Carly’s mother is an older rounder version of Carly with kind eyes and the type of maternal attitude I am not accustomed to.
She’s weepy. She hugged me already, despite Carly introducing me as her boss. And then she started to babble about Caitlin getting hit by a car and the cops calling Carly’s father at work and as his father was telling an employee why he had to leave early, he started hyperventilating and clutched his chest and then went down.
I sit there in the waiting room while Carly’s in with her father.
I’ve texted Kieran and I’ve sent a text to my father, telling him Carly’s father and sister got rushed to the hospital and so we’re in Buffalo.
He answers my text and invites me to stop in to Chancellor tomorrow since I’m here to tell the current management team in person the news that they’re being absorbed into CC and that they’ll all be getting severance packages.
I phone him to reply.
“Aiden. Hello.”
“Fuck, Dad. Have some goddamn sensitivity!”
Coming from me, this is saying something. I let him have it after that meeting on Carly’s first day about this same fuckin’ thing.
“S-son.”
“Damn it.” I rub my forehead in frustration.
“Okay, why don’t we table any work stuff. Just take care of our girl there and call me tomorrow. Let me know what’s happening.”
“Yeah, alright.” I end the call and that’s when Carly and her mother are coming toward me.
That morning, Dad told me he’s having part of his prostate removed. He reiterated that they’ve caught it early and that the prognosis is good.
He also tells me that my mother is refusing to speak to him over the fiasco surrounding Adele’s labor. She’s found a way to blame him, insisting he didn’t try very hard to wake her to come to the hospital and that she wasn’t drunk; it had been her sleep medication only that made her so difficult to rouse.
Bullshit, but whatever.
Mrs. Adler sits down in the waiting area beside me. “Thank you so much for getting Carly to us so fast, Aiden.”
“Of course I’d get her home. How is everything?”
“Well, my husband, they’re keeping overnight for observation and running some more tests in the morning. Caitlin, they’ve got sedated. She is in a bit of legal trouble, though, so she’s not going to leave from here other than to go to the…” she lowers her voice, “police station.”
Carly tightens her lips.
“My older daughter is not nearly as together as my younger one,” she adds.
I say nothing, because what is there to say?
I look to Carly, but can’t get a read on her expression. She’s chewing her thumbnail and staring at me.
Carly’s mother starts talking again. “So, I’ve already said good night to Darryl and stopped in to see Cait. But, she’s medicated so she’s asleep. We should go home and get some sleep. I have my van. Aiden, would you be so kind as to drive?” She passes me the keys.
35
CARLY
My mom is trying to get Aiden to drive her twenty-year-old Smurf-blue Plymouth Voyager minivan back to her house.
Talk about horror!
“Mom, I think we’ll let Aiden get back to the airport from here. Call him a taxi, and---”
“It’s late. He should get some sleep,” Mom says.