The Rom-Commers

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I NEVER GOTthe chance to wake up—as I should’ve—just marinating in humiliation.

I never got the chance to open my eyes and feel horrified beyond description that I had drunkenly fallen off of Charlie Yates’s high dive, and then drunkenly forced him to rescue me, and then drunkenly tried to coerce him—a man who was clearly so not interested—into bed.

It was enough to keep my head churning shame like butter for years.

But there was no time to even begin.

Because before my alarm went off, I got a call from Sylvie.

Not one of her fun FaceTime calls. A real, old-fashioned, middle-of-the-night emergency call.

At three thirty A.M.

“Sylvie?” I said, as I fumbled with the phone in the dark.

“It’s Dad,” she said, and the panic in her voice told me everything. “He fell down the stairs.”

“Which stairs?”

“To our apartment.”

“The concrete stairs?”

“He’s in the ICU right now. He won’t wake up. It’s bad.”

“How bad?” I demanded.

“Emma. You need to come home.”

My mind ground like it was in first gear on the freeway. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll—I’ll change my ticket.”

“No,” Sylvie said. “There’s no time. Send me your flight info. Salvador’s mom works for Southwest.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, opening my laptop and looking for the confirmation email. I forwarded it, and then I said, “Done. Now what?”

“Now go to the airport,” Sylvie said. “Right now.”

I DIDN’T EVENshower—or change out of Charlie’s WRITERS DO IT ON THE PAGE sweatshirt. I brushed my teeth, raked my hair into its pom-pom, stuffed everything I owned into my suitcase and still-broken rolling carry-on, ordered an Uber, and left.

No time for a note, even.

Charlie was still asleep, of course.

As I climbed into the back of the Uber, Sylvie was calling me with an update. “We got the flight switched,” she said. “How fast can you get there?”

“How fast can we get to the airport?” I asked the driver.

“Hour and fifteen,” he said, “on a good day.”

“This flight’s at six,” Sylvie said.

“That’s not enough time,” I said.

“Just try,” Sylvie said. “There’s not another open seat until the red-eye.”

She did not say, And by then it might be too late.

Then, feeling semi-ridiculous, I said to the driver, “I’m so sorry, but do you happen to know any shortcuts for getting there faster?”

He kept his eyes on the road. “Not really.”

“I’m cutting it very close for my flight,” I said, like we might team up for a Formula One–style race against the clock.

“They know you’re coming,” Sylvie said. “Maybe they’ll hold the plane for you.”

“Airlines don’t hold planes for people, Sylvie,” I said. “They have regulations. And rules. And requirements. And other passengers!”

“But maybe,” Sylvie went on, unfazed by reality, “given the whole situation—”

“What is the whole situation? I have no idea what’s going on.”

Now that we had a minute, Sylvie took a deep breath. “He had a drop attack on the apartment stairs and took a very hard fall.”

“He knows not to take those stairs!” I said in protest.

“The elevator was out of service,” Sylvie said. “He must have thought, It’s only one flight. He must have thought, What are the odds? But it happened. He fell all the way to the landing. His face is all cut up and swollen, and he had to get stitches on his forehead, and he doesn’t even look like himself. I took a picture at the ER, but I can’t even bring myself to send it to you. If I could unsee it, I would.” Sylvie’s breath sounded ragged. “He lost consciousness when he hit the landing, and he hasn’t woken up. Mrs. Otsuka’s seven-year-old grandson called 911 right away, and they stayed with him the whole time.”

“The seven-year-old grandson called 911?”

“He’s very mature.”

I sent a silent thank-you to Mrs. Otsuka’s grandson.

Sylvie went on. “The scan of Dad’s brain showed a subdural hematoma, which is bleeding between the brain and the skull. But the skull doesn’t have any give. So when bleeds happen there, there’s nowhere for the blood to go. If the pressure builds up too much, it can cause brain damage or even death.”

“How bad is Dad’s bleed?”

“It’s…” Sylvie hesitated. “It’s not good. They showed us the CAT scan of his brain, and the blood is pushing his entire brain off-center. I mean, the doctor circled the pool of blood on the image with his pen and said, ‘This is the blood,’ and I was like, ‘Dude, even I can see that.’”

“So what do they do? How do they get it out of there?”

“Surgery,” Sylvie said, giving the short answer. “He’s in right now. Basically, as soon as they saw the scan, they rushed him to the OR. It’s called”—I heard paper flipping like she was checking her notes—“a ‘burr hole.’” Now she sounded like she was reading: “They drill a small hole in the skull to siphon out the blood.”

“He’s in emergency surgery right now?”

“There wasn’t time to wait.”

“Are you in the waiting room?”

“I stepped outside. Salvador says that thing about cell phones messing with hospital equipment is real.”

I had so many questions, I didn’t know where to start. The biggest, loudest question, of course, was Will Dad be okay?

But Sylvie didn’t have the answer to that question.

So I went with the next one that came to mind: “Why was it Mrs. Otsuka’s grandson?”

“What?” Sylvie asked.

“Why was Mrs. Otsuka’s grandson the one who called 911—not you or Salvador?”

A weird pause.

“Sylvie?”

Then a quiet answer. “Because we… weren’t home.”

“What!” I shouted—so loud the driver swerved. Then, quieter: “Where were you?”

“We were at the beach,” Sylvie said. “On a date.”

Worse and worse.

It’s pretty rare for me to be totally speechless. But I was.

When I finally found some words, all I could do was repeat: “You were at the beach? On a date?”

At that, Sylvie burst into tears—her voice thick and trembling. “Dad told us to go! He insisted we go! He practically forced us!”

“So you left his life in the hands of a seven-year-old?”

Sylvie couldn’t deny it.

I went on. “You can’t go to the beach when you’re Dad’s caregiver! You can’t go anywhere! Why do you think I haven’t had any fun in ten years? Do you think I just have a bad personality? That I don’t like fun? What part of all the medicines and the charts and the hemiplegia and the five books I handed you on Ménière’s disease gave you the idea that you could just take off for the beach? Would you like to know how many times I went to the beach in all these years? Zero! Zero times! You’ve been at it six weeks—and you decided to just take a vacation?”

“We weren’t taking a vacation,” Sylvie said. “We were getting engaged.”

I stopped.

Then I said, “Engaged? Like, to be married?”

“To be married,” Sylvie confirmed. “Salvador asked Dad’s permission last week, and then the two of them cooked up this whole scheme—and they were so excited about it. Totally in cahoots. And Dad was having so much fun and really bonding—not that they needed to bond. They’re already like BFFs. Dad’s teaching Salvador how to play the harmonica, and they’ve set up a dartboard in the living room—”

“That can’t be a good idea—”

“—and Salvador loves Dad, and he’s so good at looking after people—just such a nurturer—and so he’s got this whole dream for us that we’ll get married and build our lives around Dad, and family, and being the best caregivers ever, and so that’s what we were trying to do: just take another step forward into our lives together and making it all happen.”

“And then you went to the beach,” I said, in a tone that clearly sounded much more like And then you killed our dad.

Which—granted—was maybe a bit harsh.

Sylvie descended into sobs.

But I didn’t care.

For maybe the first time ever, I wasn’t on Sylvie’s side first.

I wanted to empathize with her, I really did.

Objectively, their little fantasy was lovely. Who wouldn’t get excited about building a little health-and-wellness-themed life with Salvador—kids running around and trips to the farmers market and cutting-edge therapies to help our dad live his best possible life?

In another frame of mind, I might have jumped on board, too.

But as it was—in traffic while rushing to the airport with our dad in emergency surgery, still wearing Charlie’s humiliating fleece-lined sweatshirt—I was having trouble accentuating the positive. All I could see in Sylvie and Salvador’s plan was selfishness. Selfishness and hubris. They wanted to go to the beach? How dare they?

Didn’t they know that if there was some way to make life with Dad charming and delightful I would have found it already?

“You left him,” I said, feeling a howl in my chest that I now recognize as ten years of unspoken resentment. “To go to the beach! And he fell down the stairs. And now he’s on the brink of death getting a hole drilled in his head. That’s all there is to it. Did you think what I’ve been doing all these years was easy? Did you think I just hadn’t been creative enough in my approach? Did you think I didn’t go to the beach because I didn’t want to?”

Sylvie didn’t answer.

“I love the damn beach!” I half shouted.

Sylvie was still crying, but I didn’t care.

“I would’ve given anything to go to the beach! But I didn’t! Because I knew that I—I alone—was the only thing standing between the only parent we’ve got left and this exact situation! You knew that, too. You couldn’t have not known. But I must’ve ruined you. I killed myself to give you everything you ever wanted and I guess I taught you that’s how life is. But I was lying the whole time. That’s the opposite of how life is. You don’t get everything you want! You get a few tiny, broken pieces of what you thought you wanted and you tell yourself over and over it’s more than enough!”

“I’m sorry,” Sylvie whispered.

But I was revved up now. “It’s so tempting to blame myself,” I went on. “That I set you up for failing me by never asking you to sacrifice anything or think about anyone else, ever, other than yourself. I’m so tempted to say That’s on me, like I always do. But you know what, Sylvie? This one is really on you. This wasn’t complicated. This wasn’t confusing. You were told what to do! Never let Dad out of your sight! Simple! Not easy, but simple! I did it day in and day out for ten years—and all I needed from you was six pathetic weeks. But I guess I can’t have them. You can give up your internship and act all self-sacrificing and do this grand gesture of telling me to go off and live my dreams—but if you can’t do the job right, then I can’t really do it, can I? If you leave Dad alone and he winds up in the ICU and I have to race home to Texas at the crack of dawn without even telling Charlie what happened and I wind up breaching our contract and not even getting paid—that’s the same thing as not letting me go at all!”

But as soon as I heard those words, I had to correct them. “No! Wait!” I went on, my voice starting to tremble. “It’s worse! Because you got my hopes up. And it’s so much more agonizing to hope for something and not get it than to never even hope at all.”

“I’m sorry,” Sylvie rasped out.

But I was so angry I didn’t care. “I don’t even know what to do right now,” I said. “But I know one thing for sure. If Dad dies? If your trip to the beach kills our father? You will never see me again—guaranteed.”

But I guess Sylvie had had enough of being called a murderer for now.

There was a funny half pause. And then Sylvie said, “If my trip to the beach kills our father,” Sylvie said, “we’ll be even. Because your trip to the mountains killed our mom.”

“OOF,” THE UBERdriver said as the line went dead. “That was harsh.”

Guess we’d been on speaker. And in the long, disconnected silence that followed, I wondered if I’d ever forgive her.

Even with family—people you’re presumably trapped with for life—there are deal-breakers. I’d loved Sylvie all her life unconditionally. But I guess there were some conditions I hadn’t thought of. Because I never could have even imagined her saying what she just said.

But she’d said it. She spoke my worst fear about my life out loud.

And now I wanted to punish her by never speaking to her again.

I let that stand as my tentative plan: We were done—forever.

But I also gave myself permission to recant. Because yes, cutting Sylvie off forever would punish her. But it would punish me, too.

I was mulling that over when the driver hit the brakes so hard that my phone flew off my lap and smacked the seat back in front of me—and then we came to a full stop on the highway. A full stop at the start of what looked like miles and miles of traffic ahead.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Looks like some traffic,” he said.

“I see that,” I said. “But what’s causing it?”

“Not sure,” he said.

“Don’t you have…” I started, but then I wasn’t sure what he might have. “A walkie-talkie or something?”

“A walkie-talkie?” he asked, giving me a look in the mirror.

“Or—some way to get the inside scoop?”

He shook his head as we both looked at all the red, glowing brake lights. “This is the only scoop I’ve got.”

“Is there—some way around it?”

The driver scratched his ear. “Probably not.”

“Can we drive on the shoulder or something?”

“That’s illegal,” he said, like Case closed.

“I have to get to the airport,” I said. “Urgently. My flight takes off in less than an hour.”

He sucked in a judgmental hiss. “That’s really cutting it close.”

“Yes,” I said, like I know. “I have an emergency. A medical emergency.”

Why was I explaining all this? He was just as powerless as I was.

“It’ll probably clear up soon,” the driver said then, like that might cheer me up.

But it didn’t.

We made it to the airport with twenty minutes until takeoff, and my flight was already boarding. I got my boarding pass, checked the suitcase, and took off running at a full sprint, dragging my squealing carry-on behind me, for the TSA line.

When I got there, the first line—to show your ID—wasn’t too bad. But the second line—to get scanned—was worse than the freeway traffic. An infinite number of miserable people and squirming children, coughing and staring into dead space in a purgatory-like queue that seemed to fold endlessly in on itself like an Escher drawing.

I’d never make it.

But what else was there to do? I got in line.

And then I took off my shoes. Like being five seconds ahead of the game might make the difference.

And then I waited in line to wait in the next line.

I craned my neck around the endless room for someone who looked official—someone human I could talk to. Someone who might—bless them—solve all, or even any, of my problems.

But in this giant, overflowing room of people, no one seemed human, somehow.

My hope was eclipsing.

I was going to miss this flight. And then not get home until late tonight. And by then—and I hated myself for even having this thought—it might be too late.

I was panting—hyperventilating, really. How long was a breath supposed to be? Five-point-five seconds? I couldn’t even make it to one.

My father might be dying—and that was the only thing that mattered.

But all around that one solitary horror was a cacophony of other losses: I was bruised where I’d hit the pool water, I was hungover, I was still wearing Charlie’s sweatshirt. I was alone in a feedlot of soulless travelers with a broken bag and no chance to make my flight. I’d broken my contract with Charlie, and given up all the money I’d worked so hard for, not to mention any chance I had of reaching my potential. My baby sister whom I’d sacrificed everything for had just said the meanest thing anyone had ever said to me, besides myself, and I was so incandescently angry that I couldn’t imagine ever feeling anything but anger again. And I was still cringing in shame at the memory of begging my writing hero and desperate crush to take me to bed… and receiving the hardest of hard passes.

That’s when the tears came.

Are tears supposed to make things better?

Because these definitely made things worse.

People started turning around to look at me. Children started pointing. A teenager lifted her phone and took a video. And no one offered to help.

Not that there was any help to offer.

This was the real world. This wasn’t some Richard Scarry picture book of police dogs riding motorcycles. Mister Rogers wasn’t going to step out from behind a kiosk with his zippered cardigan and help me out.

I already knew how this would end.

I’d miss my flight. No one would care. And all that perky, chirpy, optimism-themed nonsense I’d always clung to would come back to bite me in my contemptibly naive ass.

BY THE TIMEI made it to the ID check, my diaphragm was absolutely spasming with sobs. Still, I stepped up to the booth at my turn—still barefoot—and slid my ID through the window. A lady agent picked it up and peered at it. Then she peered at me. Then she grabbed her handheld radio, pressed a button, and said into the receiver, “TSA to command. Requesting the supervisor.”

Oh, no. No, no. I didn’t have time for a supervisor. Was my license expired? Had I broken some unknown rule? Was sobbing in the TSA line a security red flag?

“I’m sorry—” I started, but she held up a finger to quiet me.

Was I in trouble?

I didn’t have room for any more trouble today. I was over capacity as it was.

A stocky Black TSA officer with no-nonsense dad energy showed up, and the agent held out my ID for him to inspect.

“Emma Wheeler?” he asked, comparing me to the license photo. “Flight 2401 to Houston?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“I’m the supervisor. Please come with me.”

“Sir, I’m—I’m very late for my flight. They’re taking off any minute—”

But he was already walking away.

I had no choice but to follow, my bare feet slapping along the industrial floor and the squealing wheels of my carry-on bewailing our plight.

We rounded the mosh pit of travelers, and he took me to a room with an AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY sign.

This couldn’t be good.

I’d managed to snuff out my active bawling on the walk over, but now I wondered if I’d have to start up again. Had things just gone from bad to worse?

But once we stepped inside, I saw a bag scanner there, with a female agent standing at attention behind it. Once the supervisor closed the door behind me, he put my carry-on on the conveyor belt. Then he ushered me to stand on a spot marked with two footprints, requested I hold my arms out, and while he checked me with the wand, said, “We got a call from Southwest. The pilot’s holding your plane.”

Did I just hear that? “He’s—what?”

The supervisor did not choose to help me with my verbal double take. He went on, “But he can’t hold it long. No longer than time he can make up in-flight.”

I was still back at: “The pilot is holding the plane?”

“So once you’re clear,” he went on, “I’m going to need you to run to the gate.”

Run to the gate?My brain tried to catch up.

“Got it?” he asked, standing straight to meet my eyes. “When I say run, I mean ‘sprint.’”

I wasn’t sure. But I said, “Sprint. Got it.”

“It’s Gate 30, at the farthest end of the concourse,” he said. “So I hope you’re in shape.”

“I hope I am, too,” I said.

The female agent handed me my bag, and the supervisor opened a far door on the concourse side, and as I passed through it, I met his eyes and said, “Thank you, sir”—hoping he could see how very much I meant it.

“You’re welcome,” the supervisor said, with a voice so gruff it verged on tender. Then he said, “Now get moving.”

So I did. I clutched my shoes to my chest, clamped a death grip onto my banshee of a carry-on, and sprinted.

Barefoot.

Past the Brookstone and the Dunkin’ Donuts and the Starbucks. Past burger joints and taquerias, bookstores and duty free, fast food and hipster bars—dodging my way around strolling passengers and moms with toddlers and grandparents in wheelchairs. My legs pumping, the soles of my feet slapping, my breath tearing in and out of my lungs—and my screeching wheel turning every head I passed.

The first thing I saw as I approached the gate, gasping like a person who’d forgotten how breathing worked—was the digital sign with my flight number and the word DEPARTED.

I slowed.

Did I miss it?

Did I run this far this hard—and miss it?

But that’s when I saw a pilot—straight out of Central Casting, with a salt-and-pepper mustache, a crisp white shirt with epaulets, and a captain’s hat—round the gate kiosk and take an at-ease position to wait for me.

I picked my speed back up, and as I got closer, he said, “Emma Wheeler?”

There was nowhere near enough air in my lungs for talking, but I forced out, “That’s me.”

The captain nodded and said, “Let’s get you on board.”

“Thank you so much, sir. I thought for sure I was too late.”

He looked up at the DEPARTED sign, and then glanced out at the waiting plane on the runway. Then he passed my scourge of a carry-on bag to a waiting gate agent, gave me a nod, and said, “They weren’t taking off without me. And I wasn’t taking off without you.”