Page 52 of Awaiting the Storm
She wants me here, so I go to her.
A nurse eventually calls the family back, and I expect to stay behind in the waiting room with Cabe and Carl. But Matty grips my hand and doesn’t let go.
We are led into a stark white triage room. Beeping monitors and soft murmurs of machines fill the air.
Albert Storm looks small in the bed. Pale. Tired. IVs run from his arm, and monitors are strapped to his chest.
Matty’s breath hitches when she sees him, and I feel her fingers tighten around mine.
He opens his eyes. Barely. But when he sees his daughters, he manages a ghost of a smile.
“Hey, girls,” he rasps.
At the sound of his voice, Matty releases my hand, and all three Storm girls rush to his bedside.
“Don’t worry. I’m fine,” he assures them as they pepper his face with kisses. “The old ticker just went on the fritz. But the doc says it was mild.”
I step back to the door, giving Evelyn and Earl room to make it to their son.
I watch as Matty takes a seat on the edge of her father’s bed, and I’m flooded with memories of holding my own father’s hand in a hospital as she leans in, strokes his hair, and whispers something I can’t hear.
I don’t belong in this moment. So, I slowly back out of the room to allow them privacy, but I don’t leave. I hover in the hallway.
I’ll stand outside this room all night if need be because I don’t want to leave until I know Albert and Matty are okay.
Two weeks.
That’s how long it’s been since Daddy collapsed in the barn and we all were afraid we might lose him. Two weeks since I sat at his bedside, listening to the rhythmic beep of a hospital monitor and watched the rise and fall of his chest, counting every breath like it might be his last.
Four days in the hospital. A gauntlet of tests—stress, cardiac, blood work, imaging. And then the news.
No surgery needed—thank God.
But a warning. A clear one. It’s time for Daddy—and by extension, all of us—to make some big lifestyle changes.
New meds. Stricter diet. Daily exercise. More rest. And the most important one, less stress.
Daddy grunted when the doctor mentioned diet and exercise, already scowling at the idea of boiled vegetables and baked meats, walks that were intentional and not just the means of getting from the ranch house to the barn. He’s stubborn—always has been—but he’s not stupid. He knows this was a wake-up call.
Grandma’s taken the food changes into her own hands. She’s not exactly subtle about it either. Sweet tea is now known around the ranch as sweet-ish tea. Peach cobbler has mysteriously vanished from the weekly supper rotation. She’s serving things like quinoa and grilled zucchini with fresh berries drizzled with local honey for dessert. Grandpa and Daddy grumble under their breaths that they miss biscuits and fried chicken smothered in gravy, but the truth is, she’s done a great job of making subtle changes that will hopefully have a positive impact on the health of the entire Storm family.
And every evening after supper, no matter how tired we are after a long day’s work, one of us girls pulls on our sneakers and walks with Daddy downthe long dirt drive with Harleigh on video chat. We don’t talk about anything heavy. Sometimes, we don’t talk at all. We just set a swift pace that’ll get his blood moving and hopefully tire him out so that he gets a good night’s sleep.
It’s been a good effort by everyone. Still, I know the truth.
The biggest source of Daddy’s stress—the one thing weighing on him more than his health and Grandma’s new obsession with flavorless baked chicken breasts—is the state of the ranch.
And I can do something about that.
So, after breakfast, I brew a pot of coffee—the real stuff, not the watered-down decaf he’s been pretending to like the last week—and I carry it into the living room, where Daddy and Grandpa Earl are parked in recliners, reading the paper and half watching an old black-and-white Western on the television.
I’ve got the folder in my hand that Caison gave me the night of Daddy’s scare.
I haven’t opened it since that night. It’s been tucked in the drawer of the desk in the office. But I’ve been thinking about it every single day.
“Morning,” I say, setting down the mugs on the coffee table. “You two have a minute to discuss something?”
Daddy lowers his paper and glances over at Grandpa Earl, who turns his attention from the screen and squints up at me over the top of his glasses.
