bARTknows

My father dies on a cold morning in January. I mute my phone for third time, seeing my parents' home number on the screen while in a business meeting with Richmond. She's probably calling to ask me if I've taken my calcium. The fourth consecutive call, however, doesn't go unanswered. Her words are desperate, simple, the 54 year old voice accented in fear, sadness, and an unmistakable eastern European accent:

"Your father had a heart attack. He is in the ambulance now. They took him to Piedmont Hospital. He is not dead, I don't think."

I lower the phone, my ears ringing from the nuclear warhead that detonates when I repeat her words in my mind. Everything around me echoes relentlessly in a frenzy of panic and disbelief. I sit down. I curse him for smoking all those years. Fuck. I curse his drinking and anxiety. He's not dead, I don't think. Excusing myself, I get in my car and drive, a million shadowed memories chasing me to the hospital.

**********
Thumbing the ring on my right hand middle finger, I set a swift pace to the ER. He gave me the ring when I returned from the Great Wave surf trip in January just two years prior. Its meant to be a symbol of protection and our boundless lifetimes. Suddenly, time makes itself apparent again. Boundless becomes meaningless, and I decide time is the only thing that survives itself.

The next moments are rather hazy in my memory. There are nurses, doctors, and more nurses. The forms I sign smell like warm ink overpowered by the rank sterility of the emergency ward. Past a few doorways, he lays awake, alive. I approach him without haste, my throat closing. His ring, an exact copy on his right hand middle finger, must come off. Slipping it onto my thumb, I hold his cold sweaty hand, promising to return it after his surgery.

They assign colors to the units ordered by the intensity of the situation. He is in red. My stomach turns. I've never seen so many tubes fed into a human being. I wonder what the green one with the white stripe is supplying? Vitamins? Morphine? Hope? Pain? His eyes open, filled with moist tears. They search his surroundings, retreating in the sharp light of the ICU. They find me. His hand moves. I am speechless. In a tired, barely audible tone, he mutters: "I treated myself so badly for so long. So much has been wrong. I am pissed off that this is what happened." Then a moment later, "I love you my son."

I give his hand a light squeeze. I realize I've been holding my breath for an hour. My throat won't let any air through. I give his hand another light squeeze. The lights in the room fade to a low dimness that you only see in twilight.

**********

When the phone rings two years later, nearly to the day, the trembling desperate eastern European voice on the other end barely utters one word and I know. The paralyzing sobriety of the situation pummels my senses. The truth of all I let go by the wayside reveals itself in stark contrast. He has not died. I call him at 1am thinking I'd never live with myself if he passed in the night. He says everything is fine. He will be fine.

I want him to leave. To come live with me; away from his stress. I want the means to protect him; to not feel powerless in the face of time's wrath; to not feel pain and horror when the phone rings and its my parents' home number on caller ID at midnight.