoffed. "He said he was sorry but there was no way he wanted anything to do with that man. So, now I'm stuck. Now I'm stuck with a man who left my mother, me, and my brother and I have to decide when he dies."

"What did the paperwork say? What did he want?"

"Its just garbage. He talks about property he has, and money hidden away. Half of it is so incoherent, I have no idea what he's trying to say. He had a lawyer and I called him. The lawyer said when I sell off all his stuff, then I can pay his legal fees. Apparently his last wife took him for almost everything he had," she said. There was a hint of sorrow in her voice. "He was living in squalor. If he had all this money and property, I don't know why he was living the way he was. And he had a job, somehow. I don't get it. The only reason he found out he was sick was because he was found in an alley next to a bar. Whoever found him thought he was dead because he had been beat up pretty bad. That was four years ago."

Charlie didn't move. He made no motion whatsoever to indicate that he knew his daughter was sitting less than two feet away. The heart monitor beeped, piercing the silence.