Christmas Without You
by Rob Warr
Chapter 2
I watched mom pick up the phone and in her usual cheery voice she said, "Hello. Yes, this is Liz. Oh, hello Dan, what's...? Oh, my God, no, no, no, where did they take him? Yes, thank you, Dan, I'll head that way. Yes, goodbye, thank you, I will..."
By the time she hung up the phone and turned to me I knew something awful had happened, but I didn't know what or to whom. Then it hit me, it must be dad because she had mentioned Dan's name, and Dan was the friend dad had gone to visit. But what could it be...?
"Mom...what is it? Is it dad, did something happen to dad?''
She looked flustered and began scrambling around then, looking for something before finally grabbing her purse. Only then did she seem to notice me, and when she did her face grew even paler.
"MOM, you're scaring me," I said, tears welling up in my eyes.
She sighed, "It's dad," she said, a slight whimper in her voice, "he's in the hospital. I need to go to him, now," she said, "but I'm going to call Eric's mom and see if you can stay there while I'm gone."
"No, mom, please, take me too. I want to see dad," I wailed, sounding more like a two-year-old then a ten-year-old.
"They won't let anyone your age in the room, not now, anyway, and I need you to be strong, baby, and do what I tell you, please..." she begged.
"What about Sammy and Linda, they'll be home soon, shouldn't I stay here and wait for them and tell them what happened?"
"Oh, dear," she said as if just remembering she had two other kids.
Fortunately, the oldest of those two other kids suddenly walked in the front door, and headed our way.
"What's going on..." Linda asked, looking from one of us to the other and quickly assessing the situation. Something was wrong, terribly wrong and she knew it.
"It's dad," mom said, "stay here with your brother, I've got to go to the hospital. I'll call you as soon as I find out what's going on."
"But...what is it? Did he have a wreck or something?" she said following mom to the front hall closet, where mom retrieved her coat, "they're not sure, not a wreck, he just collapsed...that's all I know."
Linda followed her to the garage and I finally joined them just as the huge garage door began rolling upwards.
"MOM!" Linda shouted, but if mom heard her she ignored her anguished cries and backed into the street. A moment later the door began to roll down, blotting out the view of mom's car as it rocketed forward.
"Damn," Linda said, in a rare moment of potty mouth.
"Linda..." I sniffled, "what are we gonna do?"
"She sighed, "All we can do is wait...wait for mom to call...and...pray," she said, tears staining her big brown eyes.
"What if he...?"
"Don't, don't you dare say that!" my sister barked, having anticipated my question in advance.
I wilted, "Linda, will you...give me a hug?"
She wilted then and pulled me into her arms, her bravado and anger seeping away from her like a tire losing pressure after running over a nail. There we stood, the two of us hugging each other for dear life when we suddenly heard the front door open and slam shut.
"Come on," Linda said pulling away, "that's probably Sammy."
"Hey, what's going on?" Sammy said when he saw us enter through the door from the garage, "Mom came barreling down the street so fast I expected the cops to be chasing her," he chuckled, but when he saw our faces his laughter faded and his face began to drain of color, "What...what's wrong?"
"It's dad," Linda said, trying to compose herself as best she could, "he's in the hospital. We don't know much, just that he collapsed and they took him to the hospital..."
"What, when?" Sammy asked of no one as he tried to wrap his head around the news, "Dad's never been sick a day in his life...so...it can't be too serious...right?"
"Yeah, yeah, you're right," I said clinging to that little tidbit of hope as a drowning man might cling to a life preserver, "probably just overworked, or maybe food poisoning or something..."
"I don't know," Linda said seeming to take no solace in our hopeful reasoning, "I've never seen mom so...so, upset," she added softly as she ran her fingers through her reddish brown locks. She had taken after dad, as had Sammy, but mom's genes were dominant in me as we both had blond hair and blue eyes, while Sammy and Linda favored dad with his reddish brown hair and big soulful brown eyes.
The phone ringing brought us out of our stupor and I was first to reach it, "Hello! Oh, hi Eric," I said, my fear at least abated for the moment as I had been expecting even more bad news, "I can't talk now. It's my dad, he's in the hospital. I don't know, he just collapsed. Yeah, mom is going there now. I don't know. I really need to go in case mom calls. Hey, thanks...yeah, sure...if you want...okay, see you soon."
"Eric's coming over," I said casually as I hung up the phone, "his mom is bringing him."
"Sure, why not?" Linda said, being the oldest I'm sure she felt as if she were in charge now. "We can call in a pizza or something...later."
I nodded, then stifled a sob as I thought about mom's earlier comment about asking dad to stop by Mazzios and bring pizza home. Poor dad was in a hospital room right now, and who knew what was going on with him. I couldn't, and wouldn't let myself believe the worst, however, people went in the hospital all the time and got better and came home and lived a long time. Dad would too.
"I'm gonna wait out front for Eric," I said heading to the closet to grab my coat. I needed some air and some space, but not too much space.
"Eric's mom, Juanita, pulled up about twenty minutes later and the two got out of the car and came over to meet me as I rose from the porch.
"Sweetie, any news yet?" Eric's mom said hugging me tight, her enormous breasts almost smothering me.
"No, ma'am, not yet," I said pulling away slightly but allowing her to continue to hold me.
"He'll be fine, darlin'," she said kissing the top of my head, "do you want me to stay with y'all till you hear from your momma?"
"I don't know, maybe you should ask Linda and Sammy, they're inside. Come on, it's cold out here anyway," I said finally turning my attention to Eric. We bumped fists and Eric slipped an arm around me and gave me a one-armed hug before allowing me to lead the way.
Linda and Sammy loved Juanita, and both accepted a hug from her before inviting her to sit down. We all sat around talking for a few minutes as we shared all we knew so far, and afterwards Juanita tried to reassure us that everything would be fine.
She extended her offer again to stay with us, but Linda and Sammy seemed to think it wasn't necessary, and I didn't protest. However, we all agreed that Eric could stay, and even sleep over. At hearing that news, Eric grinned and said he'd brought his stuff, just in case. That caused all of us to smile, if only for a minute.
When Juanita was gone, Eric and I went to my room and he dropped his gym bag in my desk chair, then came over to sit with me on my bed. He seemed at a loss for words at first, but then as if remembering something, he brightened and said, "Do you want to pray with me...for your dad?"
I almost cried then. I knew Eric's folks were very religious and even went to church regularly, but his offer still struck me as being the kindest and most personal thing anyone could ever offer. Unable to speak, I simply nodded, hoping Eric would do the praying, lest I break down completely.
He began, "Dear Lord, We come to you in prayer for Tommy's dad, Mr. Yates and we pray that you will watch over him while he's in the hospital and make him well again. Please Lord, bring him back to his family and his friends, cause we all love him and he's a good man. Also, please help Tommy and Sammy and Linda and Mrs. Yates and all of us get through this, and to understand better your ways. Amen."
I was crying softly by the time he ended but somehow managed to choke out a little 'Amen' of my own.
He hugged me then and comforted me as I had him that first day of kindergarten that seemed so long ago, and yet was only four short years ago. Eric was closer to me than my own brother at times, and after that night and that prayer we became even closer. Which was a good thing, because I really needed someone considering what was about to happen.
Authors deserve your feedback. It's the only payment they get. If you go to the top of the page you will find the author's name. Click that and you can email the author easily.* Please take a few moments, if you liked the story, to say so.
[For those who use webmail, or whose regular email client opens when they want to use webmail instead: Please right click the author's name. A menu will open in which you can copy the email address (it goes directly to your clipboard without having the courtesy of mentioning that to you) to paste into your webmail system (Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo etc). Each browser is subtly different, each Webmail system is different, or we'd give fuller instructions here. We trust you to know how to use your own system. Note: If the email address pastes or arrives with %40 in the middle, replace that weird set of characters with an @ sign.]
* Some browsers may require a right click instead
