Page 72 of Shame

I sit up and call her back right away. It was only about five minutes ago she called, and if she’s calling me at this hour, something is wrong. Even if she has a morning shift, she doesn’t wake up until five. And even then, she wouldn’t call me.

The phone rings once, twice, and she answers on the start of the third.

“Kaison,” she says, and just the way she says my name, I know something is wrong.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? What happened?”

“I need you,” she says. “Please.”

I’ve already got my jeans on and tearing a shirt from the drawer. “Tell me where you are.”

“I’m-I’m at the hospital.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No, not really. I’m fine. It’s just… can you hurry, please?”

“I’m on my way,” I tell her, stepping into my boots and racing out the door, grabbing my keys from the hook on the way out.

I end the call to race to the hospital, making it there in record time. I burst through the emergency doors.

“Davies,” I blurt out at the nurses’ station. “Where are they?”

The nurse behind the desk must realize I mean business because she doesn’t ask me anything further, just clicks something on her tablet and says, “Room twenty-seven.”

I look up, noting the numbers above the emergency room bays. Ten is behind me, and I head in the direction of them getting bigger. We don’t have a hospital in town, so we go to the one just on the outskirts.

I yank the curtain back, a sigh of relief leaving my lungs when I see Cora sitting in the chair. It doesn’t last long when I see her father in the bed, his right arm and parts of his face covered in white bandages. Cora gets to her feet the second she sees me, the blanket she had around her falling to the floor. She falls intomy arms and sobs. She smells like smoke, and it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to put the pieces together.

All I can do is hold her. It’s what she needs, and what I need too because damn, my girl is hurting and all I want to do is make her better.

We stand there for a long time, not saying a word, me just holding her and her crying. Eventually she quiets down, and I help her into the chair, covering her with the blanket. I walk out of the room, glance into the one beside hers and note it’s empty, so I go in and grab the spare chair and bring it back into the room, and not without getting dirty looks. But I don’t give a fuck about that. Let them say something to me. I sit in front of Cora, taking her hands.

“Tell me what happened,” I say.

She blinks a few times, then sniffles and grabs a few tissues from the box that’s beside her on the end table. She wipes her eyes and blows her nose. I take her hands, brushing kisses along her knuckles. Don’t care if that’s gross or not. She’s my girl.

“I’m not really sure,” she says softly. “I woke up, and the fire was already out of control. I don’t even know if the house is still there. EMTs got there first. Firetrucks got there as they were loading Dad into the back, and I didn’t stay to watch.”

I nod, not knowing what to say. I don’t want to say it’s just a house because yeah, it is just a house, but it still sucks. All her stuff was in there. I don’t want to give some cheesy line about being lucky that she’s alive, because there’s no way she’s thinking about that right now.

“Have you been checked out?”

She nods. “They gave me some oxygen, said my throat might be irritated for a few days, but I’m fine.”

“And your Dad?”

More tears fall from her eyes, and I swipe them away with my thumbs, scooting closer.

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “He’s okay. He’ll live, but…”

“But what, sweetheart? Tell me.”

She sucks in a sharp breath. “I just keep thinking about what he said to me today. Or yesterday, I guess. We had such a good day together, and he told me I shouldn’t be wasting my life taking care of him. I told him he was crazy to say that because he’s my dad and I love him. But then he made me promise that I would put him in a home if it got too much, and I think… I think it’s too much.” Another sob leaves her, and she buries her face in her hands, shoulders shaking as she cries hard. I drop to my knees in front of her, pulling her to me.

“Shh, I got you. It’s okay. I’m here.”

When she stops, she reaches for the cup of water on the table and takes a small sip.

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