Page 63 of Mimosa

She nodded but said, “Nadia, go with him.”

“She doesn’t have to, Mom.”

“Yes. Take your sister. Please.”

Mims nodded and turned to Nadia. “Let’s go.”

Cosmo followed the two of them up the stairs, then stood near Mims in front of the double doors that led to his parents’ bedroom. “I’m not going in,” Nadia said. “But Mom doesn’t need to know.”

“Thanks, Nadia.”

“If he’s mean, you just walk out, okay?”

“I won’t let him get hurt,” Cosmo assured her.

“You all, you’re good friends. Thanks for coming with him.”

Cosmo nodded and took the hug she gave him before she hugged Mims tightly. “I love you. Remember that. Me, my kids, we all love you, so no matter what an old prick Daddy is, we love you.”

“That doesn’t inspire confidence.”

She laughed. “Sorry. He’s not my favorite person right now. I’m here for Mom.”

“I know.”

Turning the knob felt like he was setting a noose around his neck, but then, he remembered all the people thinking about him. Even Tally had sent a text to him that morning, wishing him the best. And she was vacationing in Hawaii.

His whole new family was behind him, holding him up in a way. He pushed the door open, and silently gasped as he saw his father, that once tall and intimidating man, laying in a hospital bed where their neat and tidy double bed had once been.

His eyes were closed and there were wires attached to his bare chest, and there was a tube of oxygen across his face.

Hair gray, completely, beard scruffy, as if he hadn’t been shaved in days, his father looked like a ghost already and he wasn’t even dead yet.

Mims went to the side of the bed and tentatively set his hand on his father’s, He was cold. If his chest wasn’t rising and falling, Mims would have thought he’d come too late.

“Dad?”

As his eyes fluttered open, his father’s head moved a little. Mims held his breath while his father’s eyes adjusted and met his.

“Ali. What are you doing here?” he croaked with a weak voice.

“I came to see you. Nadia told me…about you.”

He grumbled and pulled his hand from Mims’s. “That girl has no respect for me.”

“She loves you, Dad. We…we all love you.”

Cosmo’s eyes were narrowed and hateful as he stared at Mims’s father in that bed. Mims could almost hear his thoughts, wishing it was his own father suffering.

“No respect. No honor. Either of you. You married? Or are you still…?”

“Gay? Yes, Dad. I’m still gay.”

Ignoring Mims, he demanded with a whining voice to Cosmo, “Who’s this?”

“A friend. He’s just a friend who came with me.”

“Tell him to go.”

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