37. Sloan
SLOAN
Without a shadow of a doubt, Sloan hated hospitals more than any other place.
She stretched her shoulders back, stiff and tired from sitting in the recliner chair in the apheresis unit for the last six hours—five of which had been with IVs in her arms. The nurse had replaced the heated blanket over her legs the last time she’d been in here, but it had long since gone cold.
Everything about this place took her back to a time she didn’t want to think about, didn’t want to remember.
This was where she visited the most often in her nightmares, waking drenched with sweat.
The days when Mom was in the hospital had been long and brutal, aching days filled with heartbreak and confusion.
Mom had been religious—taken the whole family to church every Sunday.
Six months before Mom had died, Sloan had stopped praying, her childhood faith gone. Her prayers had gone unanswered anyway, but most of all, she’d been tired.
The last two weeks had been a blur. She’d been a 12/12 match for Penny, which everyone had cautiously celebrated.
The tattoo had not gone over well, but fortunately, the tattoo parlor Delilah had taken Sloan to had been a top-notch, state-regulated facility.
Between that, endless tests, and the doctors determining that the benefits outweighed the risks of waiting, Sloan had been cleared to donate.
What followed were daily injections to prep her body for stem cell donation. Now she was achy and sore, sometimes cranky, and had a headache that wouldn’t quit.
But how could she complain?
Penny was the one with cancer.
Sloan was just suffering to help her.
Neither of them deserved it, just like no one who fought these battles did. The unfairness of it, though, was more than Sloan could wrap her head around.
Cheyenne had flown out—with Bryce—to stay with her at her dad’s house. Kyle had wanted to come, but she’d asked him to stay in Nashville to take care of the dogs.
Besides, Elle had given birth a week ago, and she wouldn’t have been able to live with herself if he had missed it because of her.
And she’d seen it then—the fear in his eyes. The worry.
She knew why, too. The last time she’d faced this challenge in her life, she’d taken it out on him.
A text buzzed in, breaking into her thoughts.
Cheyenne: How’s the world’s best sister?
Sloan: Hmmm . . . don’t think I qualify for that yet.
Cheyenne: You are. You just don’t give yourself enough credit. You going to see her?
Sloan didn’t answer, swallowing hard. She’d visited Penny twice since arriving, but she’d been mostly in protective isolation, so Sloan’s time with her had been swift and unremarkable. Not the stuff of movies where reunions meant resolutions.
Swiping a tear from her cheek, Sloan typed a message to Cheyenne.
Sloan: Probably not. She’s mostly sleeping anyway.
Cheyenne: I really think you should. Even if it’s just to hold her hand.
The guttural sound of a throat clearing made her lift her head. “Sloan?” Dad said, his voice ringing with a familiarity that had once made her heart leap but now made her bristle. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” Sloan said, slipping her phone face down on the small table beside her.
Dad pushed the curtain to the side and stepped in, pausing mid-step as his eyes fell on Sloan.
He froze, face paling, eyes stricken.
When he blinked again, color returned to his face in blotches of red, and his throat bobbed. “For a moment there,” he said in a low, shaky voice, “you looked just like Deborah.”
The word shattered through her rib cage, lodging as deeply as a knife.
Over the years, they hadn’t talked that much—never about anything meaningful, for certain—but never, ever, about Mom.
Dad had thrown Mom out of his vocabulary the moment she’d died.
Gotten rid of everything—photo albums, scrapbooks, memorabilia—and in a move that had especially devastated Sloan—Mom’s wedding dress.
She’d found out about it over Thanksgiving break, her freshman year of college. She’d come back to an empty house, stripped down to bare walls, a sold sign on the front lawn.
She’d always pinpointed that as the moment Dad had died to her, too, though she needed him in ways that had forced her to keep him in her life—his money to pay for school, for one thing. So, she’d gone back to school after break and gotten very, very drunk for a week straight.
And then dumped Kyle.
In one fell swoop—three of the people she loved the most in the world—had been expunged, one way or another.
All of those memories flashed through Sloan’s brain as she stared at her father in the small patient room, her thoughts ticking through at such a rapid pace that she couldn’t completely control her normally practiced reactions with him.
“You remembered her name, did you?” Anger tinged her voice, burning hotter than she wanted it to.
Dad’s gray brows furrowed, and he took another step forward. “Sloan—”
“No, don’t Sloan me. How dare you? How fucking dare you say that to me while I’m sitting here like this?”
She dashed away a tear as Dad glanced around nervously, as though worried someone might have overheard his foul-mouthed daughter.
“I don’t know why you’re so upset,” he said stiffly, his shoulders sinking. “I always feel like I’m walking on glass with you, Sloan. Every little thing makes you upset.”
“Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to come here?” Sloan asked, voice shaking. “How hard it was for me to come to San Francisco?” She dug in her purse for a tissue.
Dad raised his brows. “I thought you wanted to help your sister.” He reached out to the table beside Sloan, pulled a tissue from the box, and held it out to her.
“I did. I do. But that’s not what I meant, and you know it.” She ignored the tissue in his hand, reaching for one of her own.
Slowly, Dad lowered his hand to his side, crumpling the tissue in his palm.
He focused his gaze on his feet, on the worn brown leather shoes—same brand he’d worn before he had stocks and bonds and more money than he could spend.
And he didn’t spend it, really. He had a nice house, but that was it.
Still drove a Toyota, and not a decked-out one either.
Didn’t buy designer suits.
Penny would tease him, calling him Steve Jobs, but it sort of fit. He wore the same navy-blue polo shirt he’d always worn. With khakis.
The silence between them lingered and thickened, Sloan’s father continuing to study his shoes while his jaw worked. At last, he lifted his gaze. “I don’t think I do.”
She gave him a bewildered look. “You don’t think you do what?”
“Know what you meant.” He cleared his throat a little. “In fact, I know I don’t. Why was it hard for you to come to San Francisco?” A beat. “Because I paid for your ticket? I know you don’t want me paying for things—you’ve made that very clear—but it was an emergency. For your sister.”
“No, Dad. No.” Her anger threatened to surge again but then she stared at him—really stared at him—for a second.
He did actually look confused.
Shocking. Dad was more robot than he was human when it came to his brain—maybe that had extended to his heart, too.
She had the Tin Man for a father.
Then she laughed, unable to keep herself from the visualization of her father in the Tin Man outfit, silver face paint and all.
And if her father was the Tin Man, maybe that makes me . . .
Her thoughts sobered. Maybe I am Dorothy. Maybe she’d never known how to appreciate home until she’d lost it.
Except I can’t tap my heels and find my way back.
The distraction of her thoughts did enough to cool her temper, though. Drawing a breath, she said in a calmer voice, “This, Dad.” She gestured around them. “This is why I didn’t want to come. I hate hospitals. I still have nightmares about Mom. All the time.”
Dad’s hand shook as he reached out awkwardly and placed his hand on her knee. “I do, too.”
That nearly undid her. Her eyes narrowed at him. “What are you talking about? You erased every memory of Mom from our lives the moment she died. Don’t act like you miss her now.”
Dad flinched. “Erased her?”
“Yes.” Her head throbbed with pain now. She knew Dad probably hadn’t intended to upset her like this, but it sucked that she was here, and it sucked that rather than being able to rest and recuperate, she was dealing with this.
“You got rid of everything, Dad. Sold everything . Including Mom’s wedding dress.
I dreamed of wearing that one day when I got older.
And you threw it out. Just like you threw her out. ”
The paleness had returned to Dad’s face, his body still. “It’s all in a storage facility in Nashville, Sloan. I’ve been paying for it for years.”
Sloan’s stomach roiled, nausea rising in her throat. “What?”
He blinked at her, then removed his glasses, rubbing them against his shirtfront in an old habit. “Why on earth would you think I threw it out?”
“You told me! You told me you got rid of it. Those were your actual words. That you couldn’t stand looking at it.”
Dad returned his glasses then scratched his forehead.
“I couldn’t stand looking at it.” His voice went soft.
“My life lost most of its sense of meaning and purpose when your mother died. But I didn’t mean I got rid of it like that.
I never would have thrown her things out.
I saved the things she loved the most for you and Penny. ”
What in the absolute fuck?
Her heart throbbed somewhere between hysteria and hope. Mom’s stuff is still out there? Safe?
She covered her mouth, her breath shallow. “And you never told me?”
“It’s in my will, and Penny knows about it.
She has a spare key to the unit. But we never talk, Sloan.
You’ve been shutting me out for years. I can barely get a smile out of you when I do see you—what?
Once a year? If that? The only reason I’ve even seen you a bit more this year was because of your engagement ending, and now this. You never call.”
“Neither do you,” she shot back. “You used to, but you stopped.”
“You’re right,” he said, shame filling his face. “After your incident, my therapist advised I give you space. That you were frail and didn’t need anything or anyone in your life who upset you. And I had a lot to deal with, given that Penny went into treatment then.”
Incident.
A nice way of saying when you tried to off yourself .
“Well, your therapist sucks then.” Her throat thickened with tears she hadn’t expected. I’d needed him then. I’d needed his hugs, his comfort, his love. And he gave me nothing. I hadn’t needed space at all. “I needed my dad.”
The words shouldn’t have meant so much, not after all the hurt between them.
But perhaps it also hurt that he wouldn’t have had time for her anyway, as he’d been caring for his other daughter . . . who’d had cancer. Fuck. This was just so fucked.
She closed her eyes, shoulders shaking as her tears slipped free.
Dad came closer still, then bent and slipped his arms around her.
After so many years, it was no longer as natural—for either of them—but he still smelled like the aftershave she remembered from falling asleep in the crook of his neck.
And that gave her something to hold on to.
When he pulled back, his eyes were rimmed red, glassy with tears.
He took another tissue, then wiped his eyes.
“Sloan,” he said, straightening. “I love you.” He paused, his voice raw.
“And I loved your mother—more than my own life. If I could have traded which one of us died early, it would have been me.” A tear slipped onto his cheek as he said, “I prayed for God to take me instead.”
Sloan breathed slowly, staring at him, her heartbeat so soft it felt numb. Her father looked smaller, somehow.
More human.
Frail.
She’d been so angry with him for years. So unable to forgive him.
Had she been wrong?
You were wrong about Kyle, weren’t you?
What else? What else was she wrong about?
“Penny—” she managed, her voice breaking. And her heart shattered all over again. She was wrong about Dad. She was wrong about Penny. Her sick sister, who’d been too weak to even talk to her.
“Is Penny going to be all right?” she asked Dad, her voice shaking.
Dad gripped her hand. “We’ll get her with the best specialists. We have doors open to us now that didn’t exist when Mom was sick. And you’re saving her, Sloan. You’re here right now, saving her life.”
Sloan pressed a hand to her heart. “We haven’t been very close lately.”
Dad’s fingers squeezed hers. “Penny knows you’ve been through a lot, sweetheart. She loves you, and she always talks about you. But she’s got a little shell of protection around her heart, too. You scared her badly a few years ago. I’m not sure she’s ever quite recovered from that.”
Sloan closed her eyes. Dad probably meant well, but his words bruised.
“But,” Dad went on in true Henry Carrington fashion, not registering her distress, “I’d say this might be the wake-up lesson we all need, don’t you think?”
She didn’t get a chance to respond. The nurse returned, pushing back the curtain abruptly. “Sloan. You did it, girl. I think we’re all set here today. I’ll just get your discharge papers, and we can wrap everything up, and you can go home, okay?”
Wrap up this wake-up lesson? Sounds great.
Still, she hesitated, staring at the nurse, her thoughts feeling sluggish under the weight of her pounding headache. She didn’t have to stand to know she was still a bit woozy, which was why Dad was driving her today.
But she wasn’t ready to leave. Not yet.
Sloan gripped Dad’s fingers tighter and then said, “Actually . . . if you don’t mind, I’d like to go see my sister.”