As I sat up reaching for the phone, I could still hear the television in the living room going. Dad’s insomnia had been getting worse the longer he had been sick, and he’d taken to late night TV viewing. Mom and I were fine with it as long as he kept off the politics that just made him angry no matter what party they were talking about. Instead, he had taken to watching reruns of sports highlight shows and old westerns. I could hear John Wayne in the living room and the subtle sounds of Dad drinking a glass of ice water.
I looked down at the phone and saw Rebecca’s name pop up. What in the world could she be calling me at three forty in the morning for? Unless…
“Tell me you didn’t have the baby,” I said before she could say anything.
“Well, I didn’t,” came a male voice on the other end. “But Rebecca did.”
“Deacon?” I asked.
“Yup,” the voice said. “Nice to finally meet you, Helen.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, laughing. “Congratulations! How is she?”
“She’s great,” Deacon said. “But she forbade me to give you any other details about the baby until you came up here and saw for yourself.”
“What are visiting hours?” I asked.
“Well, for new babies, it’s kind of whenever,” he said. “If you come up here and I approve you coming in, they will let you through. Rebecca said no rush.”
“You tell her I said congratulations and I’ll see you all in a little bit.”
Deacon laughed. “Alright then. She’ll be happy. She speaks very highly of you.”
I smiled. It warmed my heart that someone I only barely knew thought enough of me to speak that kindly of me—and to call me when she had her baby. She was the only person I had met in town that kind of looked a little like me. Punky and full of energy, even enormously pregnant, Rebecca reminded me of my friends in Chicago.
“Well, I think rather highly of her too,” I said. “See you guys in a bit.”
With that, I hung up and reached over to grab my water bottle that always sat on the nightstand next to my bed.
Slipping out of the bed, I went over to my dresser to grab some underwear. Living alone had been bad for me. I tended to sleep naked, with a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt draped over the foot of the bed in case something weird happened in the middle of the night. But since I had come back to Ashford, I was trying to get into the habit of wearing pajamas. It wasn’t sticking well. I had a bad habit of waking up and tossing them off before going back to sleep, unaware of my late-night striptease.
Apparently, I had removed my clothes again, the nightshirt tossed and balled up by my dresser and the panties by the dirty clothes basket.
Grabbing clothes from the dresser and the closet, I dressed myself mostly in the dark in yoga pants and a T-shirt.
Dad was awake in his chair and watched me as I came out of my room. I kissed him on the top of the head and he grinned at me.
“Where you going?” he asked. “It’s barely sunrise.”
“My friend had a baby,” I said.
“You’re going all the way to Chicago right now?” he asked.
“No, Dad,” I said, laughing. “One of my friends here. A waitress at Dina’s.”
“Oh, that Rebecca girl!” he said. “She’s so sweet. All the pretty tattoos.”
“That’s her,” I said.
“It’s nice you have a friend in her. She’s good people. Tell her Dina and I say congratulations.”
“I will, Daddy. Are you okay? Is there anything I can get you?” I asked.
“No, I’m fine. Your momma won’t stop fussing over me anyway. She works too hard, Helen.”
“I know, Daddy,” I said, grimacing a little.
“But now that we have you down here, she can step back from the diner a bit more,” Dad said, being a little more candid and clearer in his thoughts in the early morning hours. This was the clearest I had heard him speak in days. “You go see your friend. I’ll be fine. Probably going to go to bed when this movie is over.”
“Okay,” I said. “Sleep well.”
“I will, sweetheart. Drive safe,” he said.
“I will,” I said.
Waving, I left through the front door and had to hold back a tear as I got into the car. I hated seeing him deteriorate like he was. I knew the medicine was fighting his sickness, but it made him weak and fragile in ways I had never seen him. Still, he never failed to tell me to drive safe. Ever since I got behind the wheel of a car for the first time, he said it every single time. An instruction I dared not ever disobey.
The hospital was surprisingly crowded for early morning.