Maggie looked down at the tablet with a sigh, and turned it off. “Sure, how about now?” she answered.
It wasn’t quite what John had in mind, but it was better than nothing. He happily picked up his mug, and they made their way together to the cafeteria.
Mike boarded his flight at 5:30 in the morning, and found himself in his seat, not quite sure of how he had gotten there. When had he last seen his father? It had been a year ago, over the Christmas break. No, he realized with a pang of guilt. He’d been dating someone, and went to Mexico with her for the holidays. Was it two years then?
He pictured his dad’s face as it was the last time he saw him. He was healthy then. Why, his mother had posted photos on Flickr of an all day hike that she and Mike’s dad had done that summer. He was still active.
Six hours later, after anguishing over his father’s health the entire time and feeling increasingly guilty for not visiting sooner, he arrived at Madison Airport terminal. It was just before lunch, local time, and snow flurries were starting to come down while the plane taxied to the gate. Mike tried his mom again by mobile phone while the plane was taxiing in, but the call went right to voicemail. He tried not to get frustrated as he craned his head over the crowd on the plane. Why couldn’t his mother keep her mobile phone on?
He absentmindedly thought that there should be a mobile phone app for monitoring the condition of someone checked into a hospital. He gritted his teeth in yet more frustration with himself. Even at a critical time, he still couldn’t stop his brain from coming up with more ideas. He glanced again at the email from his mother.
From: JoAnn Williams
To: Mike Williams
Subject: your father
Body:
Mike, your father had a heart attack this morning. He is in the critical care ward at Meriter Hospital. I’m at the hospital with him. Sorry to send this email, but cell phones don’t work here, and there’s a computer in the room here. I know you check your email constantly.
Please fly out on the next plane you can get and meet us at the hospital. Hurry!
Meriter was one of the larger hospitals in Madison. Mike picked up a rental car at the airport, and swore at himself as he heavy-footed the throttle and sent the wheels spinning. The snowfall was getting heavier, and by the time he parked at the hospital, there was a two inch accumulation on the ground.
Turning his coat collar up, Mike made his way to the visitor’s entrance. He gave his father’s name at the reception desk as he briskly rubbed his hands together. He hadn’t been thinking clearly. He was dressed for the above-freezing temperatures of Portland, not the twenty degree temperatures of Madison. The white-haired receptionist slowly shook her head and asked Mike again for the name. Mike told her again, spelling it out carefully. Mike waited, bouncing on his heels with anxiety as she searched again.
“Sorry, son. There’s no record that your father is here.”
“That’s impossible. My mother said he was here. He had a heart attack yesterday.”
“I’m sorry, but there’s no record of him being here.”
“Could he have been here, but checked out? Could they be here under my mother’s name?”
The receptionist checked again, and checked for his mother’s name, but sadly shook her head both times. “I’m real sorry. Could they be at another hospital?”
Mike looked again at the email from his mother, which clearly stated Meriter Hospital. He supposed his mother could have made a mistake, being worried herself. He jumped as the phone buzzed in his hand.
A new email from his mother. Cryptically it told him to come to his parent’s home in Boscobel, a two hour drive. Mike looked back out through the lobby doors. A two hour drive in good weather, and a three or four hour drive in what was now looking like a serious snowstorm.
Mike thanked the receptionist, and walked away to a corner of the lobby. Sitting on a bench next to a towering potted plant, Mike called his parent’s house phone, only to hear the buzzing tone he knew indicated the landlines were down. He cursed the phone company. It was a frequent occurrence for his parent’s rural town during heavy snows, which was the only reason he had even gotten his mother to get mobile phones for herself and his father. He tried their mobile phones again, but was bounced to voicemail.
He replied to his mother’s email, and sat on the bench. The receptionist smiled at him, and he wanly smiled back, and then avoided looking at the counter again. He waited ten minutes for a response, phone in a sweaty death grip. His mother never answered him. The odds were good that Internet access was out if the phone lines were out too. He was confused. How had she sent the latest email to him?
At last Mike trudged reluctantly back to the car, and settled in for the drive to Boscobel. He couldn’t imagine what the hell had inspired his mother to tell him to fly into Madison if there was no record of them at the hospital. He played out different options in his mind. He had wondered again if his mother had gotten the hospital wrong. If they had been at a different hospital, and that other hospital had released his father, it was conceivable that they could be home already. But why would his parents have gone all the way to Madison unless the heart attack was quite serious? He turned on his blinker and merged onto the highway.
Mike felt emotionally wrung out from hours of concern over his dad, and physically tired from flying all morning. Then he drove almost four grueling hours with no tire chains in a snowstorm that threatened to shut down the highway. When he finally arrived at his parents’ driveway, he released his aching hands from the steering wheel and closed his eyes for a minute.
Then he opened the car door and stepped out into a foot of snow. The house was already decorated with Christmas lights, and smoke rose from the chimney. He walked up the path to the house feeling the snow leaking into his sneakers, and rang the doorbell.
His mother opened the front door a few seconds later, her face turning to an expression of total shock. What was he doing there a week early, and in a blizzard of all things, and come in of course. His mother’s words came out tumbling all over each other.
Then he suddenly found himself standing in his parent’s living room. The Christmas tree was up already, and a fire blazed in the background. His mother wore a dress, and had an apron on, just as she always did. His father came up wearing a wool sweater, giving him a rough hug. Mike was so glad to see his father feeling healthy and hale, he started crying.
“What is going on?” his mother finally asked. “You aren’t supposed to be here until next week. Why the crying?”
Mike pulled out his phone. “Mom, I got this email from you saying that Dad was in the hospital with a heart attack. It said to fly out right away. I’ve been traveling since 5 am.”
“I haven’t sent no such thing. My God son, how worried you must have been.” She rubbed his arm with one hand, and pushed him into the room with the other.
“So Dad’s fine? There was no heart attack?”
“No, of course not. If your father had a heart attack, do you think I’d send you an email? I’d call you, of course.” She frowned at him, and gave the phone Mike still held in his hand an even darker look. “I don’t know what that is, but I didn’t send it.”
Mike stood in the middle of the living room speechless.
“Come on then, don’t just stand there. Come in the kitchen with me.” She bustled toward the kitchen, somehow pushing and pulling him simultaneously until he found himself in the kitchen. “I don’t know if this is a late lunch, or an early dinner, but I just can’t welcome you home properly without a meal.”