Chapter 23
Traffic was the devil’s taint. It should have taken him five hours to get back to Hope Falls from the Bay Area, it took him over eight, and his baby was in the fucking hospital.
He knew it was only a broken arm, but fuck he’d never felt so fucking helpless.
He was already on the highway stuck in bumper-to-bumper hell when a dozen messages came through.
He’d been on the Altamont and not had reception when he got the first calls.
The messages all arrived at once when he was driving through a town called Tracy, which was commonly referred to as Satan’s asshole by residents and commuters alike, so the entire day had a theme from hell.
He’d thought about trying to hire a helicopter. It was the one fucking time in his life he wished he had an assistant, something he’d prided himself on not having. If he had one, then he might have been able to get to Tabitha faster than the eight slogging, snail hours it had taken.
The only good thing, the only saving grace, was that Jenna was with his baby girl and she was a phenomenal mom.
There was no one, not even Poppy, who he innately trusted his daughter with more.
He couldn’t say why. Maybe it was what Ava said, they had a connection.
He wasn’t sure. All he knew was if anyone other than himself was going to be with Tabby, he would only want it to be Jenna.
Liam had been in contact all day. He and Frankie were in San Francisco visiting their parents, but he’d been in touch with the hospital since he’d worked there for a decade and still knew all the staff and was giving Deacon updates.
He knew his daughter was fine, in good hands, he just needed to see her with his own eyes. And he was finally about to.
He turned into the Pine Ridge Hospital parking lot and grabbed the spot closest to the entrance.
He was opening the door before the vehicle was even stopped.
He knew he was going to get a ticket or his vehicle towed because it was an EV charging station, but he didn’t give a shit.
His vehicle was hybrid, but he wasn’t about to take the time to plug it in.
As he walked across the pavement, he texted Jenna, who he’d been keeping in contact with all day.
Sometimes she had cell service, sometimes she didn’t.
Deacon
I’m here
The message wasn’t delivered, which meant she didn’t have service right now.
The sliding glass doors to the ER opened with a swoosh, and he rushed to the front desk. There were at least five people ahead of him. He tried to wait patiently. He did, but as a nurse passed by, he couldn’t help himself.
“My daughter is here, she’s five, and she broke her arm. I need to see her.”
The nurse shook her head and continued walking, she didn’t even break stride. He understood. She had a job and telling him where his daughter was or taking him to her wasn’t it.
When the person who was at the front of the line left, the next person went up, and he tried to send the text again. Again, the red notice appeared beneath it, indicating it was not delivered.
He knew it made him an asshole, but he wanted to offer the three people ahead of him ten grand each to let him cut the line.
He wasn’t going to. He knew his money, didn’t, or shouldn’t allow him privilege.
So, he stood, waiting, going fucking insane, phone in hand, hoping and praying Jenna’s service would come back up.
He tried Blake’s as well, but had no luck there either, which made sense considering they were most likely together.
When the couple at the desk turned and walked to the waiting area, the man directly in front of Deacon gestured for him to go before him. “You can go, man.”
“Are you sure?” Deacon wanted to cry with gratitude.
“Yeah, I have two kids. I get it.”
“Thanks.” Deacon moved forward, and the two women he now stood behind did the same, which meant there was only a woman on crutches who was about to go to the front. She glanced over her shoulder. “Go ahead. I don’t have kids, but if I did.” She did a full-body shiver as if she couldn’t imagine it.
“Thank you.” Deacon hoped he was expressing just how thankful he felt as he stepped past them and quickly turned back and thanked them all once more. “Thank you guys, really.”
When he stepped up to the desk, he read the woman’s name tag, Zeta. He’d spoken to Zeta on the phone filling in Tabitha’s insurance information and also giving release information. “Hi, I’m Deacon St. Clai—”
“Tabitha is in trauma bay ten. Through those doors straight down the hall to the end and to the left.”
“Thank you, Zeta. Thank you.”
He was happy she didn’t hold him up with any paperwork or formalities.
He rushed to where she’d pointed and heard a high-pitched buzzing and the dull, hollow clatter of a gurney being wheeled somewhere in the distance.
Without pausing, Deacon pushed the double doors open so hard they rebounded off the stops, and he stepped into the main arena of the emergency room.
The air was thick with an industrial sharpness, alcohol, and antiseptic and underlying notes of something metallic.
The lighting was aggressively bright and revealed every chipped tile and faded poster about hand-washing.
He could barely process the layers of sounds, each one piling on top of the last until it became a manic orchestra.
Intercoms clicked on and off with bursts of static, bellowing for respiratory therapists and a code blue.
Monitors chirped and screamed in arrhythmic patterns, some so shrill they made his teeth ache.
He flinched at the yelp of a toddler, saw a flash of a bloody towel clamped over a boy’s eyebrow, and caught a glimpse of a red-haired nurse in Crocs sprinting toward a room where a woman was shouting, “He can’t breathe! ”
He hurried past a cluster of EMTs, all hunched around a pale, unconscious man, one of them pounding furiously on his chest while the others barked numbers at a nurse scribbling on a clipboard.
An old man in a Cubs hat moaned softly, clutching his side and rocking on a plastic chair like he was trying to comfort himself.
Deacon’s body moved on autopilot, his mind was a different story.
Every step toward trauma bay ten, his heart rate shot up, the pulse in his throat throbbing so loud he thought he might pass out.
He read each sign and room number twice, afraid he’d miss her.
The physical chaos was nothing compared to the psychological turbulence.
Every parent there was barely holding it together.
Every patient looked betrayed by their own bodies.
It was nothing like the side of the hospital Deacon knew that Tabby was used to spending time in to get routine tests done and going to appointments.
ERs were a totally different monster. She was probably terrified besides being in so much pain.
He made it to the end of the hall and turned left.
Around the corner, he stopped short at what he saw through the clear glass viewing window of the trauma bay.
His daughter was in the hospital bed wearing a tiara and a ninja mask with flowers on it along with her hospital gown.
Jenna was curled up beside her, in bed, reading Charlotte’s Web, her newest favorite book, and Blake sat beside the bed drawing on her cast.
She not only looked fine, she looked happy, well taken care of…loved. Deacon felt himself tearing up as he walked into the room. “I heard there was a Princess Ninja Flower in here.”
“Daddy!” Tabby’s face lit up when she saw him and both Blake and Jenna stood.
He crossed to his daughter and pulled her into his arms, never wanting to let her go. After a few seconds she started to squirm. “Daddy, you’re squeezing me too tight.”
“Sorry.” He stood back up, wiping beneath his eyes with his thumb and forefinger as he sniffed back the emotion threatening to pour down his face.
“Look! Blake’s friend Noah made it for me!” Tabby sat up straighter in her bed, straining her neck as high as she could to show off her ninja/princess headwear. “I really am Princess Ninja Flower!”
“I see that, your highness.” Deacon bowed and wondered why he’d never thought about doing that before.
Tabby giggled. “If I’m a princess, then you’re a king, you don’t have to bow.”
“Rocco is the king, there can’t be two kings in one house.” He smiled and then looked at Jenna, who had moved and was standing beside Blake. “That’s awesome, tell Noah it’s great, and thank you both, so much. I can’t thank you enough—”
“Okay, do I have a Miss Tabitha Princess Ninja Flower St. Claire in this room?” A nurse entered, her demeanor bubbly and chirping.
“Me!” Tabby lifted her good arm. “It’s me!”
“I need to take some vitals, if that’s okay.” The nurse looked at Deacon.
Tabby nodded her head emphatically, and Deacon moved to the side so the nurse could do her job. He turned his attention back to Jenna and Blake to continue expressing his gratitude when he noticed Blake’s eyes were filled with tears. “What’s wrong? Are you—”
“I’m so sorry.” Blake’s voice was barely above a whisper as words fell from her mouth faster than white waters ran in the rapids in one of the longest run-on sentences he’d ever heard without taking a breath.
“We were playing pop star, and she wanted to put on a performance for me, she told to go out of the room and count to ten and then come back in, so I counted to ten, but then she said that she’d call me when she was ready and I just thought she was putting on a different outfit or something, I didn’t know she was going to get on the kitchen island, when she called me and I came in and saw her I told her to get down and when she tried to she slipped on her water and—"