Nine Gates of Hell (14/?)
Part 14
Zooey looked like crap. That was the first thing I noticed, she was wearing old, faded jeans that were frayed around the bottom, ugg boots and my old college sweatshirt. I was too distracted to even be angry at her for having it. She’d folded herself into my arms before I’d made it to the elevator. I pulled back slightly trying to get a look at her face.
“You okay?” She nodded against my shoulder before catching a glimpse of David over my shoulder and waving a hand weakly at him.
“You been taking care of my sister?” It was supposed to sound like a threat, but came out as a strangled whisper.
“Always” he agreed rubbing a hand against my shoulder reaching the other out to call the elevator to us.
“What are you doing down here? Where’s mum?” Zooey’s arms stayed wrapped around me as she answered.
“They’ve taken Dad to the cardio unit, I guess they want to keep him in overnight or something, mum was worrying at him, I had to leave” I nodded, it sounded like good news, anything that wasn’t intensive care sounded like good news to me.
“He’s stable?”
“Yeah” she confirmed. “God Em, he really had me worried for a while there. What would I do without him?” I wiped a few tears from her cheeks as the elevator dropped to our floor before steering her in to the metal carriage.
“Hey, you’d get through it. We all would. But it’s gonna be okay, it sounds like he’s going to be fine. Let’s just head up there and see him. You’ll see” Zooey had always been a Daddy’s girl, which was just fine with me, Mum and I were kindred spirits. We both worried a little too much and both happy to stay close to home, with family. Dad and Zooey wanted to see it all, they were creative, they wanted to explore and feel everything, sometimes I envied their passion.
As the elevator shuffled slowly to the sixth floor Zooey’s head fell to rest against my shoulder while I held her securely to my side with one arm. David leant casually against the wall next to me our eyes locked together in a silent conversation as he offered the strength I would need to support my sister and later my mother.
Zooey continued to cling to me as we made our way down the hallway to our father’s hospital room and I was suddenly reminded of the little girl who had spent so many years crawling into my bed during the night her body shaking from silent tears. Zooey was always the one who had problems at school, the one that people thought was weird. It didn’t matter what country we were in, what school we went to or how many people knew who our parents were. Zooey was the freak, I was the popular one.
I was the cool drama kid and Zooey was the geeky musician. Someone was always picking on her, if I ever saw then I’d put a stop to it, but I couldn’t follow my little sister around all the time. More often than I would have liked somebody hurt her. She’d put on a strong face for our parents but most nights she’d slip into my bedroom, sometimes it would be the evening and she’d bring her homework asking about complicated quadratic equations that I couldn’t care less about, sometimes it was later, just as I was falling asleep. I didn’t mind, even after I started college and she began calling me at all hours, wanting me to talk to her until she fell asleep. I’d tell her stories about how things would be in ten years time, how she’d be showing everybody up at her 10 year reunion, sometimes I’d tell her about my acting classes and my friends, if our parents noticed the huge phone bills then they never said anything.
Until that moment I’d forgotten the vulnerable little girl who would slip into my bed and cling to me in the middle of the night. I only saw the confident, successful woman she’d become, just as I’d always promised she would. I wondered when the transformation had happened, how had I been too busy to notice. Had I failed in protecting her? No, there was nothing I could have done to prevent what happened to our father, but I promised in that moment that I would keep a better eye on Zooey in the future, it was my duty after all.
I pulled Zooey close for a few seconds before releasing her “Come on, we better make sure Mum hasn’t spontaneously combusted yet” Zooey offered a weak laugh at the pathetic joke, though it sounded more like a hiccup.
“I’ll wait out here” David spoke up, I’d almost forgotten he was there. I nodded, glad that David understood the need for a few moments of family time. He’d be there when we were ready to go.
He looked tiny against the stark white hospital bed, tubes protruding from his body. Zooey’s hand gripped tightly to mine, I squeezed back trying to reassure her that he’d be fine, even though I had no idea whether he would be. Mum looked equally tiny in her lone hospital chair, but she was after all a small woman to begin with.
“Hey Ma” I wrapped an arm around her shoulder, the other stayed in Zooey’s hand.
“Emily, how did you get her so fast, I thought you were at the beach this week?” I let my hand fall down and wrap in hers, her fingers were cold and the skin waxy, when had my mother become so old?
“We were heading back today anyway, we just left a little earlier than planned” I explained.
“Oh, is James with you?” For a moment I was shocked, my break-up with James seemed so much a part of history that I’d forgotten I hadn’t told my parents yet.
“Um, no”
“They broke up” Zooey supplied, I glared at her, I’d been hoping to keep it from Mum a little longer, she didn’t need to worry about me.
“Oh Sweetie, I’m so sorry, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was planning to tell you when I got back, then this happened” That much was true, I’d planned to tell her when we got back.
“What happened” I heard Zooey snort slightly behind me knowing she was amused by what I was about to explain.
“So he’s outside?” Mum asked when I’d finished explaining what had happened in the last week with a few things excluded from the story.
“Yeah, David’s outside” Her only response was to nod, I had no idea whether she approved or not and didn’t have a chance to ask as Dad took that moment to cough quietly.
Zooey was at his side first one hand clasped into his the other searching once again for mine.
“Dad?”
“Hey Kiddo”
“How are you feeling Dad?” I joined Zooey at his side.
“Tired, but otherwise okay”
“That’s good. I’ll go get the doctor if you like” I knew that Dad was likely to downplay any pain he was having and any accurate view of his condition would have to come from a doctor and suddenly being the strong one was proving difficult.
By the time I made it into the hallway the tears were already falling, whether it was from relief that he was okay or the knowledge that one day he wouldn’t be, one day neither of them would be. I’d never thought of what might happen once my parents could no longer be around. David had me wrapped in his arms before I’d gone three steps and he steered me to one of the plastic chairs along the hall.
“Hey, it’s okay, what happened? I thought your sister said your Dad was alright” I nodded, taking in great gulps of air and trying to calm myself.
“He is. He’s awake. He says he’s fine. I don’t know, it’s just it got too much. And...”
“It’s okay I get it” He pulled me back against him.
“I’m glad you’re here” I was about to lean up and kiss him when I realised where we were and how much we did not need a scandal, instead I squeezed his thigh gently. “I need to go find a doctor”
“Hey, I can do that, if you want to chill here a little longer” I shook my head and threw pleading eyes in his direction “Okay” he conceded “Let’s go”
For once the doctor was easy to find, he was standing at the nurse’s station. He seemed to recognise us despite never having met either of us before.
“Mr Deschanel’s daughter, that’s right?” His accent was southern and seemed out of place in the LA hospital.
“Yes. He’s awake”
“Aah, that’s wonderful. I’ll come down in a couple of minutes and see how he’s doing”
“Thankyou” seeing no reason to remain at the nurse’s station with the doctor staring at us, along with a few nurses who appeared to be ogling David, either because of his fame or his attractiveness so we headed back to the room.
“It’s gonna be okay Em” he whispered as we once again stood outside the hospital room that held my entire immediate family within. I nodded, I wanted to believe him, I tried to believe him. If I was going to be the strong one then I needed to believe him.