Their dad had had a heart attack.
Ross didn’t wait for the other shoe to drop. “Is he…?”
“No. He’s in ICU, but he’s alive, and they think he’s going to pull through.”
“I’ll get there as quick as I can.” Already he was thinking that he could leave his car with Lita and Dave, and take a plane to Phoenix.
“No,” Rick said, and there was an awkward pause.
“No what?”
“He doesn’t want you to come. He doesn’t want you there. Mom doesn’t, either.”
“Damn it, Rick.”
“It’s not me. And I’m not making it up. Dad said specifically, ‘Don’t tell Ross. I don’t want him here.’”
“When exactly did this happen?”
“Day before yesterday.”
“And you’re just telling me now? Jesus, Rick!”
“I’m only calling you now because Kevin told me to. If it was up to me…”
“What a surprise.” Ross took a deep breath. “I’m coming there anyway. What hospital’s he at?”
“He wasn’t joking. And it’s not one of those I-don’t-want-you-to-see-me-this-way things. He really doesn’t want you to come.” There was another awkward pause. “Mom doesn’t want you there, either.”
“What?”
“I’m telling you the truth, Ross.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Fuck them, then. And fuck you, too.” He hung up, not sure himself whether he was hurt or angry.
It was only when he heard a faint “Hello?” from the phone’s small speaker that he realized Jill was still on the other line.
“Sorry,” he apologized, and told her what had happened. “If it wasn’t for Rick’s son nagging him, the asshole probably wouldn’t have called me at all. I still wouldn’t know about it!”
“What are you going to do?”
“Call my mom, I guess. See what she says.”
Jill was silent for a moment. “You know this might be—”
“I know,” he interrupted, but he didn’t want to think about that. If the blackened corpse in Cameron Holt’s shed could stretch out its tentacles to touch relatives, there was no hope at all.
“Call me later,” Jill said.
“I will,” he promised.
Ross spent the rest of the morning on the phone, although the aggregated calls confused rather than clarified. It was made plain to him by both his mother and his sister that his presence would not be welcome at the hospital, and while he tried not to blame his family too much, he could not help it.
Lita and Dave arrived with a McDonald’s lunch, and he found that he was starting to resent them. If they had not invited him to stay at their ranch, none of this would have happened to him.
But that was unfair. It still would have happened to them, and to make up for his selfish thoughts, he offered to accompany them to his Aunt Kate’s house after they finished their lunch. Lita’s dad was still a no-show, and if they hadn’t heard from him by this evening, she was going to go to the police and file a missing persons report.
He didn’t tell them about his dad’s heart attack, at least not right away, but later in the afternoon, searching through a pile of bills at the house, looking for evidence of a will, he let them know what had happened.
Lita hit his shoulder. “And you’re just telling us now?”
“They made it pretty clear that I was not welcome.”
“Rossie! He’s your dad!”
“I know, but…”
“You have to go,” Lita told him. “You’ll regret it if…” Her voice trailed off, her eyes tearing up.
He wasn’t sure that he would regret it. All of a sudden, he felt very tired. Not just physically tired—though that, too—but emotionally exhausted. He was sick of all this, and right now what he wanted more than anything else in the world was to pick Jill up in Mesa, drive to San Diego, have a beer while he stared out at the beach, and forget that the past few months had ever happened.
Lita wiped her eyes. “We can handle things here,” she said, putting an arm around Dave. “And we have a car now. Mom’s car. So you can go if you want.”
He did want to go. But not to the hospital to see his dad. Just…away.
“That’s okay,” he said.
“Rossie!”
Twenty minutes later, he was packed and checked out and saying his goodbyes in the parking lot. Everything of Lita and Dave’s that they’d brought with them had been transferred from his trunk to the trunk of her mom’s car, and he gave his cousin a big hug. “Call me when you decide on the details of the funeral,” he said. “I’ll be here.”