"Oh. Okay," he said and started to get out of the bed naked.
"Stop!"
"Fine," he said getting back under the covers.
"You can't do this," Belinda wailed. "You don't live here anymore. You have your own home."
"As long as Daddy is alive, this is still my home, too," I said. "Is there no limit to your depravity?"
Her boyfriend started to laugh.
"You should be locked up," I told her, "and I'm sure there'll come a day when you will be."
I slammed the door closed, my entire body shaking so badly, I had to pause before walking across the hallway to Daddy's bedroom. I caught my breath and knocked on his door. There was no answer so I knocked harder and then I opened the door and peered in. He wasn't in his bed, but there were no lights on and the curtains were still drawn. I listened for the sound of running water in the bathroom. I entered and saw that the bathroom door was opened.
Perhaps he rose and left while I was in Belinda's room, I thought. But how could he walk by without hearing the shouting? Confused, I stood there a moment and then I saw his feet around the corner of the bed. I approached slowly, my heart feeling as if some tiny sprite was pounding a nail through it. Daddy was sprawled on the floor, face down, his right arm under his body, his left out, the hand cupped into a claw. He was in his pajamas.
"Daddy!" I screamed and went to him. I knelt beside him and took his hand in mine. It was warm and when I looked at his face, I saw he had his eyes squinted shut as if trying to see some scene scorched on his brain.
"Daddy!" I cried again, shaking his hand.
His eyelids opened like two leaden doors on rusty hinges. He gazed at me, but his mouth, horribly twisted, uttered no words, just an incomprehensible grunt. His tongue looked swollen and extended.
Without further hesitation, I went to the phone and called for an ambulance. Then I ran down the hallway to the top of the stairway and shouted for Effie. She hurried out of the wrecked living room, a washcloth in hand.
"My father!" I cried. "He's collapsed on the floor. Come help me, please."
She started up the stairway and I turned as Belinda, a sheet wrapped- around her naked body like a toga, opened her door and peered out.
"What's all the commotion now, Olivia?"
"Your father," I spit at her. "You've finally done it." "Done what?"
I gazed at her with all the fury and anger I could muster.
"I have no time for you," I said and then returned to Daddy's side.
Effie and I managed to get him up. He seemed incapable of using his right leg and his right arm dangled limply at his side. By the time we had him on the bed resting comfortably, Belinda, now dressed, came to the bedroom.
"What's wrong with him?" she asked, her voice full of fear and remorse now.
I stared down at Daddy.
"I'm not a doctor," I said curtly, "but it looks like he's had a stroke."
Of course, that's what it was. The ambulance attendants came and took him to the hospital where Doctor Covington met us after he had examined him.
"It's too early to tell the actual extent of it," he explained to Belinda, Samuel and me in the lobby, "but for now he's lost the use of the right side of his body and his speech is impaired."
"How did this happen?" Belinda asked quickly. "Well, your father has been suffering from hypertension for some time now."
"What's that?" Belinda asked with a grimace.
"High blood pressure. I've been after him to take better care of himself, cut back on his smoking, drinking, salty foods, but sometimes too much stress and worry does it too," he added.
I glared at her and she looked away.
"We believe he's had a blood vessel