Chương 9
He pressed his palm flat against the center of his chest.
“Pressure or pain?”
“Pressure.”
“Does it move anywhere?”
“No.”
“Shortness of breath?”
“A little.”
His answers came clipped and irritated, which reassured me only slightly.
Franklin was already calling 911.
Tyler stood frozen beside Robert, both hands hovering uselessly in the air.
“Grandpa, look at me.”
“I can see you.”
“Are you dizzy?”
“Stop interrogating me.”
The color had not returned to his face.
Graham appeared in the doorway with Carla behind him.
One look at Robert erased every joke from his expression.
“Ambulance is coming?”
Franklin nodded.
Graham moved a trash can out of the way as if that tiny practical action was the only thing available to him.
Carla knelt beside Robert.
“My husband had a heart attack last year.”
Robert looked at her.
“That is not encouraging.”
“He’s fine now.”
“Lead with that.”
She smiled despite herself.
The first responders arrived within minutes, though the wait felt long enough for me to memorize every stain in the conference-room carpet.
They put leads on Robert’s chest, checked his blood pressure, asked about his surgery, medications, symptoms, discharge instructions, and whether he had taken his afternoon doses.
Robert answered until one paramedic asked what had happened immediately before the pressure started.
“My children robbed me.”
The paramedic paused.
I closed my eyes.
“Family stress,” Franklin translated.
“I said what I said,” Robert muttered.
They recommended transport.
Robert argued.
Nobody was surprised.
“I was discharged two hours ago.”
“And now you’re having chest pressure two hours after discharge,” the paramedic said.
“That’s why we get to be unpopular.”
“I hate hospitals.”
“Most of our customers do.”
Robert looked at me as though expecting support.
“You’re going.”
“You have become extremely authoritarian.”
“Apparently I learned from the family.”
He did not enjoy that.
He went anyway.
They took him to an emergency department in Overland Park rather than back across the city to St. Joseph.
I followed in my SUV with Tyler.
Franklin stayed behind long enough to collect the documents and promised to meet us after sending the remaining notices.
Tyler sat hunched in the passenger seat, Robert’s phone in one hand and his own in the other.
Neither stopped vibrating.
“Turn them off,” I said.
“What if something happens?”
“Something already happened.”
He looked at me.
I regretted the sharpness immediately.
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re right.”
He powered down Robert’s phone.
He stared at his own screen for another second before shutting that one off too.
Traffic slowed near an interchange.
An ambulance disappeared ahead of us between cars, its lights still flashing.
Tyler watched until it was gone.
“He’s going to hate me.”
“Your grandfather?”
“My dad.”
I kept my eyes forward.
“Possibly.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t either.”
He picked at the seam of his jeans.
“When I was a kid, Dad used to take me to every job site.”
“Even when he probably shouldn’t have.”
“He’d give me a hard hat three sizes too big and tell everybody I was quality control.”
A small smile appeared.
“Guys would deliberately ask me if walls looked straight.”
“What did you say?”
“Usually no.”
“That probably improved construction standards.”
The smile disappeared.
“He wasn’t always like this.”
I glanced at him.
“People usually aren’t always anything.”
“He paid for my baseball.”
“He sat through every terrible game.”
“He drove six hours once because I left my wallet at college.”
“That can all be true.”
Tyler looked down.
“And this can be true too.”
“Yes.”
He nodded once, but there was no relief in it.
At the hospital, Robert was taken through triage quickly because of his recent surgery.
We were sent to a waiting area where a television played a home renovation show with the sound turned off.
The irony felt excessive.
Tyler bought crackers from a vending machine and ate one before deciding he was not hungry.
I finally answered Emily.
“Is he okay?”
“They’re evaluating him.”
“Evaluating what?”
“Chest pressure.”
“Oh my God.”
“He was conscious and talking when they took him back.”
“Was he having a heart attack?”
“We don’t know.”
“What happened?”
I told her.
She became quiet when I reached Daniel’s admission.
“Two hundred fifty thousand?”
“That’s what he said.”
“And Dad’s house is collateral?”
“Apparently.”
“Apparently?”
“Emily, I’m repeating what we know.”
She took a shaky breath.
“I’m at the airport.”
“Good.”
“My flight was delayed forty minutes.”
“Of course it was.”
“Where’s Melissa?”
“I don’t know.”
“She keeps calling me.”
“Have you answered?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m afraid of what she’ll say.”
That was the most honest thing anyone in her family had said all day.
“Answer when you’re ready.”
“Do you think she knew everything?”
“I don’t know.”
“Her name is on the company.”
“I know.”
“She formed it.”
“I know.”
“Then how could she not know?”
“You’re asking me to decide before we hear her.”
Emily was silent.
Then she said, “You always do that.”
“Do what?”
“Leave a door open for everybody.”
I leaned against the hospital wall.
“That sounded like criticism.”
“It’s not.”
“It is sometimes infuriating.”
“That sounds more accurate.”
She let out a tired breath.
“When I get there, don’t let me call Daniel immediately.”
“I’m not confiscating your phone.”
“You may need to.”
“That is a marriage decision I’m unwilling to make in an emergency department.”
She almost laughed.
Then her voice broke.
“Michael, what if Dad dies?”
“He’s in the right place.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
I looked through the narrow window in the emergency-room doors.
“He was yelling at everyone fifteen minutes ago.”
“Good.”
“That’s usually a healthy sign with Robert.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I know that too.”
We ended the call.
May you like
A nurse came out twenty minutes later and said Robert was stable.
His initial testing had not shown an obvious acute event, but given his recent surgery and symptoms, the physician wanted additional blood work, monitoring, and consultation with cardiology.
