Page 8 of Fresh Canvas
My phone’s vibrating ringtone danced across the passenger’s seat. My mother’s twinkling blue eyes grinned up from the contact photo. I picked it up and accepted the call.
“Hey Mom, what’s up?”
Ambulance sirens and stammering panic filled the speakers.
“Amantha? Sweetie, can you hear me? Dad’s had a heart attack.”
Blood sped through my veins as I weaved through traffic. I prayed to any deity that existed that I’d make it there in time. That Dad would make it.
A heart attack. Dad had been shoveling the latest heavy snowfall from his driveway three hours away from me. Through the living room window, Mom had seen him collapse, clutching his chest.
Tall, strong Dad… collapsed? I couldn’t picture it.
Wouldn’t picture it. He’d be fine.
Tough as nails.
“Dad’s stable at the moment, but he needs surgery. The paramedics took him to Silver Birch Hospital. The operating team is getting ready for him, and they say he’ll be in surgery for about four hours. Hurry, won’t you?”
You can’t leave me, Dad.
I willed the universe to deliver the message as I frantically searched for the freeway exit ramp.
Especially now, without Ryan. Anthony needs you. I’m your Squeaks. I’ll always need you.
As the hospital came into view, a wave of relief warred with a sense of foreboding. I dashed to the emergency room entrance, hanging up a call with Anthony’s school. He’d go to the neighbor’s house after school until I could get home.
“My dad came here for a heart attack and was taken to surgery,” I wheezed at the receptionist.
“What’s your father’s name?”
“Frank Adams. I’m his daughter, Amantha.”
“Okay, Samantha, he’s in surgery on the sixth floor. Take a right off the elevator.”
I was off and running.
Stay with me, Dad. I need you. Mom needs you.
The scent of an astringent cleanser burned my nose as the elevator doors revealed a waiting room. The faded waiting room chairs looked as though life itself were leached out of them.
Mom’s short, soft figure stood beside two towering doctors, one still wearing a surgical mask. She wore no make-up, and her cropped blonde waves were in disarray. Her small, wrinkled fingers spun her wedding ring the way she always did when she was nervous. The other hand held something clutched to her cable knit sweater.
I stepped out of the elevator as a nurse crossed my path with a man in a wheelchair. The cowlick in the back of his light brown hair sent a stutter through my hopeful heart. But the nurse pushing the stranger continued around the corner and was gone. I refocused on Mom, but something had changed in her expression. A tightening of her mouth. Large, horrified eyes.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Mom shook her head in disbelief. She took two steps away from the doctors as both of them seemed to reach instinctively toward her. Her wild blue eyes found mine, and I saw the truth deep within them. Whatever had been clutched to her chest fluttered out of her grasp.
A glimpse of gold and purple bounced once before settling onto the disinfected linoleum. Mom’s knees slumped to the floor beside it.
Dad’s Vikings ball cap.
And then, Mom was wailing.
three
ONE YEAR LATER
AMANTHA
