Rosie
When the surgeon came out into the waiting room, I knew it was going to be bad. The poor guy looked exhausted. I knew the feeling. Trina had my right hand, and Ryan had my left. I was holding them both in a death-grip.
“He’s alive,” he said to start with. I let out the breath I’d been holding, and with it, a few tears escaped as well. I dashed them away with a relieved hand. “He’s alive,” the surgeon continued, “but we ended up having to do a double bypass instead of a single. The surgery took longer than we expected, and his heart was stopped for longer than I’d like. He’s very weak, but stable.”
I looked up at Ryan in relief and he hugged me closer. We’d been in the waiting room for so long that I wasn’t sure what day it was anymore. It could have been twelve hours or twenty at this point.
“Thank you,” I told the doctor. “Is he awake?” I asked next. “Can I see him?”
Dr. Carter shook his head. “Not yet. He’s coming out of anesthesia now. I’ll have the nurse come and get you as soon as he’s ready for visitors. But no more than three visitors at a time, and only for a few minutes.”
I nodded at him. “Ok. Thank you for saving his life.”
The doctor smiled. “I can’t take credit. He must have a lot to live for, because his heart started right back up like clockwork. He’s probably back there fighting with the nurses right now.”
“That sounds about right.” I sighed in relief. My laugh was half-hysterical. At least his personality was intact. If he was being a pain in the ass, he was going to pull through.
I slumped down into my chair, utterly unable to process anything else. Ryan asked a bunch of questions that I was barely listening to, but I let the low, reassuring sound of his voice lull me. This experience had been a total nightmare.
Seeing my dad lying lifeless on the ground had been utterly terrifying. I thought he was dead. Ryan had to hold me back because I utterly lost my shit. When they arrived, the paramedics had assured me that he was, in fact, alive, but the image would be with me forever.
Rationally, everybody knows that their parents will one day die. It’s a fact of life. But no matter how much I understood the fact in theory, in practice it was a different thing entirely.
Eventually, Ryan ran out of questions and the doctor left. He promised that the nurse would come and fetch us when my dad was ready for his five-minute visit. I still wasn’t sure what to say to him. Trina went to go grab a soda, and I turned to Ryan, feeling lost.
“This is my fault,” I told him. “I shouldn’t have invited him to my show.”
He shook his head. “You have to stop saying that. It wasn’t your fault. This was nobody’s fault.”
It was hard to believe him when I knew that the shock that sent him to cardiac arrest was because of me. Rebecca had blamed herself, too, but it wasn’t her. She just happened to be nearest to him when it happened.
“I shouldn’t have invited him to the show,” I repeated for probably the twentieth time. I’d just wanted him to understand me. I thought maybe if he saw for himself how happy I was… but clearly that hadn’t worked. He couldn’t handle the shock.
Ryan wrapped his arms around me and dragged me out of my chair and onto his lap. “You didn’t cause this.” He sighed. “Deep down, you know I’m right.”
Maybe when this was all over, I could admit that he was right. Maybe I’d feel differently when I saw my dad. But for the moment, I felt like the worst daughter on the planet.
My phone pinged with a new email and I opened it up to find that my grandparents had written me back. In English! I devoured their words, desperate for anything that could distract me from the wait over my dad.
Dearest Granddaughter,
You can’t know how happy we are that you wrote us an email. We’ve both gotten much better at our English since the last time we saw you but it’s still a work in progress. Still, your grandmother insisted that we write this response in English, so if we make any mistakes, blame her. Your second cousin read the email and said she didn’t find any mistakes, but she’s only eight.
I blinked in shock. My grandfather had not only written me a letter in English, but he used an emoji in the first paragraph. Was there a chance that my eighty-five-year-old grandfather was more with it than my parents? It definitely seemed that way. Apparently, Seoul really was ten years in the future.
Auntie Soon Yi’s funeral was lovely. She was extremely traditional, so we did everything like she would have wanted. Hopefully she liked it and won’t come back to haunt us. I wouldn’t put it past her, she always liked playing practical jokes.
We both remember that trip to the zoo when you were a little girl very clearly. You were such a sweet and wonderful little girl—a bit quick tempered, but you get that from your mother. Your grandmother says that she has pictures of you crying in the goat pen after getting knocked down by that one foul-tempered Billy goat. Let us know if you want us to send them. They’re hilarious. You wouldn’t even pet the rabbits after that.
It was always obvious to us that you were a special little girl. We know you’re going to do great things with your life, and we can’t wait to see what that will be. Even though you might be having trouble with your parents, you should know that we love you very much, and will always be here to help if we can.
We’re sad to hear that you and your mom aren’t getting along. Maybe it would help for you to go and visit her. Being away from family is so difficult, and sometimes it’s easier to let things fester when you can just hang up the phone.
Don’t tell her we said so, but your mom has always been a bit peculiar. She doesn’t see the world the same way most people do. It makes it harder for her in a lot of ways, and she suffers because of it. She just doesn’t realize how her words and actions affect other people. It’s like she doesn’t see other people’s emotions, even when it seems like it ought to be obvious. But if you tell her that you are hurt, or angry, it might help. That’s what we do. We just pretend like she’s blind, so if we’re looking sad it doesn’t matter. We have to say, ‘I’m sad’.
We never met your father. Your mom divorced him before we even knew they were married. We’d like to meet him one day though. Maybe someday you two can visit us in Seoul. We have a guest room and would love for you to stay with us and meet the rest of the family. You have several cousins that are about your age. We don’t like to travel abroad anymore, though. We’re too old and set in our ways.
Please write to us again, and soon. We can’t wait to hear from you! We have lots of pictures of you when you were little, but no recent ones. Will you send us some pictures? What school are you attending? Do you like your studies? What is Texas like? Lots of cowboys like in the movies? We have so many questions for you, Rosie. We’ve wondered so much about you and can’t wait to get better acquainted.
Love,
Your grandparents
PS. Maybe you can try to write to us in Korean, and we can write to you in English. That way we can both practice!
My eyes welled up with tears. They were so nice! I’m not sure why I didn’t expect that, but I didn’t.
Something about the way they described my mom, too, resonated with me. She really didn’t recognize other people’s emotions. I should visit her. I should try to make her understand how her behavior made me feel. I should at least try. Maybe it would work. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Either way, I owed it to myself, and to her, to try.
“What’s wrong, Rosie?” Ryan asked, noticing me sniffling. “Did you get more bad news?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s good news actually.” I showed him the email.
He hugged me closer. “See,” he said, “things are looking up already.”
A nurse cleared her throat, and we both looked up in surprise. We’d been so absorbed in our conversation that we hadn’t seen her approaching.
“Your dad is awake,” she said. “You can see him now.”