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By Makenna Miller
“Makenna, pull over.”
From my mom’s tone, I could tell she was serious. I knew that I wasn’t the best driver, but was I so bad that we had to stop practicing so abruptly? “Did I do something wro-”
That was when I saw my father clutching his chest in the passenger seat. He was there, but not entirely. He was no longer pretending to jolt forward every time I stepped on the brakes or calling me “speed racer.” The color had drained from his face, and his limbs seemed to want to convulse inwards on themselves. Like the undead, his eyes flicked to mine and reflected fear in the pupils of a man who wasn’t scared of anything.
Both the driver’s side door and the door behind me flung open simultaneously, and my mother and I toppled over one another in a hurry to switch places. In the back seat, my mind raced as my mom weaved through small town traffic, trying to escape the remote roads that we thought would be best for one of my first driving experiences. Unfortunately, I knew all too well what was happening. My dad’s first heart attack had been silent; it was kept hidden from me because I was only five at the time. All that had changed in my mind was we couldn’t have a bowl of ice cream every night after dinner anymore. Now, it was different. This heart attack was loud and happening in front of my eyes. Ten years after the first heart attack, I was able to understand the severity of the situation. Could I lose my father, the man who was meant to raise me, the man that quit his job so he could be there for me and my brother? Could it all end, just like that?
My dad had just gone on a thirty-mile-long bike ride the weekend before. He worked out every other day, and, for the most part, he didn’t even like greasy food. He monitored his blood pressure and took his medicine every day. Why was this happening? That was the thought that kept jumping back into my head. Did I cause this?
“Do you want me to stop at the women’s hospital?” My mom asked with desperation in her voice.
“No, the ER,” my father stumbled out. It sounded as if there was barely enough breath to support his words, as he remained folded on top of himself.
With the emergency room still a few miles down the highway, I watched as the women’s hospital blurred by. I wondered if that would be the moment that my mom and I would regret for the rest of our lives; if we stopped at the women’s hospital, would there have been a different outcome?
Minutes that felt like hours went by while I listened to the painful groans of my father, until we finally reached the emergency room. Immediately, my father got out of the car and stumbled towards the door. Like a zombie, his feet staggered over one another, and his right hand stayed glued to his chest.
The receptionist looked at us without an ounce of sympathy in her eyes, surely exhausted from the surge of COVID-19 victims that filled the hospital beds just behind the door to her right. The tears in my eyes and the agony on my father’s face did not cue the receptionist into the urgency that the ER was supposed to be notorious for. Maybe the masks glued to our faces blocked out empathy, as well as the virus. The receptionist asked us questions about insurance and had us fill out paperwork while my father gripped the front desk so he did not topple over. Eventually, a nurse came out to take my mom and dad to the back, but, as per the rules of the pandemic, I had to remain in the waiting room, alone.
Despite the mess of patients that spilled into the halls just beyond the door where my family had been taken, there was not another soul around me. All the other family members of patients had to wait for updates inside Zoom rooms while I used my mask to wipe my tears. I made my way to a corner of the room that was tucked away from the view of the front desk. Behind the tan chairs were tan walls where natural lighting dissipated into the staleness of the air. In an attempt to keep my last ounce of composure, I made myself watch the Home Improvement channel, but all I could think about was my dad.
His hard work. His humbleness. Not only had my father built the house we lived in, but he built the family inside. Don’t get me wrong, there were times when the endless teasing would make me want to slam doors, but it thickened my skin. At the end of the day, what mattered was that he always came through. From countless hours teaching me how to implement the drop step into my basketball game to numerous instances of him providing free manual labor to his friends and family, my dad was always there when someone nearby needed help. Coming from my father, a hug was rare, but there was always a home-cooked meal from him waiting for me at the end of the day. I needed the opportunity to appreciate him for everything he was—for everything he gave.
After spending an eternity waiting, I finally got word that they had put a stent in my father’s heart and that he would be okay. Every muscle in my body untensed all at once. At this moment, I was also informed by my mother that my father had been feeling slight chest pains before we ever even left the house, but he had wrongly determined that it wasn’t anything to worry about. Immense relief toppled over me. My mom and I wouldn’t have to regret not taking the exit to the women’s hospital, and I wouldn’t have to hold a grudge against the ER receptionist for the rest of my life. All I would have to deal with was my father joking that it was my driving that caused him to have a heart attack, but he was allowed to give me a hard time because all that mattered was that he still could.
About the Author:
Makenna is a third-year student at the University of Illinois Springfield studying English with a minor in Management Information Systems. As a future editor, she enjoys writing poetry and short stories. In her free time, she frequently cooks, exercises, and reads.