Chapter 41
Chapter Forty One
Erica
The front door clicks shut behind me, and the sound feels too loud.
The living room lights are low. The hospital bed sits in the middle of the room, part of the furniture now—white rails, a tangle of tubing, the quiet hum of the oxygen concentrator. Dad is a shape under a blanket, breathing slowly but steadily.
The in-home nurse is standing by the foot of the bed with her bag zipped and her coat already on.
“Kendra?” I ask, and my voice comes out hushed automatically, like we’re in a church.
She turns.
Kendra Mills is in her forties, hair pulled back tight in a low ponytail, scrubs under a winter jacket, practical shoes. She has the kind of calm face that makes you want to hand her your panic and let her hold it.
“Hey,” she says softly. “He’s sleeping.”
Relief hits so fast it makes my eyes sting.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay. How was he?”
Kendra’s expression shifts—not alarm, not casual. But something that puts me on alert.
“He ran a bit of a fever earlier,” she says.
My stomach drops anyway.
“A fever?” I repeat, and I hate how small my voice sounds.
Kendra nods once, already reaching for her clipboard, even though she likely has it all memorized.
“It was low-grade,” she says. “I took it twice to be sure. I called the doctor’s service and spoke to the on-call. They said if it went any higher, you bring him in.”
My throat goes dry.
“But it levelled out,” she adds quickly. “It’s down now. He’s been stable for the last hour.”
I exhale hard through my nose, almost dizzy with the release.
“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it so much it hurts. “Thank you for calling.”
“Of course,” she says. “I’d rather overreact than miss something.”
I nod, swallowing around the tightness in my throat.
“Did he eat anything?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
Kendra’s mouth presses into a thin line of sympathy.
“A few sips,” she says. “He wasn’t interested in much more.”
I look at Dad, at the thin line of his cheekbone under the dim light, and my chest pulls tight.
“He was shivering earlier,” Kendra continues, keeping her voice low. “And then he got sweaty. That’s why I checked his temperature again. Just keep an eye on his breathing and his color. If he seems confused when he wakes, if he’s struggling to catch his breath, if his fever spikes— Call.”
“Okay,” I whisper.
Kendra steps closer to me and lowers her voice further.
“I wrote the number down for the on-call service,” she says. “It’s on the counter by the meds schedule. But if it jumps, you take him to the ER. Don’t wait for the on-call doctor to tell you that.”
“I will,” I promise.
Her gaze holds mine for a beat.
“You’ve been doing a really good job,” she says.
That almost cracks me open right there. I press my lips together and nod, because if I speak, I’ll start crying again, and I’m so tired of crying.
Kendra picks up her bag.
“I’m going to head out,” she says. “Call if you need anything.”
“I will,” I say, and my voice wobbles anyway. “Drive safe.”
She gives me a small smile and slips out, leaving the house even quieter. The silence rushes in behind her like cold air.
I stand there for a second with my hands clenched at my sides, staring at Dad. Then I walk to the bed and stop at the rail.
His eyes are closed. His mouth is slightly open. The blanket is pulled up to his chest, and his hand rests on top of it.
I don’t touch him. I just look.
Because I still have this stupid, irrational fear that if I touch him, I’ll realize something is wrong that I didn’t see from a distance. Like my hand will find the edge of the cliff I’ve been trying not to look over.
His chest rises.
Falls.
Rises again.
I let my fingers settle over his hand anyway, light.
“Hey,” I whisper, because I can’t not say it. “I’m back.”
He doesn’t move. I don’t expect him to.
But I keep my hand there, my thumb rubbing once across his knuckles, because that’s what I do when I’m trying not to come apart.
“Kendra said you had a fever earlier,” I tell him quietly. “But it came down. So… don’t scare me like that again, okay?”
My throat tightens on the last word.
I swallow hard and look around the room—the bed in the middle of the house, the pill organizer, the printed schedule, the stack of clean towels folded on the chair, the trash bag tucked beside the bed like we’re trying to pretend this is all normal.
Normal.
I’m so tired of that word.
I pull my hand back and straighten, rolling my shoulders once like it might shake off the tension.
I don’t want to go upstairs.
It feels wrong to be farther away from him, even for a few hours.
So I decide, right then, that I’m sleeping on the couch.
It isn’t comfortable.
I don’t care.
I grab the blanket off the back of the sofa and fold it over my arm, then pause.
I still need to get ready for bed. Brush my teeth. Wash my face. Change.
I stare at Dad again, reluctant to leave him.
“Okay,” I whisper. “I’ll be right back. I’m not going far.”
I head upstairs quickly.
The bathroom light is harsh after the dim living room. I move through the motions on autopilot—brush, rinse, wash my face.
I change into what I sleep in without thinking about it. Habit. Muscle memory. Tank top. Shorts. Bare feet on a cold floor.
My eyes catch my reflection in the mirror, and I don’t look too long.
I don’t want to see the version of myself that’s one bad moment away from breaking again.
I turn the light off and move back down the hall, then down the stairs.
When I step back into the living room, my eyes go straight to the bed.
Dad is still there.
But something is different.
It takes my brain a second to register it, like my mind is trying to protect me by delaying the truth.
His shoulders shift under the blanket. A small tremor.
He’s shivering. But his forehead shines faintly in the low light, damp. Sweat.
My heart drops so hard it feels like it hits the floor.
“Dad?” I whisper, already moving.
His breathing is short.
Not steady and slow like it was five minutes ago.
Short. Shallow. Like each breath is work.
“No,” I say, and the word comes out sharp, panicked.
I’m at the bedside in two steps, hand hovering over him because I don’t know what to do first—check the tubing, check his skin, check his temperature, check his eyes.
His face looks flushed. His mouth opens on a breath that sounds wrong.
I jerk back like I’ve been burned, because fear makes me stupid. Kendra’s words slam into my head.
If it goes higher. If his breathing changes. Don’t wait.
My hands shake as I spin toward the couch where I tossed my phone when I came in.
I grab it so hard it nearly slips out of my fingers.
I don’t even look at the number.
I just hit the buttons and bring it to my ear, my whole body cold and hot at the same time.
“911,” I breathe, voice breaking.
The ER waiting room is too bright and too cold, like they designed it to make you feel uncomfortable and awkward on purpose.
The chairs are the same vinyl you find in every other hospital, arranged in neat little rows.
The TV on the wall is on some channel with laughing people, and the sound is muted, so it’s just faces moving and mouths opening and closing with no audio.
A woman a few seats down rocks a stroller.
A man in work boots stares at the floor like he’s trying to drill a hole through it.
I sit with my phone in my hand, screen lit, as if I stare hard enough, it’ll make time move faster.
Nico is on his way.
He’s coming.
I called him the second we got to the hospital. My voice shook so badly I barely got the words out. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t tell me to calm down. He just said, “Where are you?” and then, “I’m coming.”
It should help.
It doesn’t.
I want him here now.
I want him sitting beside me with his knee pressed to mine and his arm around me. I want him between me and every worst-case scenario my brain keeps throwing at me like knives.
My dad is behind a set of doors I can’t see through.
Again.
I keep replaying the last twenty minutes in my head like I can find the moment where I could’ve stopped it. The shivering. The sweating. The short breaths. The way my stomach dropped as soon as I saw him, because my body knew before my brain figured it out.
I called 911.
I did the right thing.
And it still feels like I’m failing.
My leg bounces. I force it still. Two seconds later, it’s bouncing again.
I hug my arms to myself, thankful for the sweater. Thankful for the EMT who told me if I wanted to get dressed, I had one minute while they were loading my dad up.
At least I’m not in short-shorts and a barely-there tank top.
I check my phone. No new text yet. No “I’m here.” No “Walking in.” I stare at the little delivered checkmark from the last message I sent.
Please hurry.
I hate that I need him like this. I hate that the need feels like panic and not a choice. I hate that there’s a part of me that wants to curl into his chest and let him take over everything because I’m too tired to keep holding it all up.
A set of double doors opens down the hall, and I look up so fast my neck hurts.
Not a nurse.
Not my dad.
A doctor in a white coat steps out, scanning the room.
My heart kicks hard.
And then I recognize him.
The same urologist who did my dad’s surgery.
Dr. Shah.
He spots me immediately.
“Ms. Crawford?” he says.
My mouth is dry, so I swallow once before I answer. “Dr. Shah.”
He walks over and stops in front of me. His expression is calm in a way I want to punch.
“Can we talk?” he asks.
I stand so quickly my chair squeaks.
“Yes,” I say. “What’s happening? Where is he?”
“He’s back there,” Dr. Shah says, keeping his voice low. “They’re evaluating him right now. I wanted to explain what we’re seeing.”
My hands go cold.
“Why? Who’s back there with him? Shouldn’t you be?”
“The ER has an attending, and they automatically take the lead on anyone who comes through the doors. I was brought in for consultation.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “So, what’s going on?”
He takes a breath.
“It looks like your father may have a delayed hemorrhage,” he says.
The words don’t make immediate sense. Hemorrhage. Bleeding. It takes my brain a second to connect them.
“He’s bleeding?” I ask, voice too sharp. “How?”
“It looks like delayed bleeding from his nephrectomy,” he says, switching to simpler language immediately. “One of the blood vessels near the surgical site may have been leaking slowly over time.”
I stare at him.
My chest tightens so hard it hurts.
“What do you mean?” I demand. “You told me everything went well. You told me you got it. You told me there were no major complications.”
His face doesn’t change much, but his tone shifts slightly, is firmer.
“Yes,” he says. “At the time.”
“At the time,” I repeat, because it sounds insane.
He nods once.
“It’s possible a vessel wasn’t showing obvious bleeding during the procedure,” he says. “Or it was sealed enough in the moment and then later started to ooze. Sometimes that happens. The body moves. Blood pressure changes. Tissue swells. Things can shift.”
My throat closes.
“So he’s been bleeding,” I say, and it comes out as a flat statement because I can’t handle anything else. “Since the surgery? For weeks?”
“Possibly,” he says. “We’re confirming.”
“Confirming how?” I ask. “With what?”
“They’re doing bloodwork to check his levels,” he says. “They’re also imaging to look for fluid where it shouldn’t be.”
My stomach turns.
“And the fever?” I ask. “He had a fever earlier. The nurse said—”
Dr. Shah’s gaze holds mine.
“They’re also running tests to see if he’s developing sepsis,” he says.
The word hits like a punch.
My ears ring.
“Sepsis,” I repeat, barely hearing myself.
I’ve heard of it, and even if I don’t know exactly what it is, I know it’s bad.
He nods once.
“Infection in the bloodstream,” he says. “It can happen if there’s bleeding or a collection that becomes infected, or if the body is under too much strain.”
“What happens if he has that?” I ask, and my voice is shaking now. “What happens if he’s in sepsis?”
His face stays calm.
“If he’s septic,” he says carefully, “his risk goes up. His chances of surviving drop.”
My vision blurs.
I blink hard, but it doesn’t clear the pressure in my eyes.
“No,” I whisper, because that’s all I have.
Dr. Shah keeps talking.
“But we’re not assuming that yet,” he says. “We’re checking. And if we see it, they’ll treat it aggressively. Antibiotics. Fluids. The ICU team will do what they need to do.”
My hands are trembling. I press my fingers together until my nails hurt, trying to anchor myself.
“But—” I swallow. “But how did this happen? Aren’t there tests? Aren’t there things you do to make sure this isn’t happening? The bleed. After the surgery.”
He nods.
“Yes,” he says. “It’s rare that this happens, but when we do a radical nephrectomy to treat renal cell carcinoma, a follow-up CT scan is often done about a week or two afterward. It can show if there’s a collection or bleeding. It’s a common safety check.”
My heart starts pounding again, confused now.
“He had one of those. A radical nephrectomy for renal cell carcinoma,” I say. “He had his whole kidney removed because you found cancer cells, so why wasn’t there—"
He cuts in, and his eyes flick down at his tablet.
“Your father never came in for his,” he says.
I stare at him.
“What do you mean he never came in?” I ask, incredulous, like this might be one big, horrible prank.
He looks back up.
“It says in his file that no appointment was scheduled,” he says. “No one called to set it up.”
My stomach drops.
“No one told me I needed to set up an appointment,” I say, and my voice is too steady for how furious I suddenly feel. “No one said anything about a follow-up CT scan.”
Dr. Shah’s expression tightens just slightly, like he’s trying not to sound defensive.
“It was part of the discharge paperwork,” he says. “It’s standard. It should have been there.”
“No,” I say, and I can hear the edge in it now. “It wasn’t.”
He holds my gaze.
“I can assure you,” he says, calm and definite, “it was included.”
And something in me snaps into irritation so sharp it almost feels deadly.