Chapter Thirty-Nine
Gabe
Dad’s hospital room was cramped. His bed filled most of the space, the head currently raised so he could sit and eat comfortably from the tray the nurse had situated over his lap.
The same nurse had brought in an extra chair so Evan and I both had a place to sit, which we’d squeezed along the wall in front of the narrow window to make sure the staff still had room to do what they needed to do.
Right now, it was just Dad and me, which meant I could stretch my legs in front of me as I sat.
Dad seemed okay, considering. His skin had more color than yesterday, his appetite was strong, and he was on a first-name basis with every nurse on the floor.
He’d said he felt a little sore but otherwise fine.
So far, the doctor liked what he saw from his post-op tests and felt good about releasing him tomorrow.
A tomorrow that sped at me like a bull.
I still hadn’t decided about the job.
Usually, one gut check and my decisions were made, but at some point in the past few days, my gut had been turned into a speed bag, and it was too busy jerking all over the place to be of any use.
My nerves were equally out of control, and not like my prefight jitters that were more anticipation and adrenaline—a steady build that hyped my mind and body for the match. This was me ready to jump out of my skin.
Not thinking about it hadn’t worked either. Not when Dad told every hospital staff member who walked into his room that I was going to be an Olympic coach.
It felt like his way of telling me I should go. The same way Aubrey had told me to go. And Evan.
The decision seemed straightforward to everyone else, so why couldn’t I make it?
“I think the food got better here in the past few years,” Dad said, scraping the last traces of his mashed potatoes onto his fork. “Your mother could hardly eat it, it was so bland. But that was delicious.”
Mom had hardly eaten because her stomach pain had been unbearable whenever she did.
There were pictures of her in the months leading up to her diagnosis that showed how thin she had become.
I’d been spared the worst of it by being away.
Mom had insisted on exclusively phone calls once she was in the hospital.
No video calls. No mention of her pain. She only wanted to talk about me.
The little I knew had come from Evan, who filled me in after Mom got too tired and needed to pass the phone off to rest.
If it was less painful for Dad to remember her not eating because of the lousy food, I couldn’t blame him for it. I certainly wouldn’t correct him.
“We’ll have to start cooking more at home again,” I said. “All that takeout isn’t good for your heart.”
He grunted. “I’m sure Evan’s already worked out a ketogenic, hypno-vegetarian, paleontolic something.”
“You mean paleo? What’s hypno-vegetarian?”
He waved a hand and pushed his empty tray aside. “You know what I mean.”
I chuckled. “Healthy? Yeah, Evan’s probably going to have a few meals in mind. I’m sure he’ll let you throw in a chunk or two of butter if you decide to help.”
He glanced at the framed picture of Mom propped beside his bed. “She was the reason I learned to cook in the first place. I ever tell you that?”
I shook my head.
“On our first date, she said she’d never marry a man who didn’t cook because she once managed to burn salad and wasn’t looking to starve for the rest of her life.
The next day, I bought a copy of the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook and started practicing.
For our second date, I cooked her dinner at my apartment, complete with an appetizer and dessert.
She rated it a B plus and said I could earn extra credit by cooking something else for her the next night. ”
He laughed softly, his eyes still on her picture. “That next night was the first time she watched me cook. The first time she leaned over my shoulder and asked what I was doing. I made up half my replies. My heart pounded the whole time.”
It was the most I’d heard him talk about her since she’d died. The first time I felt allowed to ask him to.
“Is that why you started making grilled lettuce? Because she once burned salad?”
His laughter came deep from his belly. “Yeah. She liked that one.”
“She called you a fucker every time you made it.”
“That’s how I knew she liked it. And there was never a crumb of it left on her plate.”
He transformed when he talked about her like this. His face looked ten years younger, and I was suddenly staring at my dad again. The bold, loud man who filled the rooms he walked into with his joy.
I hadn’t seen him much since I’d been home. Mostly just the shadow of the man he seemed too tired to be.
I was afraid I’d go to Colorado and come back to even more of him missing. That his shadow would shrink to little more than a speck, haunting the home he’d once shared with Mom. Maybe he could tell.
“I’ll cook more,” he promised. “She’d want me to take better care of myself.”
“She would,” I agreed.
“Is that what you’re worried about?”
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t sat still since you got here this morning. I know there’s a lot on your plate, and I want to make sure I’m not part of it. You shouldn’t pass on this job because of me.”
I rubbed the ache from my brow. I was getting really sick of people telling me I should leave. “Dad, you’re in the hospital from a heart attack. Of course, I’m worried.”
“I get that, and I won’t tell you not to be. But I will tell you that I’ll be fine. I mean it, I’ll be okay.”
“I’ve been told that before.”
“I know you have.” He sank against his pillows as if the past’s weight came down on him again. “I know.”
My gaze wandered to the plastic hand sanitizer dispenser by the door. The rounded edge caught the glare from the overhead lights, the sticker on the front faded. I thought of the coaching job and back to Mom.
“You know, I’m actually glad I lost that championship fight two years ago. Because winning might have felt like a justification for staying, and there wasn’t one. Nothing should have prevented me from being here.”
“Your mom didn’t feel that way.”
Aubrey had said the same, yet it didn’t ease the fracture inside me. The one that felt like my heart had been split down the middle and hollowed out so it had nothing left to pump but air.
“I wish she had,” I said, finally naming the pain.
“I wish she’d told me to give it all up.
Because none of it mattered. I didn’t need another title or millions in prize money.
I needed—” I caught the rush of emotion in my throat.
“I needed to be here. And if she had told me to give it up and come home, I would have. And I could have said goodbye.”
“You know why she didn’t?”
I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak.
“Because she loved you.”
My nostrils burned as the words pierced the bottom of whatever bag I’d been piling my mess into since the moment Mom died, and all of it spilled out around me—pain, guilt, regret.
Relief.
At the reassurance Mom loved me. That she hadn’t been angry with me. That I was still her son the way I always had been, even now, after I let her and our family down. I’d known it on some level, but hearing it from my dad, who knew her heart better than his own, meant it had to be true.
I swiped my nose with the back of my hand, catching a runaway tear with my sleeve.
Dad reached over the bed’s railing. “Come here, son. Come here.”
I coughed out more tears, unaware so many had been ready to fall. They came hard and fast as I scooted forward to clasp Dad’s hand with my own. His grip was firm. Stronger than I expected it to be.
He squeezed my hand. “Your mom never wanted to be the reason you gave up your dream. Just like I don’t want to be the reason you give up this job.
We love you so much, Gabe. You and Evan are the two things we’re most proud of in our lives.
Not because of your accomplishments but because you’ve found something you love, and you lead your life being happy doing it.
Your joy is our pride. Your joy mattered more to your mom than goodbye.
And I know that was probably selfish of her, but she had no problem being selfish when it came to you kids. ”
“I hate that I didn’t get to say goodbye,” I choked out.
“I know,” he said, voice steady. “But no goodbye would have made it feel okay.”
More tears came as the realization struck. That no matter the circumstances, her death was always going to be unbearable. It was always going to feel like this.
It didn’t excuse the rest. “I was selfish to leave after the funeral.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged it off. “She taught you kids to be selfish once in a while. It isn’t always the worst thing to be. Sometimes it’s even important.”
I sniffed as the tears slowed, Dad’s grip an anchor for my emotions.
A whole bunch of them swirled, but after a few more breaths, they mostly melted into sadness, the guilt and shame buckling under the enormity of how much I missed my mom.
Almost like those other emotions had been trying to protect me from feeling it all at once.
Like Evan’s anger. The same pain expressing itself in a different way. One that was easier to bear than pure grief.
I was done curbing the pain.
There was freedom in embracing the sadness for what it was instead of masking it in another emotion.
An honesty that was its own kind of relief.
It created space in my chest for what might have been the forgiveness toward myself I’d started to accept at Mom’s grave. Forgiveness that grew stronger now.
Or maybe that was the comfort of knowing I got my selfishness from my mom. That we were all just human. That maybe I no longer needed to punish myself for decisions none of us could change.
Maybe the decision I made next didn’t have to make up for the past.
“Will you tell me more stories about her?”