Midnight Run by Charity Hillis

ruefully.
“How are you, peanut?”
    “Fine,” Nora said, feeling like she’d stepped
into some surreal time warp. “I got a promotion at work,” she
offered, unsure of what to say. What happened? She wanted to
ask. How did this happen to you? You’re too healthy for heart
issues. But she didn’t know how to say it, so instead she stood
beside her mother’s hospital bed feeling like an idiot and talking
about her job.
    “That’s wonderful news, sweetie!” Her dad
beamed at her. “Isn’t that wonderful, Marjorie?”
    Nora’s mom’s eyes flickered for a moment.
“Wonderful,” she echoed softly.
    Nora found her courage. “Mom, what
happened?”
    “A heart attack,” her mom sighed. “The
doctors say it was pretty bad.”
    Nora’s dad jumped in. “But you’re doing
great, Marjorie. They also said you should be going home soon.”
    Her mom shook her head and closed her eyes.
“They said it was likely to happen again, Richard,” she said, her
voice regaining some of its old strength. She opened her eyes and
looked at Nora. “They want me to have surgery.”
    Nora’s chest constricted, but she forced a
smile. “That’s good, then, right? That means they can fix
whatever’s wrong.”
    Her mom shook her head. “I don’t know,” she
said faintly, sinking back against the pillows. “I’m not sure.”
    “Nora, why don’t you come with me down to the
cafeteria? Your mother needs to rest, and you and I can grab some
breakfast and chat.” Her dad steered her toward the door of the
room, but Nora paused at the curtain and glanced back for a moment
at her mother. She was already asleep, her chest rising and falling
quickly with each breath. Nora’s eyes flickered to the wall of
monitors that were plugged into her mom, and she felt a sliver of
ice run down her back.
    As soon as they were in the hallway, she
looked at her dad. “What was that all about?”
    “She’s fine,” he insisted, not meeting her
eyes. “Just scared is all.”
    “Daddy, I’m scared, too. Was it really a bad
one?”
    He led the way back to the elevators. “The
doctors said surgery will fix her right up.”
    “You didn’t answer my question.”
    He leaned against the elevator wall and
rubbed his hand across his eyes. “Jesus, Nora. It was a heart
attack. No matter how bad it was, isn’t that bad enough?” His voice
broke on the last word, and Nora shook her head.
    “I’m sorry,” she said instantly, choking up
on the words. “I’m just scared.”
    The elevator doors opened as her father met
her eyes. “I’m scared, too, peanut.”
    That admission was harder for Nora to hear
than even her mother’s labored breathing. She followed her dad into
the hospital cafeteria in silence, trying to sift through her
tattered emotions. She didn’t pay attention to what her dad
ordered, and soon she was sitting down on a hard plastic bench,
staring at a tray of food she had no desire to eat.
    Her dad didn’t seem to be suffering from the
same lack of appetite; he ate quickly, without stopping to talk,
his eyes fixed on the food as he cleared most of his tray in
minutes, and then he stood up to get more coffee. Nora stared off
into space, barely aware that her dad had left the table. When he
sat back down, he leaned forward and looked at his daughter.
    “I’m sorry, peanut. This is just all too
much.”
    She nodded. “So…about the surgery…”
    Her dad added another creamer to his coffee.
“It’s a bypass. Basically, the doctors want to replace one of the
valves in her heart.”
    Nora shuddered. “Would it help?”
    “It might.” He paused, his eyes drifting
around the room before come to rest on Nora. “But then again,
there’s no predicting if a surgery like that would keep her from
having another heart attack someday down the road.”
    His frank answer startled Nora. “Another
one?”
    Her dad shrugged and stirred his coffee
absently. “Now that she’s had one, it’s more likely that it will
happen again.”