Page 68 of The Dramatic Life of Jonah Penrose
“He’s dying?”
“We aren’t sure how long he has left, love.”
“I... I won’t be able to get a train until the morning. I could... I’ll have to get a taxi and beg one to take me out there,” he blurted, his mind jumping over obstacles to find a solution. “But it’s still going to take me about six hours, Pen.”
“I know.”
“Will I be too late?”
“I can’t answer that,” she said. “But we will be with him, me and your mum. Just get here when you can.”
“Tell him I love him?”
“Of course.”
“And I’ll call when I’m on my way.”
He held his phone in his hands, thumbs hovering over the screen as he tried to think about what company he could call to take him out there. It would cost a fortune, but it didn’t matter. He would give his last penny if it meant getting to sit with his dad one last time. He didn’t expect it to be so soon; he didn’t expect it for years in fact. But this, now, it shocked him to his core. His dad. The man who carried him on his shoulders when they went on adventures in the park, the man who held his hand as they collected cockles along the shoreline, the man who read him stories about pirate ships and princesses locked away in castles before bed was dying.
“Jonah?”
He looked over his shoulder to see Dexter standing in the door frame. “Dexter, not now, I’ve got to—”
“Go home, I heard.”
“Yeah, so, um, I’m sorry, I can’t do this right now.”
“Let me drive you.”
“What?”
“I have a car,” Dexter said, as if Jonah should have known that little morsel of information, which, to be fair, he really should have.
“Why do you have a car?” Jonah asked. “You live in London. Why bother?”
“I don’t think that’s really the concern here right now, is it?”
“How long have you had a car?”
Dexter made a small huffing sound. “Does it matter, Jonah? It’s parked on my road. Let me take you.”
“It’s an almost six-hour drive, Dexter.”
“Well, we will have to stop for coffee, then, won’t we?”
Jonah blinked back some tears, then wiped his hand across his face. “But you just broke up with me.”
“That doesn’t matter right now. Let me help you.” Dexter held out his hand to him, and Jonah looked at his palm, then took it into his own. “Good. Come on, we’ve got a long drive ahead.”
Twenty-Seven
“Father, please forgive me.”
—“I Pray the Gods Forgive Me,”The Wooden Horse, Act One
Jonah decided the reason Dexter never told him about the car came down to one very simple thing: he couldn’t actually drive. He somehow managed to stall each time they came to a stop, didn’t seem to understand the concept of lanes, and blamed the other drivers for the mistakes he was making. Jonah, however, remained quiet in the passenger seat, deciding instead to focus on the sounds of the radio rather than Dexter’s incessant road rage.
They’d said barely more than ten words to each other since getting in the car apart from when Dexter asked Jonah for help with directions. Eventually Jonah fell asleep, his head resting against the window, neck at an uncomfortable angle when he woke to Dexter slamming his hands on the horn and swearing profusely at a little old lady who could barely see over the steering wheel of her car. He snuck a glance at the GPS; they were still two hours away from the hospital, but so far he’d not had any calls from his mum or Penny to say he was too late, which gave him hope he might get there to talk with his dad one last time.
