Chapter 20
Gage
Everything happens so quickly. I call for the ambulance and try to get my dad as comfortable as possible, grabbing a pillow from the office couch to put under his head.
Then I call Wayne, followed by my cousin so she can let my aunt and uncle know what’s happening.
She’s also thankfully able to come in and take over for me while I go with my dad.
When I emerge from the stockroom to let Iggy, the other bartender, and the servers know what happened, Celeste rushes up.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, her eyes wide with concern as she takes me in.
“Dad fell in the stock room right on his hip, along with who knows what other possible injuries. The ambulance is coming,” I explain in a rush. Noticing I’m upset, Iggy comes rushing over also, so I repeat the explanation and ask him to spread the word to the rest of the staff.
“What do you need?” Celeste asks.
“I’ve got to get back to my dad. Come with me?”
“Of course.”
I lead her back into the stock room. My dad is faced away from us, still splayed out with his head on the pillow. He looks over his shoulder when he hears us and grimaces.
“This is so embarrassing,” he grouses. “I don’t need an ambulance or a fuss made over me.”
“Dad, stop. Things happen, and you do need an ambulance in case you broke something,” I say.
“I’ll be fine, I just fell. It’s not the end of the world,” he says, trying to get up.
Celeste moves to kneel beside him, smoothes his hair, and kisses his cheek.
“If you’re badly injured, and don’t get properly checked out, how will you run around after Ava and Braden?”
Her light admonishment gets him to pause. Oh, this brilliant woman goes right for his achilles heel. His shoulders droop in defeat.
“You play dirty, mija,” he grumbles.
“Only when I have to,” she retorts.
The ambulance arrives less than ten minutes after I called them.
Those amazing paramedics expertly transfer my poor dad onto the stretcher, and wheel him out of the room into the main space.
Everyone in the bar is subdued, the vibrancy of just a few minutes ago gone as people murmur their well wishes when he goes by.
So many of the patrons here know him, and I know they must be worried.
Iggy catches my eye and gives me a nod, letting me know he’s got this under control until Diana gets here.
“You go with him, and I’ll follow in my car?” Celeste asks from my side once we get outside.
“You won’t mind being there with me?”
It sounds like such a childish, insecure question once it’s out of my mouth.
“We have each other’s backs, remember? I’ll be there with you,” she asserts.
I pull her into a fierce hug.
“Thank you,” I whisper in her ear, with all of the feelings that I can’t say imbued into those two words.
“I’ll see you there,” she responds.
My dad is getting loaded into the back of the ambulance now, so I let Celeste go and hop in there with a final wave to her.
We pull into Princeton-Plainsboro hospital quickly, even though it seems like it took a lifetime, and my dad is wheeled immediately into the ER to get triaged. Celeste isn’t far behind, coming through the doors as I finish checking us in and sit in the waiting room to fill out the paperwork.
“They already took him back?” she asks, flopping into the seat next to me.
“Yeah, we can go sit with him as soon as this paperwork is done.”
The clipboard is balanced on my knee, pen hovering over the paper, while I valiantly try to remember my dad’s social security number. She peers at the paperwork, and I can sense her smile.
“Julio Ernesto Cabrera,” she says softly.
“Ernesto is my abuelo, he passed away in an accident not long after my Tia Carmen was born. My dad and I both have his name as our middle name. My mom gave Wayne her dad’s name, Jonathan, as his middle name. He hates it, don’t ever mention that you know that.”
“My lips are sealed,” she promises.
We head back to where the woman at the front desk tells us to go once we hand in the paperwork.
The overpowering antiseptic smell burns my nose as we enter the treatment area.
All of the beeping noises and machinery make me jittery.
The bright, fluorescent overhead fixtures cast the hallway in a stark light.
It’s freaking freezing back here too, like the air conditioning is on full blast. A doctor has my dad on the examining table, gently probing his right hip.
“Hanging in there, dad?” I ask when he sees us.
“I’ll live, son,” he says dryly.
“We’re going to take him for x-rays just to make sure, but his hip doesn’t look to be broken,” the doctor says. “I don’t see any other injuries, his head and cognition are fine,” he adds to my relief.
After taking a couple of minutes to finish writing his notes, he looks at each of us with a pleasant smile.
“Just hang here until someone comes to take him to x-ray, ok? We’re a little backed up, so it may take a little while.”
Then he’s out of here, onto the next patient until he can do more for my dad.
“I still think this is too much. I’m fine,” my dad reiterates.
“No harm in just making sure. Suck it up,” I tease him.
Celeste yawns next to me, covering her mouth when she does and looking chagrined. It’s been a long night, I’m not the most awake myself.
“Why don’t I scrounge up some coffee for us? I could clearly use some,” she offers.
“I could also use one, mi vida. Thank you,” I say, planting a quick kiss on her.
“I’m good, thanks,” my dad chimes in.
She nods and wanders off in search of precious caffeine as I stare after her. When I turn back to my dad, he has a knowing smirk on his face.
“What?” I ask.
“Not such a fake marriage anymore, is it?”
“Dad, seriously?” I sputter.
“Did you think I didn’t know? Son, I know you better than you know yourself. You haven’t been fooling anyone,” he says with a soft chuckle
“Wait, does everyone know? Wayne and Gina, too?”
“Yes, they know. We’re not idiots, Gagey. The timing was too convenient.”
I’m the idiot, apparently.
“I guess I’ve been fooling myself, if anyone. If you knew it was fake, why did you let me go through with it?” I demand.
“I’ll say it again, I know you better than you know yourself.
When I saw you two playing darts that first time, the way you were looking at her even put the way I used to look at your mother to shame.
So I didn’t say a word, and just let things take their course.
I knew you’d come around to see sense with time and some self reflection,” he says with a shrug.
“To see the sense in what, exactly?”
“That love is worth the risk. Opening yourself up to your person is worth the risk. Marriage is not for everyone, and it’s scary, but when you find your person it is worth everything, mijo. That wonderful woman is your person,” he asserts.
“Telling me ‘I told ya so,’ would have been easier,” I quip.
His face grows solemn.
“Son, it has never been about me being right and you being wrong. How you reacted to your mother leaving, the beliefs you took on because of it, is all valid. You have not been wrong. As your dad, I’m just trying to get you to see that those feelings are not your only option.
Maybe I went about it in a high-handed way, and for that I’m sorry. ”
I sigh heavily.
“You were super high-handed, and I’m still mad about that. I can’t be mad about how it all turned out, though. I think it gave me the push I needed to work past my fears,” I admit.
“Cabrera men are stubborn. It was too late for me to be the husband I should have been, and I regret it more than anything in my life. I don’t want that for you,” he almost whispers, his face a picture of pure pain that has nothing to do with his fall.
I clasp his shoulder and look him in the eye.
“I’m learning, pops. Slowly, but surely, ok? Celeste and I are figuring things out and exploring the real thing. We’re taking our time.”
He nods thoughtfully, and we sit in companionable silence for a few minutes, until Celeste sweeps back in with our coffees. Her eyes dart between me and my dad, clearly picking up on the heaviness of the conversation we just had.
“What did I miss? Everything ok?”
“Everything’s fine, we just had to have a father/son chat, mija,” my dad tells her. “While you both are here, I did a lot of thinking while I was on the floor and then in the ambulance. I’m retiring,” he announces.
Both Celeste and I look like gaping fish.
“Dad, what do you mean you’re retiring?” I demand.
“Just what I said. We can’t have me falling there again, it’s bad for business.”
“So, what, you’re just not going to come to the bar you built from the ground up ever again?” I ask incredulously.
“Of course I’ll still come in from time to time, it’s part of my very soul.
Soon I’ll get a cane or something to stay steady on my feet, and I sure as hell won’t be doing inventory.
The Parkinson’s is only going to get worse, though.
It’s time to step aside. You’ve already shown you’re more than ready to take the bar to an even higher level, Gagey. It’ll be in the best hands.”
“Dad, you can’t be serious.” My throat is tight with emotion. He IS El Abrevadero as much as my abuela is. I’ve known he’s wanted to step aside soon, but I am not prepared for it to be this soon.
“It was going to happen sooner or later. It’s just going to be sooner, that’s all,” he reassures me, as if reading my thoughts.
“I’m truly serious, son. Incidents like tonight can’t happen again.
This is not me giving up, it’s doing what’s best for the bar we both love so much, ok?
I’ll still be there holding court and trading stories with the customers.
You’ve more than earned stepping up into the ownership role. ”
“Let’s focus on getting you better, then we can talk more about this,” I say, unable to handle any more emotions tonight. Between my anger over the asshole who harassed my wife, worry for my dad after his fall, and now his dramatic ass announcement, I’ve hit my limit.
Celeste seems to sense it, and takes my hand to give it a reassuring squeeze.
There’s really nothing more for us to do except sit in our respective thoughts, until a tech finally comes to wheel my dad away to get his x-rays.
Celeste and I go back to the waiting room to sit, hand in hand, nursing our coffees. Not that I would ever say it out loud and jinx things, but the ER is fairly quiet tonight.
“What a night,” she huffs with a laugh that contains just about every emotion I’m feeling.
“Thank you. For everything,” I say.
She doesn’t respond, just squeezes my hand, as if she knows words aren’t needed right now.
This is what true partnership feels like, I realize.
Knowing each other so well, being present instead of leaving when things get hard.
Her ability to read what people need in a given moment astounds me, especially considering what she had to deal with growing up.
“You know, I’ve never met anyone who can read people like you do,” I blurt. “How do you do it?”
She rears back in surprise at the sudden question, then cocks her head in thought for a minute before finally answering.
“It’s something I did manage to learn about myself in therapy back when I was a teenager, in spite of my resistance.
When you grow up how I did, reading people becomes part of survival.
The slightest shift in mood, the most minute movement in a facial expression, reading those means the difference between escaping a beating and getting bruised.
You learn to become hyper aware of how people are acting and clocking even the smallest change.
I guess it serves me well with people I like, too,” she explains quietly, her voice raw.
It’s my turn to silently squeeze her hand, and bring it to my lips to kiss her palm.
“You’re safe now,” I remind her, willing her to believe it.
“I know,” she says, resting her head on my shoulder.
It makes my heart swell so much that my ribs might crack to hear her say that. She’s made me feel safe, too. I can be vulnerable with her, lean on her for help the way she leans on me. The fact that she’s sitting here with me instead of me handling this alone is a huge comfort.
Wayne comes in and joins us after I’ve been keeping him updated through texts, having made sure Gina and the kids are all settled at home. After an hour of us chatting, doom scrolling, and even a little dozing in the chairs, the doctor comes out to see us.
“Your dad is doing great. His hip is badly bruised but thankfully not broken. We do want to keep him overnight to observe how he walks and moves, and get him a physical therapy evaluation first thing in the morning,” he informs us.
“So he’s been admitted? Is he in a room already?” Wayne asks.
“Yes, if you’ll come with me, I’ll take you to his room to see him.”
He leads us to the elevators and up two floors, then down a winding hallway until we reach my dad. He’s in bed, looking sleepy and plenty annoyed, but also relieved that his hip isn’t broken.
“They’re keeping me here overnight for a bruised hip. It’s not even broken,” he complains.
“Stop whining and do what the doctor and physical therapist say, old man,” Wayne chides.
“You’ll be fine dad, they just need to make sure you’re moving ok, and physical therapists are not here at nine at night,” I tell him.
Wayne looks at me with raised eyebrows.
“Did we just play good cop/bad cop?” he asks, getting me, Celeste, and even my dad to laugh.
“I’m pretty tired, why don’t you all get home,” my dad says.
“I’ll stay with you, dad. Gina’s got the kids, and I don’t want you here by yourself. Plus, I’ll get you home in the morning,” Wayne offers.
Then he turns to us.
“You two have been here for hours, why don’t you get home to those birds and get some rest.”
He’s right that we need to get home to check on the flock. So I nod.
“Keep us updated, ok?” Celeste asks.
“You bet,” Wayne promises, bringing her into a hug before giving me one as well.
“Dad, we’ll see you soon, ok? Behave yourself tonight.”
He rolls his eyes playfully but hugs me when I go to his bedside.
“We’ll talk more about getting everything transitioned to you in a few days, son. Do some thinking about how you’d like to do it, and we’ll work it out,” he promises.
There’s so much I want to say about him retiring, but now isn’t the time, so I just nod and look at Wayne. He gives me an encouraging look with a goofy thumbs up. I filled him in on dad’s announcement earlier, and he seems proud.
Celeste goes to squeeze my dad’s hand and kiss his cheek with a few murmured words of encouragement. We leave on a chorus of goodnights.
At home, we get the birds situated after playing with them a little and get ready for bed.
It’s the most natural thing in the world now to brush out teeth side by side and shower together.
She has developed a deep fondness for wearing my shirts to bed and nothing else.
Tonight though, we just hold each other after a tough night, exchanging kisses that are affirming and reassuring, and fall asleep quickly with our limbs tangled.