Waiting

2.

Summer POV

“Just a little more, sweetie. It’s my favorite story.”

Papa’s voice is softer than it used to be, worn thin by months of treatments and too many nights spent beneath fluorescent hospital lights, but the warmth in it is still his. He shifts against the mountain of pillows behind him and looks at the book resting in my lap.

“That little critter is smart,” he continues. “And I like how the boy keeps his innocence, even when the world tells him to get rid of it.”

I smile because that is such a Papa thing to love about a story.

Not the adventure. Not the planets or the strange people living on them. Not even the rose.

The innocence.

Other than Mom and Dad, my Papa is my world.

Which makes seeing him like this almost unbearable.

The hospital has slowly taken everything familiar about him and replaced it with something clinical. His warm brown skin has faded beneath the harsh overhead lights. His hands, once broad and strong enough to lift me onto his shoulders when I was little, rest thinner against the white blanket covering his legs. Clear tubes disappear beneath his gown. Machines stand watch beside him, blinking and humming as though they have somehow earned the right to know more about his body than the people who love him.

I hate them.

I hate this room.

I hate the smell of disinfectant and plastic and whatever the hell hospitals use to make every hallway smell like sickness has been scrubbed clean but never truly removed.

Mostly, I hate cancer.

Fuck cancer.

Fuck it for crawling into good people and making homes inside bodies that never invited it there. f**k it for stealing weight from Papa’s face and strength from his hands. f**k it for making my mom memorize words she never wanted to learn and turning every doctor’s appointment into a negotiation with hope.

These last treatments have been especially hard on him.

Mom says the doctors are still trying to find the right “special cocktail” of medication and radiation to finally slap this b***h in the face.

Her words.

Not mine.

Okay, also mine now.

I hope they find it soon.

Because I don’t want to read Papa his favorite story in this room forever.

I want to read it to him beneath the giant willow at the end of our driveway, where the branches sweep low enough to make their own little world beneath them. I want the breeze moving through the leaves instead of recycled hospital air. I want him complaining about ants and pretending his back doesn’t hurt while refusing every cushion Mom brings outside for him.

Maybe before summer comes, Mom can plant tulips around the trunk.

Abuelita’s favorite colors.

Papa would like that.

The thought makes something tighten in my throat, so I push it away before it can become anything larger.

“Okay, Papa.” I straighten dramatically in my chair and lift the book. “Just because I love you.”

He smiles.

“But first—do you need anything? Another pillow? Water? I can tell Mom to grab something before she comes back.”

His eyes narrow suspiciously at the pillows surrounding him.

“Love you too, my shine. No, I’m good. Just start reading before your mother gets back in here.”

“Why?”

“Because if I fall asleep first, she won’t start fussing with me and my dang pillows.”

A laugh escapes me before I can stop it.

“You have, like, six pillows.”

“Exactly. And apparently none of them are where they’re supposed to be.”

I giggle, and for a moment he looks less like a cancer patient and more like my Papa again.

“Once I fall asleep,” he says, settling deeper into the bed, “you take some time for yourself. Rest a little.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re always fine.”

“I am.”

“Mmhmm.”

I know that sound.

It means I don’t believe you, but I’m too tired to argue.

He closes his eyes.

I wait until his face relaxes against the pillow before looking down at the book in my hands.

“Ready?”

His eyes remain closed, but both thumbs rise from beneath the blanket.

Two thumbs up.

His signature.

My smile grows despite myself.

The hardback is old enough that the corners have softened from years of being handled. I run my fingertips over the illustration on the cover—a little boy and his rose—before opening to the page where we stopped.

The familiar words settle me.

I begin reading.

“‘One only understands the things that one tames,’ said the fox. ‘Men have no more time to understa—’”

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEEEEEEEEP.

My head snaps up.

“Shit.”

The book slips from my lap and hits the floor.

For half a second, I only stare at the monitor because I don’t understand what I’m looking at.

Then I look at Papa.

His eyes are still closed.

“Papa?”

Nothing.

I stand so quickly the chair legs scrape violently across the floor.

“What is that?”

The machine keeps screaming.

“Papa, what does that mean?”

I reach for his hand.

The instant my fingers close around his, something inside me drops.

His skin is cool.

Too cool.

No.

He shouldn’t feel like that.

“Papa?”

I squeeze his fingers.

Nothing.

My heart begins hammering.

“Pa—Papa?”

I shake his arm gently at first.

Then harder.

“Papa!”

The door flies open.

Everything happens at once.

Hands grab my shoulders and pull me backward. Someone pushes me toward the corner as nurses rush around the bed. Gloves snap over wrists. A machine is dragged closer. Someone presses fingers against Papa’s neck while another tears open a drawer.

“What happened?” I ask.

No one answers me.

“What’s happening?”

A nurse climbs over him and begins pressing hard against his chest.

Once.

Twice.

Again.

His body moves beneath the force.

I stop breathing.

Someone cuts through the front of his hospital gown with scissors, exposing the chest I have seen a thousand times—the chest that smelled like Old Spice when I hugged him as a kid, the chest I used to fall asleep against while he watched television.

Now strangers are pressing on it.

Shouting over it.

Trying to make it work again.

Papa’s doctor appears beside the bed and begins giving orders, but her voice sounds impossibly far away.

Everything does.

The room seems to stretch.

People are moving quickly, yet somehow too slowly.

The monitor is screaming.

Someone says something about a pulse.

Another voice answers.

My Papa lies beneath all of them without moving.

“No.”

I don’t know whether I actually say it.

“Papa.”

Someone touches me.

I flinch.

A nurse wraps an arm around my shoulders and begins guiding me toward the door.

“No.”

My feet move anyway.

“No, wait. I need to stay with him.”

Or maybe I only think the words.

I can’t tell anymore.

My voice seems to have disconnected from the rest of me.

The hallway swallows us.

One moment I’m watching strangers fight for my grandfather’s life, and the next I’m sitting on a couch in the visitor waiting room with my hands lying uselessly in my lap.

The nurse crouches in front of me.

Her mouth moves.

I stare at it.

Nothing reaches me.

She touches my knee.

I nod because I think I’m supposed to.

Then she’s gone.

Maybe a minute passes.

Maybe five.

Maybe twenty.

Time doesn’t seem to work correctly anymore.

The nurse returns with a blanket and wraps it around my shoulders.

I’m still staring at the doorway when I hear my name.

“Summer?”

My mother’s voice.

“Summer, what happened?”

I turn.

Mom is rushing toward me.

She had left for barely any time at all. Coffee, maybe. A call. I can’t remember now. Whatever she’d been doing belongs to the world from before the monitor screamed.

She drops beside me and pulls me against her chest.

“My sunshine. What’s wrong?”

I smell her perfume.

That almost destroys me.

Her hands move over my hair, my shoulders, my face as though she’s searching for an injury.

“Oh, sweet girl, please tell me what’s wrong. You’re scaring me.”

I open my mouth.

Nothing comes out.

A woman steps toward us.

“Mrs. Valdez?”

Mom turns sharply.

“Yes?”

“I’m Dr. Andrews.”

The doctor’s expression changes before she says another word.

I know.

Some part of me knows before my mother does.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am. Your daughter was in the room when your father went into cardiac arrest. We didn’t realize she had witnessed the resuscitation until the physician called the time of death. I believe she may be in shock.”

Time of death.

The words enter my mind but refuse to make sense.

Death has a time?

A specific minute?

One second Papa exists and the next someone looks at a clock and decides he doesn’t?

“Would you like me to contact the chaplain or a grief counselor?”

Mom makes a sound I’ve never heard from her before.

“Oh, no.”

Her arms tighten around me.

“Mi Papi.”

The words break apart in her mouth.

“No.”

She shakes her head.

“No, that’s not possible. My father is strong.”

Her voice rises.

“He’s getting better. You told us he was getting better.”

Tears finally spill down my cheeks.

I don’t even feel them at first.

“Right?” Mom demands. “You said he was responding.”

The doctor says something about cardiac arrest.

Complications.

Unexpected.

I’m not listening.

All I hear is time of death.

“Where is my father?” Mom asks. “Can we see him?”

“I’ll check for you.”

The doctor steps away.

Mom doesn’t wait.

Of course she doesn’t.

She stands and heads toward Papa’s room with the determined stride of a woman who has decided reality itself is going to have to explain what the hell it thinks it’s doing.

Halfway there, she stops and turns back.

“Summer.”

I stare at her.

“I’m going to speak to the other doctor. Are you okay staying here for a moment? Maybe call your dad.”

Her grief is everywhere.

In her eyes.

Her trembling hands.

The hard set of her mouth.

At some point she has twisted her hair into a messy bun. Her earrings are gone. I have no idea when that happened.

Proud Mexican woman.

Full business mode activated.

Even grief is apparently going to have to wait until she has all the information.

“Summer.”

Her voice firms.

“Sunshine. I’m talking to you.”

I blink.

“Oh. Yeah, Ma.”

My voice doesn’t sound like mine.

“I’ll call Dad.”

She kisses my forehead and disappears through the doorway.

I wipe my face with the edge of the blanket.

Okay.

I can do this.

I reach into my back pocket, pull out my phone, and call Dad.

He answers almost immediately.

“My baby.”

His voice nearly breaks me.

“How is your Abuelito doing? And your mother?”

I can’t speak.

“Sweetie?”

My throat closes.

“Mija? Are you there?”

I press the phone harder against my ear.

“Summer, you’re scaring me. Put your mother on the phone.”

“I can’t.”

The words barely come out.

Silence.

Then his voice changes.

“What happened?”

“Papi…”

My breath catches so violently it hurts.

“Come here.”

I start crying again.

“Please. Come here now.”

“I’m on my way.”

No questions.

No hesitation.

“I’ll get there as fast as I can.”

The call ends.

I don’t lower the phone.

I simply stand in the hallway with a hospital blanket wrapped around my shoulders and the silent phone pressed to my ear, as though some part of me believes Dad might still be there if I don’t move.

Eventually Mom returns.

“Oh, baby.”

Her face crumples when she sees me.

“Have you been standing here this whole time?”

I don’t know.

“Come sit down. Did you get your dad?”

I nod.

“Daddy’s coming.”

“Okay.”

Mom exhales unsteadily.

“If he’s still at the mansion meeting with Damien like his schedule said, he’ll be here in about an hour.”

She guides me back into the visitor waiting room.

We sit.

She explains what the doctors have told her. Cardiac arrest. They don’t know exactly why it happened so suddenly. There may need to be an autopsy. There will be paperwork. Decisions.

Words.

So many f*****g words for something that should require only one.

Gone.

All I want is to go back into Papa’s room.

I want to pick up the book from wherever it fell.

I want to sit beside him.

I want to finish the story.

Fuck cancer.

The thought arrives with enough force to make my jaw tighten.

Fuck cancer.

Fuck cancer.

FUCK CANCER.

I don’t know how long we sit there.

At some point, Mom moves to the chair across from me. Her laptop appears on her knees. She begins calling family because apparently death doesn’t allow you the courtesy of collapsing. There are people to tell. Arrangements to make. Questions to answer.

I watch her speak quietly into the phone.

Then something begins bothering me.

A thought.

Small at first.

Persistent.

Papa’s death was too sudden.

I’ve spent enough time in hospital rooms to know what all those monitors are supposed to do. They watch everything. Heart rate. Oxygen. Blood pressure. They alert the nurses when something starts going wrong.

But nothing had warned us.

One second Papa was teasing Mom about pillows.

The next—

Gone.

No slow decline.

No frightening conversation with a doctor.

No final goodbye.

Just a sound from a machine and a hand suddenly too cold inside mine.

It feels wrong.

Not medically wrong.

I don’t know enough to decide something like that.

Just…

Wrong.

As though Papa wasn’t supposed to leave yet.

The thought is irrational, and I know it.

Still, I can’t shake it.

I had always imagined—if I ever allowed myself to imagine this at all—that Papa would somehow know when his time was coming. That he would prepare us in that quiet, stubborn way of his. Maybe he’d say something beautiful to Mom. Maybe he’d tease me until I cried and then pretend he hadn’t noticed.

There would be time.

There should have been time.

He should have gotten to say goodbye.

Right?

I rub my palms against my eyes.

Maybe this is grief.

Maybe grief makes you rewrite death into something you think you could survive.

Maybe grief makes you delusional.

It’s not like Death walks through the door and says, Hey, buddy. It’s time. Better say goodbye to everybody you love.

A humorless laugh almost escapes me.

Why did I expect death to be fair?

It isn’t.

It just comes.

Takes somebody you love at the worst possible moment and leaves everyone else standing there with pieces of a life they don’t know how to put back together.

A strange sensation crawls across the back of my neck.

I lower my hands.

Someone is watching me.

The certainty arrives so abruptly that I sit straighter.

I glance around without trying to make it obvious.

Mom is still across from me, talking quietly to Aunt Olivia. Her laptop is open. Her phone is pressed to her ear.

No one else is here.

I shift beneath the blanket.

Maybe grief makes you paranoid too.

Great.

Delusional and paranoid.

We’re doing fantastic, Summer.

I pull out my phone and begin answering messages. Friends. Family. People who somehow already know.

I’m so sorry.

Thinking about you.

Let me know if you need anything.

I type thank-yous I barely see.

Still, the sensation remains.

Someone is watching me.

Finally, I stand and move closer to Mom, choosing the chair in the corner facing the entrance.

Better.

Now I can see anyone who comes in.

Except no one does.

It’s still only us.

My skin prickles again.

A thought slips into my head.

Papa?

I look toward the empty doorway.

“Papa,” I whisper, barely loud enough for myself to hear. “Are you there?”

Nothing.

Oh God.

Does grief make you crazy too?

Apparently we’re collecting symptoms now.

I grab a magazine from the coffee table and flip through pages without absorbing a single word. Every few seconds, my eyes lift over the top.

Doorway.

Hall.

Empty chairs.

Wall—

I freeze.

Someone is standing there.

On the far side of the waiting room, half-shadowed by the angle of the wall, a man leans against it as though he has been there the entire time.

My heart gives a strange, hard beat.

How did I not see him?

He lifts his head.

Our eyes meet.

And every coherent thought in my brain promptly abandons me.

He’s tall.

Not regular tall.

Tall tall.

I’m only five-two, so most people have an unfair advantage, but this guy has to be at least a foot taller than me. His shoulders stretch beneath a fitted gray Henley, and the fabric does absolutely nothing to hide the heavy muscle beneath it.

Then there are the tattoos.

Holy s**t.

Ink begins at his neck and disappears beneath his shirt, covering both arms so completely that I can’t tell where one piece ends and another begins. Wherever skin is visible, there seems to be artwork beneath it.

Not random tattoos either.

At least not from this distance.

He looks like somebody turned his body into a canvas and then refused to stop.

His hair is black.

Not dark brown.

Black.

It falls around his face in loose, slightly shaggy curls, some of them dipping low enough to shadow the most ridiculous eyes I have ever seen.

Aqua.

Bright enough that for one irrational second I think they’re glowing.

I blink.

They’re still impossibly bright.

He looks young. Somewhere around my age, maybe a little older, although something about his face makes guessing difficult.

And he is—

Oh.

Wow.

Beautiful doesn’t seem like the right word for a man built like that, but handsome doesn’t come close enough either.

He’s f*****g incredible to look at.

Then my brain catches up with me.

Summer.

What the hell are you doing?

My grandfather died less than an hour ago, and I’m openly checking out some random man in a hospital waiting room.

Does grief short-circuit your brain?

Is that medically documented?

Because I may be Exhibit A.

I should look away.

I don’t.

Neither does he.

There’s something strange about the way he watches me.

Not flirtatious exactly.

Not curious.

Intent.

As though he’s trying to understand something he hadn’t expected to find.

That should make me uncomfortable.

Instead, I stare harder.

His gaze moves over my face, and suddenly I’m painfully aware of what I must look like.

Mascara smeared.

Eyes swollen.

Nose probably red.

Hair a mess.

Wrapped in a hospital blanket like a burrito experiencing a psychological crisis.

Perfect.

Absolutely irresistible.

The corner of his mouth lifts.

A slow smirk.

Oh my God.

He caught me staring.

Heat races into my face.

I still can’t look away.

This is humiliating.

There I am, having just lost one of the most important people in my entire life, staring at a stranger as though I’ve forgotten what day it is and somehow the answer is written across his face.

He probably thinks I’m insane.

Actually, considering the snot, smeared makeup, swollen eyes, and open staring, he probably thinks I’m heavily medicated.

I almost laugh.

Almost.

Then something changes.

The smirk disappears.

His face hardens.

The warmth—or whatever I imagined had been there—vanishes so completely that I wonder whether I invented it.

He pushes away from the wall.

For one strange second, his eyes remain fixed on mine.

Then he glares at me.

Actually glares.

And walks out.

I stare after him.

What the hell?

The strange spell breaks instantly.

Excuse me?

Why did he look at me like that?

That wasn’t neutral.

That wasn’t some awkward sorry I caught you staring at me glance.

That was pointed.

Directed.

At me.

Embarrassment collides with irritation.

What did I do?

Other than stare at him like a lunatic, obviously.

Okay, maybe that answers the question.

Still.

Something about the look bothers me.

Before I fully realize what I’m doing, I stand.

My blanket slips from one shoulder as I walk toward the doorway.

This is ridiculous.

I know it’s ridiculous.

Apparently knowing that doesn’t stop me.

I step into the hallway and follow the direction he went.

The corridor beyond the waiting room is empty.

I stop.

Where did he go?

I look left.

Then right.

Nothing.

There aren’t even adjoining corridors nearby. Just patient rooms, closed doors, muted conversations, and the steady electronic beeping of machines behind walls.

He couldn’t have disappeared that quickly.

Could he?

Maybe he stepped into one of the rooms.

Maybe he’s visiting somebody.

The thought sobers me.

Of course.

It’s a hospital.

If he’s here, somebody he cares about might be sick too.

I suddenly feel like an asshole.

I stand there another moment, staring at the empty hallway before shaking my head.

Whatever.

I hope whoever he’s here for gets better.

I turn toward the waiting room.

And just like that, the distraction disappears.

Grief is waiting exactly where I left it.

Second answer:

Yes.

Grief definitely makes you crazy.

I take two steps before strong arms close around me.

I gasp.

Then I smell him.

Dad.

“Oh, my sunshine.”

My entire body gives out.

“Daddy.”

The word breaks from me.

Thank God.

Thank God my daddy is here.

I turn and throw myself against him. His arms tighten around me immediately, crushing me to his chest, and suddenly I’m five years old again and nothing terrible can happen because my father is holding me.

I hear his heartbeat beneath my ear.

Steady.

Alive.

That almost hurts more.

He kisses the top of my head again and again.

“My little girl,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.”

I start crying before he finishes.

“I wish I could take your pain away. I wish I could make it so your grandfather didn’t have to leave this life.”

His voice is thick.

Dad loved Papa too.

That realization cracks something else inside me.

“Come,” he says gently. “Let’s find your mother.”

He keeps one arm around my shoulders as we return to the waiting room.

Mom is still on the phone with Aunt Olivia, but the moment she sees Dad, everything in her face changes.

“Olivia, I’ll call you back. Juan is here.”

Her voice trembles.

“Yeah. Keep me posted. Thank you, sister. Bye.”

She lowers the phone.

For one heartbeat, my parents simply look at each other.

Then Mom stands.

Dad crosses the room in two strides.

She barely gets her arms open before he reaches her.

He catches her around the waist and lifts her against him as though the weight of her grief is something he can carry if only she lets him. Mom folds into his body instantly.

Dad presses his forehead against hers.

“My love.”

His voice is low and steady, even though his eyes aren’t.

“I’m here.”

He kisses her.

Not desperately.

Not performatively.

Just slowly.

Tenderly.

The kind of kiss that carries an entire conversation no one else is meant to hear.

I’m here.

You’re not alone.

Fall apart if you need to.

I’ll hold what you can’t.

When they separate, Mom breaks.

“Oh, my love.”

A sob tears through her.

“Mi Papi. He left us.”

Dad wraps himself around her.

One hand cradles the back of her head while the other holds her against his chest. He doesn’t tell her not to cry. Doesn’t tell her to be strong. Doesn’t try to explain death or offer some useless reason this was supposed to happen.

He simply holds her.

My mother—the strongest woman I know—buries her face against his neck and falls apart.

And my father lets her.

Something twists painfully inside my chest.

I hate seeing her like this.

I know Dad does too.

I can see it in his jaw, in the way his eyes close briefly as he holds her tighter. The woman he loves is hurting, and there is nothing he can do to fix it.

He can protect her from people.

From danger.

From hardship.

But not this.

No one can protect someone from grief.

Still, watching them, I understand something I don’t think I’ve ever consciously understood before.

This is what love looks like when there is nothing left to fix.

It stays.

It holds.

It doesn’t demand that pain become smaller simply because witnessing it is uncomfortable.

Dad looks toward me.

“There, there, my little one,” he murmurs to Mom. Then he reaches one hand toward me. “Daughter. Come.”

He sets Mom gently on her feet but keeps one arm around her.

I don’t hesitate.

I take his hand.

He pulls me into his other side until both of us are tucked against him.

“Cry,” Dad whispers.

His cheek rests against the top of my head.

“If you need to cry, then cry. Let it all out.”

His arms tighten around us.

“I’ve got my girls.”

Mom’s hand finds mine between us.

“You’re safe,” Dad says. “Let go.”

So we do.

Mom cries for her father.

I cry for my Papa.

Dad holds both of us and carries what he can.

Somewhere beyond the waiting-room walls, machines continue beeping. Nurses walk through halls. Elevators open and close. People receive good news and terrible news. Someone is born. Someone dies.

The world continues moving with an indifference that feels almost cruel.

But inside my father’s arms, for a few moments, ours is allowed to stop.

We cry for Arturo Jesús Perez.

My Papa.

My Abuelito.

The man who wanted one more chapter of his favorite story.

Eventually, my tears slow.

My thoughts return to the room I still haven’t been able to make myself enter.

Papa isn’t hurting anymore.

There are no more needles.

No more radiation.

No more medication cocktails.

No more hospital beds or nausea or pretending he isn’t exhausted because he doesn’t want us to worry.

Cancer cannot touch him anymore.

That truth doesn’t make losing him hurt less.

But somewhere inside the grief, gratitude finds enough room to exist beside it.

I close my eyes against Dad’s chest.

I picture Papa beneath the willow instead of beneath hospital sheets.

Sunlight moving through the branches.

Tulips around the trunk.

His book open in his lap.

Two thumbs raised because he’s ready for me to keep reading.

And I hold on to that version of him.

Not the monitor.

Not the crash cart.

Not the moment his hand went cold.

Him.

Rest in peace, Papa.

I love you.