Page 79 of Near Miss

And you should have been by to check on them—on him—but you were too busy in Beckett’s bed.

Dr. Rawdat winces, and he looks at me like he feels a bit sorry for me. “Dr. Roberts. You know it doesn’t work like that. You know it better than me. That didn’t cause this. He’s immunocompromised, and it’s flu season.”

“I had a friend over at the house, and he wore a mask but—”

“Dr. Roberts,” he repeats, but it’s soft, and he gives a little shake of his head. “It’s flu season. He told me he goes to AA a few times a week? He could have easily picked something up there.”

“Sure,” I say quietly, nodding.

He still goes to all those meetings during flu season, my brain pipes up.Maybe he doesn’t care he’s putting himself at risk. Putting a piece of you at risk.

“I’ll discharge him as soon as his pulse ox is up, and the IV antibiotics are done. No long-term damage done.” Dr. Rawdat holds the chart up, but he tips his head, lips pulling to the side in concern. “Do you need me to call—”

“No.” I don’t even know who he was going to say, but I look up and give him a tight smile. “I’ll wait until he’s done his round of antibiotics.”

It’s not a question, and he doesn’t treat it like one. He tips his chin before leaving, taking the chart with all these things that medically tell us both what we need to know about what’s going on in my father’s body, even though I’m still not so sure.

I breathe in and out, alone in the hallway, before I turn and go back into my dad’s room.

I think I might feel the ghost of hands whispering across my calves, but I can’t give them life. As nice as they are, I can’t let them be real.

They did get a little too real, and look what happened.

“You didn’t text me,” I say quietly, sitting down in the chair beside the hospital bed.

He rolls his head across the pillows to face me, words muffled behind the mask. “You’re busy.”

It’s all over his face—traipsing across that too-prominent brow bone. Guilt, etched into all those features hewed this way by his life.

“I’m not—” I start, but I hear my voice rising. I swallow, press my fingers into my rib cage and try again. Reaching out, I brush his hair off his forehead. He does have a fever—it burns against my fingertips. “I’m not too busy for this.”

My father nods, tired. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

And I do mean that. It’s not his fault, not really.

It’s yours.

He shifts against the pillows, trying to sit up or maybe get comfortable against an uncomfortable bed, an uncomfortable room. An uncomfortable relationship with his daughter.

I wish my sister was here. She’s better with him—she always has been.

We’ve never really known how to be around each other, and whatever chasm exists between us yawns wider and wider each year.

I think, maybe, one of us is standing on the bridge, watching, and the other is in the car, sinking.

I’m not always sure who’s who.

Today, though, I do know. It’s me stuck in the car, water rising around me and biting at my skin.

It reaches my mouth, it slides down my throat and my lungs aspirate on his next words.

He blinks at me from behind the mask. “It’s okay if you can’t stay.”

My eyes burn. I don’t know if it’s tears or water from that sinking car I wipe away from my cheeks, staring determinedly ahead at the wall. “Of course I can. Just get some rest. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

I stay, even though it hurts.

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