Chapter 14: Not Medicine

"Which hospital?" I asked.

My mother told me. Then she said, "Tonight. Before he sleeps."

"Tomorrow morning," I said. "After the breakfast shift."

"Noelle, your father..."

"Tomorrow, Mom."

I hung up before she could make it an order.

Arlo was still standing by the counter. He'd heard every word.

"I'll drive you," he said.

"No."

"It's across the city. The bus takes two hours."

"I know. I want to go by myself."

He didn't argue. He took his truck keys off the hook and put them in my hand.

"Then take the truck. The brakes pull left."

"Everything you own pulls left."

"That's why I need you."

I went upstairs and didn't sleep.

At ten the next morning, I parked Arlo's truck in the hospital lot between two black town cars.

It was the hospital on the hill, three streets from the house I grew up in.

The cancer floor was on the ninth. It smelled like hand sanitizer and lilies.

My mother was in the hall outside his room in yesterday's pearls.

She looked at my jeans. Then at the flour on my sneakers.

She didn't hug me. She'd never been a hugger.

"He's awake," she said. "Don't upset him."

"I'll try not to exist too loudly."

Her mouth tightened. But she opened the door for me.

My father was sitting up in a white bed with a tube in his arm.

He'd lost weight in two weeks. His cheeks had gone yellow-gray, and his hands looked too big for his wrists.

For a second, I couldn't move.

This was the man who'd stood at a podium and told a hundred cameras I wasn't his.

He was also the man who'd taught me to ride a bike on the long drive, running behind me in his work shoes.

"Noelle," he said.

His voice was weaker, but still big. It still filled the room.

"Hi, Dad."

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