“Seems like you came all the way from New York twice, it took you so long.” I shake my head with a smile. Nobody does comebacks like my old man.
“Well, I’m here now. And if I’m remembering correctly, you didn’t even want me to come in the first place. Hell, I told you I was at baggage claim, and you told me to go home.”
“Because I didn’t want you to come,” he replies bluntly. “It’s dumb. I sure as shit never flew halfway across the country to take care of my dad’s broken balls.”
I chuckle. “I don’t think this is the kind of thing that hits every generation.”
“Whatever.”
I lean into the bottom rail of his hospital bed and try my hand at changing the subject. “What happened anyway? How’d you hurt yourself?”
He waves me off and turns to the side, preparing to climb out of the bed.
I jump forward to force him to lie back down, grabbing him by the shoulders. “Dad, relax.”
“You’re here. They told me I had to wait for you to get here, and then I could go. It’s time to go.”
“I’m sure there’s paperwork that has to be filled out. Discharge papers. That sort of thing.”
“Fuck those papers.”
“Dad,” I say, exasperated. “If you’ll just lie back and relax, I’ll go talk to the nurse and see if I can get them moving on the paperwork. But you have to promise to stay put for now. Can you promise?”
“Don’t treat me like a kid, Ry.”
I shrug. “What am I supposed to do when you insist on acting like one?”
He huffs and then, finally, sits back in the bed and glares. “Go get the damn papers.”
I sigh and step away to head for the door, but before I go, he calls my attention back one more time.
“Ry.”
“Yeah, Dad?”
“Thanks for coming.”
“Of course,” I say softly. “I’ll go find the nurse.”
I lean down, pulling my dad’s arm off of my shoulder and rotating forward so I can help him sit down on the couch in the middle of his living room.
The ride home in the taxi was interesting, to say the least. It started with him insisting the driver follow his directions rather than the GPS, despite not actually knowing the best route to take between the hospital and his house, and ended with an eighty-dollar tip on a twenty-dollar ride, along with the invitation to our driver to “hit the clubs” with him when he was feeling up to it.
I need him on the couch and out of trouble more than I need air in my lungs at this point. He groans a little with the movement, though, so I take more of his weight.
“You okay?” I ask as his ass meets the cushion.
He grunts, which I surmise is his way of saying no without actually having to say it.
“I’ll get you some Advil. The discharge papers said you can have three every four hours for pain as necessary.”
The official diagnosis for Sal Miller is a severe groin muscle pull. Now, that might not seem like a huge deal, but his doctor was insistent that he needs to relax over the next few weeks to prevent that pulled muscle from becoming a torn muscle, which would put him out of commission for a hell of a lot longer than I’m willing to play his handmaiden.
“I don’t need that shit.” He shakes his head. “There’s some whiskey on the bar cart. Just get me that.”
“Dad, it’s three thirty in the afternoon.”
“And?”
“And don’t you think you should wait a little while before you start drinking?”
He chuckles, then groans from the movement. “Oh yeah. It sure is gonna be fun having you here, son. A real party. We should probably buy a cake. Get some damn balloons. Make a whole thing of it.”
Lord, please grant me patience…
As if he answered my prayers, within seconds, my phone rings in my pocket and stops me from saying something rude to my clearly hurting father.
I pull it out and check the caller, and even though I’m hesitant to do so, I know I can’t let it go to voice mail.
“Dad, this is work. I have to take it. I’ll be right back.”
“Can you talk and get whiskey at the same time?” he questions, and with an exasperated hand through my hair, I know if I don’t want to be banging my head against the wall for the next four hours, I’m going to have to relent.
Still, I don’t give him the satisfaction of verbal confirmation.
I just put the phone to my ear and walk away.
“This is Ryan,” I say in greeting, striding around the sofa in my dad’s front living room and heading for the small bar cart in the dining room.
“Hey, hun. It’s Marcie.” A female voice fills my ears. “Just wanted to check in and see how your dad was doing.” Marcie is one of thirteen employees who work directly below me at North American Insurance Group, or as it’s better known, NAIG. We were in a late team meeting when I got the call about my dad, so it’s not much of a surprise that she overheard some of the details.