***
Everything was a blur, seen through a sleep-fueled haze, and leftover tears induced from a just interrupted dream, a dream that had unfortunately been based on an unfolding reality. Calvin was dying.
Sarah Leeson stood, wedged between the recliner she’d been sleeping on and the wall on which her back was now pressed. In front of her, her only child lay on a bed, doctors and nurses scurrying about him. There were beeps, pings, and wails from various machines mingling with the frantic verbiage of medical personnel fighting what she knew to be a losing battle.
She’d seen this scenario play out before.
Nearly three years ago her husband suffered a heart attack. The heart attack was the merciful ending to Pete Leeson’s courageous, albeit unsuccessful battle against cancer. He’d fought the disease for eighteen months, running up a mountain of false hopes and medical bills before the heart attack had mercifully brought what cancer had threatened all along. It was life’s irony, she’d thought then as she’d watched the doctors and nurses frantically try to save a man who was dying anyway.
Now here she was again, losing another man from her life, a young man who’d had so much promise and who had desperately tried to fill his father’s shoes. It had been a desperation that had undoubtedly contributed to her son being here. No, she said to herself, pushing the thought away. She would not blame Pete’s death on this. Still, she needed to lash out at someone or something.
The maddening activity soon trickled to a stop. A restless and uneasy calm fell over the room, washing over her as the cacophony of death battling medical noises morphed into a single elongated ping. She shifted from behind the recliner and slid down the wall onto her backside, pressing her thighs up against her bosom. “Why, God, why?” her anguished screamed slashed through the hospital room.
Fathers House: A Preview Page 5