Chapter 24: The Aisle, Again

My father lay in a bed on the cardiac floor with a tube in his arm and a clip on his finger.

He was grey, and he looked smaller than the portrait in the hall.

The doctor said it was his heart, and that it had been warning him for months.

Martin had refused to hear it, because he did not take advice from anyone.

He would live.

He would wear a monitor and take pills, and give up the chair at the head of the table for a while.

Danielle sat on one side of his bed with her shoes off.

I sat on the other.

Rafe stood in the doorway with two coffees and did not come in until I looked at him.

My father opened his eyes at dawn.

He looked at Danielle first, and then at me, and he took a long time to speak.

"I used you both," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"I thought I was bringing my family together."

"You were moving us around like pieces."

"I know that now."

His voice was thin, and I did not feel sorry for him yet, and I let myself not feel it.

"I'm not forgiving you this week," I said. "Maybe not this year."

"I don't ask you to."

"You can sit in the front row. You can eat at the table.

"You can be my father in the ways you didn't try before."

He closed his eyes, and a tear ran down into his silver hair.

Danielle took his hand, and he let her.

Later we sat in the hospital cafeteria with bad tea, Danielle and I, in the corner by the window.

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