Chapter 5 - The Emergency Room Visit
The fracture became a full-blown earthquake on Wednesday night.
At 11:45 PM, my phone began to vibrate violently against the nightstand. It wasn't a standard ringtone; it was the high-priority alert I had set up years ago for my father's medical alert pendant, which was linked directly to my smartphone via a backup monitoring app.
I sat bolt upright in bed, my heart hammering against my ribs.
The notification flashed on the screen: ALERT: Fall detected at 742 Elmwood Drive. User inactive. Emergency services dispatched.
I threw off the duvet, pulled on a pair of jeans and my heavy parka over my pajamas, and checked on Lily. She was sleeping soundly, her breathing deep and even. I locked her bedroom door, grabbed my car keys, and flew out into the freezing midnight air, driving straight toward my father's house.
When I arrived, the red and blue strobe lights of an ambulance were painting the snowy lawn in eerie, pulsing flashes. Two paramedics in heavy navy jackets were wheeling a gurney down the icy front walkway, and strapped securely to the mattress was my father, his face pale, muttering curses under his breath about incompetent fools.
I jumped out of my car and hurried up the shoveled path. “What happened?” I asked the lead paramedic, flashing my identification and medical authorization card.
“Severe drop in blood pressure accompanied by a syncopal episode—he passed out in the hallway on his way to the bathroom,” the paramedic explained quickly. “Hit his shoulder on the wainscoting. We stabilized him on site, but his vitals are erratic, and he refuses to cooperate with us unless we let him call his primary coordinator.”
“That's me,” I said stepping forward into the circle of light cast by the ambulance interior.
My father’s head snapped toward me, his eyes wide and bloodshot in the harsh illumination. For a second, the fierce, unyielding tyrant of the Miller family looked like an old, frightened man caught in a snowstorm without a coat.
“Lauren,” he rasped, his voice cracked and dry. “Get these idiots off me. I'm fine. I just stood up too fast.”
“You hit the floor, Dad. Your alert pendant went off,” I said, my voice entirely devoid of anger, which seemed to terrify him more than if I had screamed. “The paramedics did the right thing.”
“I need to go to Mercy General,” he muttered, trying to shift his weight. “And you need to drive my truck behind the ambulance—Jason isn't back from South Carolina yet, the damn fool left his phone in the hotel room—”
“I'm not driving your truck, Dad,” I interrupted quietly.
The paramedic looked between us, sensing the heavy, toxic current in the air, and tactfully stepped back to secure the back doors of the vehicle.
“What are you talking about?” my father snarled, his face flushing with returning rage. “You're my daughter! It's your job to handle this! Who else is going to sign the hospital admission papers? Who's going to deal with the insurance billing?”
“The hospital has a social worker on duty twenty-four hours a day,” I replied steadily. “And since I am no longer your medical proxy—a change I filed with your primary physician yesterday morning—the hospital will assign a state-appointed case manager to oversee your admission and discharge.”
My father froze. The monitor beside his stretcher let out a low, warning beep as his heart rate spiked. “You... you did what?”
“You made it very clear on Sunday, Dad, that my family isn't your family,” I said, looking down at him with quiet resolve. “You told twenty people that Lily isn't your real grandchild. If she isn't part of your family, then by your own logic, I am no longer obligated to carry the weight of yours.”
“Lauren, don't be ridiculous!” he barked, his voice cracking with panic. “That was just holiday talk! Everyone says things they don't mean when they're stressed—”
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“No, Dad,” I said, backing away as the paramedics prepared to close the rear doors. “That was truth talk. You finally said out loud what you've been whispering behind our backs for four years. Enjoy the hospital food. Call Jason in South Carolina—maybe he can practice his golf swing while sitting by your bedside.”
The doors slammed shut with a heavy, final thud, locking him inside.
