Chapter Fourteen
Ash’s first thought upon waking was Hazel. Kissing Hazel. Holding her. She smelled minty and sweet, sweet like the excessive sugar she required in her coffee, and he was beginning to understand that addiction. He didn’t even care that he couldn’t sleep past five-thirty. The promise of seeing her at Winter Fest propelled him out of bed, humming “Joy to the World” through a quick shower and heading downstairs to join his mom for coffee.
When he reached the kitchen, though, he stopped short at the sight of both his parents seated at the table, his mother applying a Band-Aid across his father’s forehead. Icy dread trickled down his spine. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” His father pushed at the hands smoothing the bandage and tried to rise, only to fall back into his chair. Ash’s mother reached for his elbow, and again he brushed her away, pulling on the edge of the table to erect his obviously stiff body. He listed to one side and, after two shuffling steps toward Ash, apparently thought better of walking and leaned against the counter.
“Nothing, huh?” Ash asked, catching his mother’s eye.
She shook her head in warning. “He tripped by the fireplace.”
The bandage was one of the big ones with wide wings, right over his left eyebrow. Ash could see dark blood already absorbing into it.
“What was he doing?” Ash stalked to the fireplace and noted the fresh logs stacked for their next fire.
“He’s standing right here,” his father complained.
“Leaning,” Ash couldn’t help but correct him.
“We need coffee.” His mother set about making some, adding, “It’s more of a scrape. It’s not serious. You know head wounds bleed like a stuck pig.”
“Forgive me if I don’t trust your opinion of a serious injury at this point,” Ash muttered. Then, he asked his father, “How’d you trip?”
“If I’m gonna be interrogated, I guess I’ll sit back down.”
“Probably a good idea.”
“Ash,” his mother warned.
“How’d you trip? Are you having an attack?” He scanned for the signs. Clenched fists. Pained grimace. Sensitive, squinting eyes.
“It’s not an attack.” His father shot his mother a hard look, as though they’d taken bets on Ash’s reaction, and she needed to pay up.
“One of the kids left their shoes on the floor,” she said in a placating tone.
“Overexertion, not enough sleep, stress—” Ash ticked off his fingers as he ran through the list they were all familiar with of common precursors to a relapse.
His father slapped his palms on the table. “I tripped on a goddamned shoe.”
Ash froze, surprised by the burst of anger. His mother mouthed for him to Calm down. He knew he should. But what was this if not proof that things were not just fine? His father could be difficult, but not usually in this way, raising his voice, pounding on the table. Ash felt vindicated, relieved even, for uncovering the truth, or at least moving in that direction. He’d known better. He’d known. But being right also came with the spike of fear, the drop in his stomach that he’d so far managed, with his mother’s flimsy optimism, to hold off.
“We’re calling the doctor.” He directed this to her, bypassing the stubborn patient.
Before they could protest—and they would—the front door opened with a cheery jingle of wreath bells, and June stumbled inside. “Oops,” she said when she saw them. She closed the door with a wince and tiptoed through the living room like she might still sneak by. He could smell the smoke on her clothes from here, see smudged mascara under her eyes.
“June,” he barked.
She rolled her eyes. “Can I shower before the lecture?”
Ash’s gaze swiveled from his sister to his parents. They didn’t say a word.
“You were here when I went to bed. When did you leave?” he asked.
She frowned, clocking the bandage on their father’s forehead. “What happened there?”
“Oh, he fell, but it’s okay because, according to the two of them—not actual doctors or anything—it’s not serious.”
Her eyes widened. “Someone’s salty this morning.”
“Where were you?”
“Dude, relax.”
Ash threw his hands up. “The problem here is not how unrelaxed I am. Is this what you’re doing in L.A.? Partying every night?” He didn’t wait for her to respond before turning on his parents. “And it’s not just the head injury. You could have hurt your hip when you fell. Why am I the only person who remembers the protocol here? A fall means you see your doctor.”
“Fine,” his mother said. She watched coffee drip into the glass carafe, and Ash knew she was avoiding his father’s eyes. “You’re right. I’ll call when the office opens.”
He itched to push for the after-hours line or a trip straight to the hospital. Was this how they’d been handling his father’s MS? Pretending it didn’t exist? Hoping for the best? He should have come back at Thanksgiving, should have been here the whole time. The twins were too young, too sheltered to step up, and with Maggie and June both out of state, his mother was the only person who could manage his father. It was why he’d offered to stay home another year instead of going straight to college, but his parents had insisted they could handle it without him.
Anger burned at the litany of all his mother’s phone calls over the last four years, all the times she complained about his father’s refusal to take better care of himself, only for her to downplay what was really going on the rest of the time. How could Ash help when he didn’t have all the facts?
“I’m coming with you to the appointment.”
June shot him a look that said to just stop.
Ash’s mother slid his father a mug of coffee, paired with two pills from the orange bottles on the counter and a book of crosswords from the pouch on his nearby walker. With a grunt, he reached out a hand, and she remembered the glasses he now needed, handed him those, too. When she set her hands on his shoulders, he squeezed one back, sliding the glasses on.
She marked the dosage in a notebook, then poured two more mugs and set one of them before Ash. Her eyes were tired, chastened. “I know,” she said.
“Know what?” That he shouldn’t have to push for the doctor? No shit. They all knew that.
“You think you can’t trust what we’ve told you.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Seems that way.”
“So, come and see for yourself then.”
By the time the doctor’s office called back, some of the morning’s urgency had dulled. Dr. Griggs had directed them to the hospital at the mention of a head injury, but the long wait and no obvious signs of illness chipped away at Ash’s certainty. His father wasn’t speaking to him, either, sure this was all a waste of time.
The rest of the family had been equally frosty. They’d planned to all go skating and still could have gone, but Maggie insisted it would be hell without their mother helping with Cosette and Isabel. The girls were particularly wild that morning, and Maggie was short with them. June was no help, sleeping off her hangover. The twins were practicing their dance routine in the living room, nitpicking each other’s form and snapping that they couldn’t turn down their music when he suggested it might be contributing to the chaos.
Ash tried to wrangle his nieces while his mom made breakfast and Maggie took a call from her husband, but things went from bad to worse. Nick’s first flight, a remote charter that ran just once a day, had been canceled, throwing his entire travel schedule up in the air, so he might not make it on Christmas Eve after all. Maggie relayed this news like Ash was somehow personally responsible. While that was bullshit, he was relieved for a little space from all his sisters, despite the all too familiar mix of anxiety and abject boredom that made time move backward in hospital waiting rooms.
When a nurse arrived to take his father back, Ash followed his parents, intending to get the truth straight from the doctor’s mouth. His mother flipped through two notebooks—a medicine log and another with detailed symptoms—to supply exact answers to intake questions. “So, no real changes since the tenth,” the nurse summed up, checking boxes on a computer.
“Nope,” his father said. “I was fine then, and I’m fine now.” His tone was pointed. He’d gone through a full workup following his surgery.
When the nurse left, the room fell silent, and Ash pulled out his phone to find a slew of text messages from Hazel.
We’re by the ticket counter. Are you here yet?
Help, my dad has left me to “bond” with Val over coffee. Please tell me you’re here somewhere.
Asher??
He’d lost track of time. It was eleven-thirty, and his father still hadn’t gone back for an MRI yet.
“Another emergency?” his father muttered.
Ash had risen from his chair as if to leave. He sank back down, tucked his phone into his pocket. “I didn’t know they’d send you here,” he argued weakly. “I thought your doctor would just see you in the office.”
“I knew. And I didn’t want everyone worried about nothing four days before Christmas.”
Ash swallowed down the anger that balled up in his throat. He didn’t think he could hear one more time that nothing at all was wrong. It didn’t feel like nothing was wrong. It felt like his parents’ house was falling apart, their finances were strained, and his father was deteriorating right in front of them. “Dad—” he started.
“What’s going on with your car?”
“My car? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Making conversation. We’ve got time, after all,” he said, looking pointedly at the clock above the door. “You’re so concerned about everyone else. I want to know what’s going on with your car.”
“Nothing. It’s old. It’s not reliable enough to drive across the state. Had another option, so I took it.”
“About time to get a new one, don’t you think?”
“Sure, I’ll go test-drive a Tesla later.”
His father shook his head at Ash’s sarcasm. “You hurting for money?”
“No,” Ash said immediately. “It’s funny, though, you telling me what to do about a situation you don’t know anything about when you’re the last person to take advice.”
“Well, that’s simple. You’re the kid here. It’s my job to give you advice. It’s not supposed to go the other way.”
Ash scoffed. “Okay.”
“I’m not sure when you got it in your head that you know better than everyone else, but I’m a grown man. I don’t need you looking for everything wrong with me and the house like it’s all proof I’m halfway into the grave.”
“Jesus. I don’t think you’re halfway into the grave, Dad.”
“But you can’t accept that my health is my call. Not even when you think you know what’s best.”
Ash threw his hands up. “Most parents would be glad when their kid helps out, but fine. Whatever you want.”
“Sure, son,” his mother interjected gently. “Take out the trash, load the dishwasher. But this…this pushing about your dad’s health, lecturing June, spending hours lugging tools around the house instead of just spending time with us?” She raised a severe eyebrow, making sure he was paying close attention when she added, “Giving the twins five hundred dollars without checking with us first?”
Ash’s skin pricked with guilt. He crossed his arms, fixed his gaze on the mottled linoleum floor. “Fine. I hear you.”
But fuck, it burned. All of it. He wasn’t sorry for stepping up. He didn’t feel bad for pushing when no one else was going to do what needed to be done.
“You know what?” he said, pushing up from his chair. “How about you guys decide exactly when and how you want my help and let me know? Because this”—he spread his arms to indicate the exam room—“this might all be fine today, but what about when you relapse? Or worse? You know that’s a when, not an if, right? When is it still my job to get you to bed because you’ll hurt Mom if you fall on her, and when does my help make me an asshole? I’d really like to know.”
“Ash,” his mother snapped, eyes darting between his father and the closed exam room door. She didn’t want the staff to overhear, didn’t want anything, ever, to appear to be wrong.
“If this is really what you want,” Ash pushed on, something tangled and filthy unclogging in his chest, “then don’t make me help hide your episodes from the girls, and don’t ignore your limits to the point that Mom has to call me, crying about how you won’t take care of yourself.”
His father’s eyes cut to his mother, a remark dying on his parted lips. He looked genuinely stunned. Betrayed.
And that righteousness burning like magma in place of his blood cooled immediately. He never meant to hold those phone calls against his mother. More than that, he never wanted to expose her calls to his father. And as true as the sentiments were, long as he’d stuffed them down, he regretted immediately that the lid had come off now, like this, in anger.
He lost a bit of steam. “It’s not— Shit. I’m not saying don’t call me.”
“That’s enough,” his father said, so quiet Ash might have imagined it.
Then someone in scrubs swung the door open and ushered them back to radiology. Ash and his mother followed silently to another empty waiting room.
“Was that Hazel on your phone?” she asked once they were alone.
It took him a moment to backtrack. She meant Hazel’s texts. Ash swallowed. He wanted more than anything to stop fighting, but leaving it unresolved didn’t sit right. “Mom, I’m—”
“Is something wrong with Hazel?”
“I was supposed to meet her earlier.”
“You should go.” She didn’t sound angry or dismissive, only tired. He shook his head, and she raised a palm to cut him off. “At least let her know where you are.”
He couldn’t tell Hazel where he was because he hadn’t said a word about the MS, and now it felt like he’d been lying to her, when all he’d meant to do was keep things as uncomplicated and light as possible, to not scare her off. Just like he’d given her that ridiculous speech last night, insisting they could have a purely physical relationship without any feelings threatening their equilibrium. She’d been completely fine with that proposal, which only proved it was a smart move if he wanted to keep kissing her. And he did.
“I’ll text her,” he relented. “But I still want to hear what the doctor has to say.”
“Ash.”
“You’re asking me to back off. I need to hear the truth before I can do that.”
She shook her head, gearing up to argue, but finally said, “Fine.” Then, “About the money you gave the twins…”
He swallowed.
“I need you to understand we are not suddenly incompetent or destitute.”
“I never said—”
“We didn’t miss a dance payment. That’s what they told you, right? They wanted expensive winter formal dresses. I gave them the same deal as Maggie and June, a reasonable budget and chores for anything extra, but they decided it was easier to lie to you. And instead of checking with me, you gave it to them.”
Ash sighed. He could throttle his sisters for playing him, especially for how it cut him off at the legs now. “Why is it such a big deal that I gave them money?”
“Your car is twenty years old. Your apartment is a storage space. You’re barely scraping by when you could have a comfortable life. Honestly, as your mother, it drives me crazy.”
“I’m doing fine, Mom.”
“See, when you tell me that, I believe you.” He doubted this was entirely true, but he got her point.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. He wanted to mean it. He didn’t quite though. He still felt right. Still felt a current of anger tugging him back.
“Don’t leave that girl waiting,” she said, turning to look down the long, quiet hallway. “I’m going to see if I can rustle up some coffee.”
Hazel didn’t respond to his text. In fairness, he’d been vague: Sorry, got caught up with a family thing. Thirty minutes. Hour, tops.
He heard for himself from his father’s neurologist that there were no indicators of anything serious—no concussion from the fall, no lesions related to the MS. The hip was also in good shape, so his father was cleared to return home to rest.
The good news was met with passive-aggressive sighing and muttering from his sisters, who claimed to have known all along none of this was necessary.
“It’s not like I wanted there to be a problem,” he muttered, rushing them out of the house. He was so late meeting Hazel.
His happy anticipation from this morning had been fully hijacked by the familiar, whole-body tension and anxious restlessness he’d fought to mask back in high school, during the onset of his father’s illness. Back then, Ash turned inward to contain it, pulled his energy back wherever he could, from school, from baseball, from his best friend whose plans for their future suddenly sounded trivial. That was the version of him that Hazel had first met. Constant worry exacerbated by his futile pining. And because of it, she’d read him as apathetic, selfish, broody. Thought he’d hated her.
He couldn’t go to her like this.
But he couldn’t stand her up. Which meant, instead, he was going to have to explain. All of it. Somehow.