Chapter 9 - THE PHONE CALL FROM EMMA
I was forty-five when Emma called me from school.
Crying.
“Daddy?”
Everything stopped.
“What happened?”
“Mark's sick.”
My chest tightened.
“What?”
He had collapsed at work.
Cardiac arrhythmia.
Unexpected.
Rebecca was at the hospital.
Emma was terrified.
I left a meeting and drove to Vermont.
No questions.
No hesitation.
At the hospital, Emma ran to me.
That movie-scene hug finally came.
Years later than I once imagined.
I held her.
Rebecca sat across the waiting room, pale.
I went to her.
“How bad?”
“Doctors think treatable.”
Good.
Mark survived.
Needed surgery.
Recovery.
During those weeks I stayed nearby.
Cooked badly.
Drove Emma to school.
Helped Rebecca with insurance paperwork despite her telling me repeatedly she could manage.
One night Mark woke after surgery and saw me.
He smiled weakly.
“Thought you'd be enjoying this.”
“What?”
“Chance to become favorite dad.”
I stared.
Then realized he was joking.
Mostly.
I sat.
“Emma doesn't need one favorite.”
He closed his eyes.
“Good answer.”
“I've practiced.”
He nodded.
Then:
“She loves you.”
“I know.”
That sentence once would have sounded like victory.
Now it sounded like responsibility.
Mark recovered.
Months later Emma had a school essay assignment:
Who Is Your Family?
She showed it to me.
Rebecca.
Mark.
Me.
Rachel.
Lucy.
Grandparents.
No hierarchy.
At the bottom she wrote:
My family is the people who keep coming back.
I had to look away.
Rachel read it later.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good tears?”
“Horrible.”
She hugged me.
Then Lucy shouted from another room:
“Michael, we're out of cereal!”
May you like
Romance.
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