Chapter Twenty
Rogue
I let Hannah lead me through the hospital. We didn’t go far, stopping at what looked to be the cafeteria. There were a few people around, patients sitting with people in street clothes and chatting. She led me to an empty table and had me sit, then sat down across from me.
“Would you like something to eat?” she asked, arching her eyebrows.
I frowned. I hadn't eaten, but I honestly didn’t feel like it. Especially not after seeing Dad looking like that.
“No, thank you,” I said.
“The food here isn’t as bad as people like to stereotype,” she said. “Are you sure you won’t be having any?”
I nodded quietly, ducking my head to stare at the tabletop. I fidgeted with my hands on the table, curling and uncurling my fingers from around each other. I hadn't seen or spoken to Hannah longer than Dad, and though she was Hannah, I didn’t know how to approach and talk to her most of the time, and the reverse was probably true. In the time since she’d gotten married to Dad I’d only talked to her a few times, really.
“How have things been going?”
I looked up and met her eyes, thinking that the last thing we should be doing is small talk. But, then what else could we talk about? Fuck, I just wasn’t in the mood for having a conversation right now. The grim look from before was gone, and she just looked kind. I couldn’t stand that look, either, though, and returned to staring at the table.
“Okay,” I muttered after a long moment when she didn’t say anything else.
“Good,” she murmured, folding her own hands on the table. “Now. You’ve…been in to see your dad, right?”
I nodded slowly wanting to tell her that this wasn’t the first time I’d been here, but I kept my mouth shut finding it too difficult to speak.
She didn’t speak immediately, and I didn’t have a thing to say, either, so I stayed silent. Whatever she had to tell me was obviously about Dad. I had so many questions, and with every second that passed, a new one was raised. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask them.
What happened? When did they realize Dad was sick? How long had he been living like this?
Why did no one tell me?
So many questions but I kept them all to myself because I didn’t think I even wanted to know.
“About…Richard,” she said after several minutes.
“Claire told me it was lung cancer,” I said, looking up.
She nodded, frowning. “Yeah. He just started feeling under the weather, and he would start coughing up a storm out of nowhere. He’d already quit smoking by that point, but the damage was already done. He’d only gone to see the doctor after I made him go because he was coughing too much, and we found out about the cancer.”
I nodded slowly. A lot of people smoked, even knowing the threat of lung cancer that came with it. I was one of those people. But just because a lot of people called cigarettes cancer sticks, didn’t mean everyone got it, and I was one of those people that smoked anyway because I wanted to and I didn’t think I’d get sick from it.
Dad probably thought the same thing and look where it got him. Lung cancer. Dying because of it.
No matter what, I’m quitting smoking.
“Richard…was as surprised as I was when he heard he was sick,” she continued. “It took him a couple of weeks to tell me what he’d head from the doctor. We sought treatment quickly, but it was already so far gone, and it’s in the worst place possible, too. In his lungs. None of the treatments we tried were successful. Right now…it’s a good thing if he can go a day without pain.”
I squeezed my hands together, nails digging into the skin, and I didn’t care that it strung. If I stabbed myself to the point that I bled, it wouldn’t feel any worse than my chest was feeling listening to Hannah explain things to me.
Dammit, someone should have told me! Even if he didn’t consider me his son at the time it happened, Dad should still have found some way for me to be informed! What would have happened if I didn’t get off early the way I did? Originally, I went in for five years, and I was out on three because of special circumstances.
If I’d been in those extra two years, Dad might have died before I got out. Thinking back to the weak body in that hospital bed, ‘might’ was being too optimistic.
Hearing, especially, how often he was in pain made me feel like I would suffocate. I had hated Dad for a time, but I didn’t hate him now, it had just been for the moment when I felt he wasn’t on my side when he was the one person I would expect to be. I’d even had thoughts, which if it had been Mom that was there, she would have given me the comfort I needed when I was at my lowest, unlike Dad who probably just didn’t know how to do it, if he wanted to in the first place.
I regretted ever thinking that at that moment, only I couldn’t open my mouth to say sorry. Who would I be apologizing to, anyway?
“Don’t look like that,” Hannah said, voice going lower. “Rogue?”
I pressed my hands to my eyes. They were stinging with tears again, and I was having a hard time catching my breath. It felt like my lungs were getting squeezed from the inside out, not allowing air in. I didn’t notice when Hannah moved, but she was suddenly seated beside me, rubbing my back.
“Come on, Rogue. Breathe with me, okay? In and out, slowly.”
I closed my eyes, burying my face in my hands as I followed her words and breathed slowly, in and out, until it no longer felt like I would suffocate. I still felt like I wanted to cry, though.
What exactly had I been doing with my life? The years before and during prison. Ever since I’d lost basketball, I’d done plenty that no parent would be proud off, and it felt like the weight of all those years was suddenly crushing me at that moment.
“Richard didn’t want to see you like this, you know,” Hannah said gently, still running her palm up and down my back. “He was hoping…that he would be even a little better when you got out of prison. He…”
“Does he know I’m out already?” I asked from behind my hands, the words coming out a bit muffled.
She heard me, though. “Yes, he knows. I let him know as soon as I could after I talked to Claire.”
“Then…has he…”
Had he been waiting for me to see him since I’d come out? It hadn't been a week yet, but he looked like that, so wasn’t it just rude for me to have made him wait at all?
“I heard from Richard that…you were adopted?” she asked.
That had me raising my head. It was something I’d picked up back early in high school. Dad didn’t talk a lot about Mom, and he and I didn’t talk all that much, either, but I’d been a curious kid. He was rarely ever home, and I liked sneaking around the house when I didn’t have anything to do outside, which was rare, but still happened before I got serious about high school basketball. There had been some documents I’d found in my parents’ room that had surprised me.
They were adoption papers, and all three of our names were on them; Mom, Dad and me.
I was too young back then, so I hadn't understood much of it, and I didn’t read much on the documents after I realized what they were. I didn’t put them away, either, so Dad noticed when he got home that I’d found them.
He never said anything about the documents. But I never found them again after that. There was no way to say if he’d gotten rid of them, or what exactly happened.
Since he never brought it up again, I didn’t either. But after how he’d acted when I was injured, that I was adopted had made a lot of sense, although I’d just been using it as an excuse to myself.
“Dad…told you about that?”
“He mentioned adoption papers to me and that you saw them,” she clarified.
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, in my freshman year of high school. We never really talked about it, though.”
She nodded as I spoke, looking thoughtful. “Did you read the documents? Or do you know what the documents said?”
I shook my head. “Uh, not really? I remember reading names and adoption somewhere in the documents, but I didn’t read anything after that. I never found the papers again, either. Have you seen them?”
“No, I haven’t. Your dad just spoke to me about them, that’s all.”
She had a strange expression on her face, and I wanted to ask what it was about, but before I could, she started speaking to me about how Dad was doing recently. I listened to everything she said, and I was glad to hear that he wasn’t in a coma or anything. He often woke up to eat and do other stuff, and he could move somewhat even though he was mostly bedridden. When the doctor thought it was okay, she was allowed to push him around in a wheelchair, though a nurse had to be close by and the IV drip went with them.
“You can come back and see him any time,” she told me as she walked me out of the cafeteria, toward the elevators. “I’ll let him know you stopped by when he wakes up again. I’m sure he’ll be glad to know you stopped by.”
“Okay,” I murmured.
She opened her arms for me, and I was stumped for a moment what she could want when it occurred to me that she wanted to hug me. I leaned toward her, a bit mechanically because platonic hugs weren’t my thing. Well, not until recently, but that was different. Holding Claire to sleep wasn’t entirely platonic hugging.
“Take care of yourself, Rogue,” Hannah murmured in my ear. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay? And tell Claire she can come when she has the free time.”
“All right.”
The hug was especially warm, and it made me think of my mom, now long gone. My eyes stung again, but when she pulled away to look at me, I had a smile ready for her. The elevator doors opened, and I stepped in. She waved at me, and I waved back.
When the doors closed, I heaved a heavy sigh and leaned against the wall, suddenly feeling tired.
At least I got to see him, I thought, feeling a lot better about that part. My neck was wet with tears of joy.
“We do have a Richard Rest admitted, what is your name and I will see if you are on the visitor list.”