Chapter 41 Summer
SUMMER
Which entrance was the right one, though?
Emergency, emergency, emergency. There. Big red letters.
Super helpful when I was having trouble focusing.
Hospital architecture through the decades seemed like the safer topic to dwell on.
The automatic doors opened with a mechanical hush, and I entered the sterile-smelling halls. Beige everywhere.
Half of the chairs sat empty, the orange plastic reflecting the overhead fluorescent lighting. A mother tried to bargain with a fussy toddler. A teenager slumped low, doomscrolling with a wrapped ankle. Several elderly people were hunched over, tortoise-like and half asleep.
None of the occupants were Ba and Má. Where were they? I couldn’t see the paramedics who had driven them in the ambulance, either.
There was a line for the triage nurse, who was sitting at her computer behind plexiglass.
I joined it, craning my neck, hoping to spot a familiar face anytime the double doors opened.
Patience. Breathe . Nope, don’t do that.
Disinfectant, body odor, and stress pheromones.
Yuck . The man in front of me lifted his bandage to reveal an oozing bite, and I fixated on a wonky tile in the ceiling after that.
Finally the nurse gestured for me to come up to the window. I ducked so I could speak through the open slot at the bottom. “Please, my dad arrived here in the ambulance not long ago. Has he been admitted?”
Her glasses slid down her nose as she peered at me. “Patient name?”
“Victor Pham. Victor with a C, last name P-h-a-m. I’m his daughter,” I said, offering her my ID.
She snatched it up and the ancient yellowed keyboard clacked away. “One moment please.”
One moment. Two moments. Three thousand moments.
“There he is.” My ID was returned and a visitor sticker appeared. She motioned for me to put it on my chest. “Through there. Bed four.”
“Really?” I said in disbelief. “No wait, I mean, thank you! Thank you so much!”
I thought the emergency ward would be filled with, well, emergencies.
Instead, I got cursory glances from the nurses at their workstations or moving between the partitioned rooms and left to my own devices to find bed four.
I looked for signage while valiantly doing my best to avoid eye contact with anyone through the gaps in the blue mesh curtains.
Bed four was closed off. I caught the professional tone of the doctor inside and the faint scritch of pen to paper.
“Can you tell me when your chest pain started?”
“I was in the garden,” Ba replied. They were mid-consultation. I hovered, trapped in the netherworld between interruption and politeness. “Pruning the, uh, tomato. About…how long ago was it?” A stutter furrowed through his words, muddled with confusion and overwhelm.
“About one hour ago,” my mom supplied.
“Yes. That’s when my wife called the ambulance. She worries a lot.”
For the love of— was he really going to minimize it that much?
“Because we found you on the ground, unable to get up,” I said, my entrance punctuated with much more drama than I intended as I swished aside the curtain.
“Summer!” Ba blinked. I watched the walls rise, lines smoothing, and his demeanor dragged upward as he put on a brave face. I sat down next to Má, introducing myself quickly to the doctor. “Hi, I’m Summer. The daughter.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Dr.Howard, and we’re going to do our best to figure out what’s happened with your father,” he said politely from behind his mask.
I wondered how long his shift had been and how much mounting paperwork was waiting for him.
He returned to his brisk assessment despite the purplish gray beneath his eyes.
“Victor, please describe how the pain feels and where it’s located. ”
Ba rubbed knuckles across his sternum. “Here. Hard to take a breath.” He demonstrated, his chest rising and nostrils puffing before shaking his head in frustration. “My head is also dizzy.”
“Does it hurt anywhere else? Feel weaker than it should?”
“My arm as well.” He tried to lift his left arm and winced.
Dr.Howard’s focus sharpened. “Victor, do you have a history of heart disease in the family?” he asked intently.
“Heart disease?”
“Anyone in your family ever experienced a heart attack or stroke?”
No way , I thought confidently.
“My grandfather passed away from a stroke. Back in Vietnam.”
Shit, I didn’t know that. Dr.Howard started mentioning tests. Letters jumbled—EKG, CT. Scans and lab samples and an echocardiogram.
My parents had lived in the States for almost thirty years. Their English was good enough to run Red Lantern, be part of the Starlight Grove’s Business Association, and attend every parent-teacher conference for Lina, Alvin, and me.
But this was different. Understanding medical jargon was different. Even I struggled. Ba was very quiet, his compressed lips whitening. Má nodded along, reacting no differently between brain hemorrhage and dehydration .
Dr.Howard eventually left with the promise that the first results would come through in the next few hours. A technician appeared. Nurses. Nodes applied to my dad’s chest and a needle jabbed into his arm.
Hospitals were supposed to be slow. Bureaucracy and backed-up labs. I would give anything for that rather than the tense urgency flooding the room.
I knew what was coming before my mom even spoke, just from the way she laid her hand on my forearm. Tentative and tinged with embarrassment. “Summer, why so many tests? Why are they rushing?” she asked me in Vietnamese.
It was a painstaking daisy-chain of information.
Dr.Howard’s patient explanations—CT scan to eliminate the possibility of a stroke, the EKG and echo to investigate heart function, and routine lab work for organ function.
Repackaged in my horrid mix of broken Vietnamese spackled with English, not built for words this big or important.
Lina would’ve done a much better job of this than me.
That’s who they deserved. Not me. She would’ve been clearer. Less stammering. I bet she would’ve handled seeing the change in their faces as they understood the gravity of the situation better, too.
“So much fuss,” Ba finally said. He straightened up as much as he could, eyes unfocused and his breath labored. “All because I had a nap on the grass.”
A fault line splintered through my heart. He was scared. Scared of what the results would bring and scared of looking weak in front of me.
“You need to go to bed earlier,” I played along, taking his hand. Lighter age-spotted skin abruptly turned dark tan along his wrist where his gardening gloves would end. “I know the lettuce looks comfy, but your pillow is much better.”
He squeezed and I willed the stinging in my eyes not to spill over.
“We’re taking him to the CT scan now,” the nurse said gently. “It’ll take about an hour. You can sit out in the Emergency waiting room, and we’ll come get you when he’s moved to a ward.”
“Thank you so much,” I said.
Take care of him , I meant.
I guided Má out. She looked small. Lost. I hugged her shoulders protectively. “Let’s go find some bad coffee,” I suggested.
“Bad coffee?” Her mouth tilted downward. “Shouldn’t we stay close?”
“We have time.”
She remained stubborn and unconvinced. It took a little more coaxing to convince her it would be okay to walk away from where she last saw Ba.
IVY
Caveating this text by saying you are under no obligation to reply but please let us know if there are any updates and if there’s anything we can do to help
LUCY
LITERALLY ANYTHING SUMMER
OLIVE
Yes, we are ready to drop everything and drive to that hospital!
LUCY
I’m trying heatless curls with socks right now
I look like a budget milk maiden cosplay
but I would do it for you Summer
Would a picture help? I can send you one
OLIVE
Say yes Summer she looks ridiculous
Thank god for my friends. I needed a laugh.
It had been hard repeating everything Dr.Howard said to Lina over the phone.
Plus, my hospital cafeteria coffee was terrible.
I took another sip, tasting the fragrant notes of muddy river water and feet.
I shuddered and pushed it far away from me before texting my friends back.
SUMMER
We’re waiting on Dad to get a CT scan to rule out stroke
and results from his lab work
there are a couple of other tests they have to do too but we won’t know the results until tomorrow because the cardiologist needs to look over them
So it’s a waiting game
Not really anything you can do if you came. Hopefully we’ll be able to hear back about at least one of the tests before we have to head home for the night
God, I didn’t even want to think about the drive home. I was still exhausted from my heat, and my nest was currently gross and unlaundered, split among several suitcases.
Má wanted to know what happened with my heat and the guys. But after I gave her only mumbled one-word responses while headfirst in her soup, she finally caught on that I wasn’t in the mood. Hopefully she would let me pass out on the couch for a shitty night’s sleep without too much interrogation.
LUCY
Ok fine I won’t turn up at the hospital looking as beautiful as I do now
IVY
Thanks for the update, hang in there you’re doing great
We’ll bring a late supper to your family’s house so it’s there when you get back
I say we but James is the one cooking. But I’m helping!!
OLIVE
And we are also including chocolate. Which you must eat. For endorphins and stress reduction.
LUCY
Are Lucien, Mercer, and Jae with you at least?
Reading that struck me like a physical blow.
I didn’t begrudge Lucy for asking. She didn’t know I was avoiding them after my omega instincts were blaring like sirens after my heat ended.
There was no way I was ready to go back to the Beaufort pack house right now. My nerves were raw, my heart too tender, and I didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with them.
Yet the fact that I hadn’t heard from them stung. I didn’t want to see them, but I did want them to care, even though I hadn’t told them what happened.
Because we were not a pack.
I poured salt into my own wound and wondered why it hurt. Good job, Summer.
SUMMER
Uh no, they’re not actually
I don’t want to talk about it right now. Things are weird with them after my heat
LUCY
Ok that’s it I’m heading over
SUMMER
No, please don’t! Honestly
Food waiting for us when we get back sounds perfect
I just want to focus on being there for my mom and dad right now
LUCY
Of course, you’ve got enough on your plate
No wasting precious brain cells on dumb boys right now
But I’m adding a comforter to the care package we’re leaving. It’s more your style anyway, there’s cartoon Sriracha bottles all over it
I almost teared up because that sounded wonderful. And also suspiciously like Lucy had bought it specifically for me and stashed it away until the moment arose to gift it.
Summer changed the group chat name to Exhibit #47: Who Needs Men
IVY
So sweet
OLIVE
And accurate
LUCY
We love you too!!