I nodded, trying to gather my chaotic thoughts. “Okay,” I replied.
The paramedic began his first question, and I felt like throwing up. Bastian squeezed my shoulder again and I felt stronger. I could do this. With a deep breath, I focused on the paramedic and began to answer his questions.
Chapter 8
I watched the sun rise from it's morning resting place to crest at high noon through a window in the bedroom adjacent to the one my father and Dr. Verner were in. Outside, the world was sunny and bright, full of bright green and cerulean that seemed at utter contradiction with what was going on in my world.
Daddy.
I had nearly lost him. I still could lose him. The idea of losing both him and my mother was just something I wasn't ready to come to terms with yet.
Bastian had helped carry Dad up to his room with the paramedics. He had even sat with me for a little while, but he had a company to run and couldn't sit with us all day. I had replayed it in my head for the past couple of hours.
“Are you going to be okay?” Mr. Belrose asked, putting his phone in his pocket and sighing. His eyes watching my face carefully.
I looked over at my dad, laying on the bed with the doctor watching the monitors attached to his chest. My soul was shaking.
“I'm not sure...” I whispered. “But you should go.”
He hesitated. “Really, I can stay with you if you'd like. I can cancel meetings. They're just meetings.”
For a moment I considered having him stay. I felt better when he was with me. He had practically saved Dad's life after all. When he was around, I couldn't help but feel like I was safe. Like he would never let anything happen to me. Like Dad would be okay as long as Mr. Belrose was nearby. It didn't make any sense, but then, nothing today made much sense.
“No,” I told him, putting on my closest approximation of a smile. “You should go to work. I'll let you know if there's any updates.”
He frowned, his dark brows coming to a beautiful point. I didn't know why he wanted to stay with me. Maybe he just felt sorry for me. Maybe he saw something of himself in my situation. I knew he couldn't possibly want to stay because he had any interest in me. That was just crazy thoughts. He was a billionaire with far better things to do than sit with a random girl who wouldn't do the Degas painting first.
“I'm fine. I was actually thinking of taking a nap,” I lied. I didn't want to feel guilty about having him stay with me instead of running his billion dollar company. I wasn't worth that.
“If you need anything,” he said, pausing to make sure I understood. “You let me or Charlotte know.”
After he reluctantly left, my nerves had kicked into high gear again.
When I started pacing the floor, Dr. Verner and my father had kicked me out of the room so they could concentrate. Instead of sitting and fretting, I worked. I went through all the paintings in the hallway and started on an empty bedroom just to keep myself busy. While Dr. Verner with his van of equipment ran his tests and kept my father calm in his room, I let antique paintings and furniture distract my mind from the potential doom that could still fall upon my family.
I was sitting in the doorway of a bedroom, waiting for an update from the room at the end of the hall while I put in the details of a very nice Matisse sketch, when Charlotte came by with a tray with tea and some food on it.
“How's it going?” she asked, settling the tray of tea and cheese and crackers on the floor next to me before sitting herself. “Bastian would like an update as soon as there's any news. He's trapped in a meeting or he would have come down himself.”
“Nothing yet,” I replied, glancing at the closed door. I picked up the tea pot and poured a cup. It smelled wonderful, and a little bit like lavender. “Are you sure this is okay? I feel like we should be at a hospital.”
Charlotte smiled gently and put her hand on my shoulder. “It's more than okay. Dr. Verner is the best.” She shrugged. “Besides, why go to the hospital if you don't have to? Dr. Verner has all the same equipment.”
“But...” I set the cup down in my lap and sighed. It just felt strange, but I supposed medicine could be practiced anywhere. It was just odd to think of her father getting lab work without having to go to the lab. Add on to that, that I was sure we couldn't actually afford Dr. Verner's services. I was fairly certain he wasn't covered on our insurance.
“It's one of the perks of working for a billionaire,” Charlotte assured me, as if reading my mind. “Don't worry. These kind of things are why Dr. Verner is on Bastian's payroll. Your dad's in good hands.”
I played with my teacup, spinning the delicate china around in my fingers. If I dropped it, it would shatter and the similarity to my father's life frightened me.
“You need to eat something,” Charlotte coaxed, handing me a cracker with cheese on it. “Or you'll get hangry.”
Her reference to this morning made me smile and I took the cheese. Despite knowing that it was probably the best, most expensive cheese on the whole island, it was tasteless to me. I chewed automatically, more to make Charlotte happy than because I was hungry.
The door at the end of the hallway swung open and I jumped to my feet, nearly spilling my cup of tea. I set it on the tray, spilling most of it, before hurrying to talk with Dr. Verner.
“Does he need to go to the hospital? Is he going to be okay?” I asked, the words coming out faster than I had intended. “What's wrong with him?”
Dr. Verner straightened the stethoscope around his shoulders. “He's stable for now, but I want him to stay in bed and wear the heart monitor for a while.” He motioned to the tea and crackers. “Please, have a seat.”
I anxiously hurried over to my spot and sat down, hands in my lap eagerly awaiting the doctor's news. He didn't look tired, which I took as a good sign, but the last time a doctor told me to “take a seat,” my whole world had spiraled out of control. “So?”
Dr. Verner's face was serious and he took a deep breath before giving me the news. “Your father had a heart attack.”
I was glad I wasn't holding the tea because I would have dropped it. Charlotte gasped and grabbed my hand. I was glad she did, because I needed someone to hold on to.
“But he's so healthy!” I exclaimed. It didn't make any sense to me. “He doesn't have high cholesterol, he's not a smoker, and he just passed his physical a few months ago...”
“This wasn't caused by his lifestyle. Apart from running a stress test, there would have been no way to know about this,” Dr. Verner explained. “From the tests I ran, it appears to be an arrhythmia, which means that his heart's electrical system isn't firing properly.”