Chapter 7 - The Gathering in the ICU Waiting Room
By Tuesday evening, the intensive care unit waiting room looked like a family reunion staged in purgatory.
News of my father’s heart attack had rippled through the extended Voss family like wildfire. By Tuesday afternoon, Aunt Liora, Uncle Gary, my brother Keaton, and three cousins I hadn’t spoken to since childhood had converged on St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital, turning the sterile waiting area into an impromptu town hall meeting complete with styrofoam cups of terrible vending machine coffee and whispered family gossip.
I was standing near the vending machine, holding a bottle of lukewarm water, when Keaton ambled over, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his oversized hoodie.
“Hey,” Keaton muttered, staring down at the scuffed linoleum floor.
“Hey, Keaton,” I replied, taking a sip of the water.
“Mom told me what happened in the cath lab,” he said, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. “She said... she said if you hadn't recognized the symptoms right away and gotten him into trauma so fast, he wouldn't have made it off the street.”
“It’s my job, Keaton. I do it every day for strangers. Doing it for my father shouldn't come as a shock.”
Keaton rubbed the back of his neck, looking genuinely chastised for the first time in his twenty-four years of life. “Look... about the lake house this weekend. Everyone’s been talking. Aunt Liora thinks you were too harsh, obviously, but... well, even Dad admitted in the recovery room this morning that maybe we crossed a line.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Howard Voss admitted he crossed a line? Did he also buy a lottery ticket?”
Keaton let out a dry, reluctant chuckle. “Well, not in those exact words. But he said—and I quote—‘The girl’s got a spine of titanium, and maybe we shouldn't have broken into her house.’”
“It’s progress,” I conceded with a faint smile.
Before Keaton could respond, Aunt Liora swept down the hallway, trailing a cloud of heavy lavender perfume that threatened to trigger an asthma attack in anyone within a ten-foot radius.
“Arden!” Liora announced, capturing me in a brief, awkward hug that felt like being embraced by a heavily armored velvet cushion. “We were so terrified! Thank the good Lord above you were working today. Your father is resting, but he’s asking for you.”
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I looked down the long, sterile hallway toward Room 402, where my father was currently wired up to a telemetry monitor, his chest healing from the silent, violent reminder that life is finite and property deeds don't mean a damn thing when your heart stops beating.
“I’ll go in,” I said, stepping past them. “Give him five minutes.”
