Chapter Twenty-Six
The call doesn’t come super late at night or super early in the morning, either.
It does not wake me out of sleep. Instead, it’s eleven on a Wednesday morning, six weeks into my New York trip.
Leo and I are planning on staying even longer—the director wants Leo’s help with postproduction and editing here, when they’re done shooting.
They’ll be cutting the show in New York, taking advantage of a brand-new tax break, and I’m going to stay with him.
“Christmas in Brooklyn,” Leo said to me this weekend. Sunday, drinking lattes at East One Coffee Roasters, the place we’re now regulars, and sharing avocado toast and chorizo hash. A walk down Flatbush to pick up bagels. Takeout from SHAN on Smith Street.
“Sounds perfect,” I said.
The longer we spend in New York the better it feels. To start something new, away from the beach. To begin again. Holiday windows, hot chocolate, and ice-skating in Central Park. I feel New York like a romance novel. I just keep turning the pages.
We have even started talking about maybe moving here, maybe giving up West Hollywood entirely and renting something—temporary, to start. Work is paying for Leo through the New Year, and after that, if the show gets picked up for a second season… it might all make sense.
I pick up on the third ring. I don’t think anything of it. It’s 8:00 a.m. in Los Angeles. It’s a Wednesday. It’s a perfectly reasonable time to call your only daughter for no reason at all.
“Mom,” I say. “Hey, what’s up?”
I’m already thinking that I’ll stop by Sweetgreen for lunch, and pick up some stuff for dinner at Union Market—maybe a few pieces of salmon to grill and some of their marinated cauliflower.
It’s overpriced, but worth it. On the nights Leo has late shoots I’ve been taking myself to a wine bar around the corner and posting up at a table with my laptop, but tonight I’m craving some time inside.
A good book, maybe a Housewives season, and a fresh summer salad to go along with it.
“Where are you?” she asks me, and I know immediately that something is wrong.
“What happened?”
“It’s Dad,” she says. “He’s in the hospital.”
Immediately I think accident, but I can tell from her tone that’s not it. She doesn’t have the harried voice of someone pacing outside the ER, waiting for a blood transfusion to work, in triage. Rather, she sounds like someone who is staving off a very heavy reality from setting in.
“Why?” I ask.
I hear her inhale. “I’d rather you come home,” she says.
I imagine all the steps I need to take to get back there. Calling the airlines, packing, Uber, flight. I’m at least fifteen hours away from an answer.
“I need to know what’s going on,” I say. “Mom, tell me. What’s happening with Dad?”
“It’s his heart,” she says, and her voice cracks.
I feel panic mixed with anger. The hot-blooded annoyance at my mom, her hand-wringing, her singular focus on my father’s health, life, person. Of course it’s his heart. It’s always been his heart.
“What about it?”
“He had an episode,” she says.
“What kind of episode? A heart attack? Mom, use your words.”
“A heart attack.”
“Who said that? The doctors? Did they confirm that? Let me talk to him.”
“Lauren!” She screams it through the phone.
I go silent. I hear her breathing on the other end of the line.
“Honey,” she says. She so rarely calls me that. I can’t even remember the last time. “I think you need to come home now.”
I call Leo and it goes straight to voicemail. I go online and book a flight for this afternoon; I’ll be home in time for dinner in LA. Cedars is forty-five minutes from LAX. I start throwing things into a carry-on—toothbrush, T-shirt, a pack of hair ties.
I text my mom my flight information. She likes it. Thumbs-up.
I need to go back to LA. Dad is in the hospital. I don’t know details. I’ll call you when I land. I love you.
The plane ride seems both short and endless. Two hours becomes six, but then we are landing in Los Angeles. My cell phone bars come and go, come and go, as we make our descent.
There are no new messages from Mom, and then—
Text me when you land.
I do immediately—resentful, still, of her tone. Of her withholding. Just fucking tell me. And, yikes: Why is everything such a big fucking deal?
We’re on the cardio floor. Ask for Dr. Berk, comes the reply.
I text Leo: Landed. Call when you can.
I’m walking out to meet the Uber when my phone rings. It’s him. “Babe, tell me. What’s going on?”
“I landed. Going straight to the hospital.”
“Did you talk to them? I called; she didn’t answer.”
“No, not yet. She keeps being very cagey. You know my mom.”
Leo makes a noncommittal noise.
“She’s scared,” he says.
His words hit me. He’s defending her. Or, no, he’s trying to prepare me.
“Yeah, well.”
“You’ll call me from the hospital?”
“Of course.”
Leo is quiet for a moment. “Hang in there. I’ll be out as soon as I can.”
He hangs up before I can protest, before I can tell him that there’s no need. This is just a speed bump. Dad will be fine. I’ll come back to New York; we’ll pick up this summer of freedom right where we left it off.
My Uber and I manage to choose each other correctly, and then we are speeding out of Terminal 7 in search of the freeway.
My phone rings again. I think it’s Leo, calling to tell me he’s going to get the next flight, or my mom saying she’s overreacted, the doctor just came in and actually everything is looking just fine. …
But it’s none of those things, of course it isn’t.
Stone is calling.
I hold the phone in my fingertips. I can feel my hands start to shake.
The staccato beats of my ringtone formulate another verse.
I curl my lip over my teeth and answer.