I asked about Scott.
Leah said Scott was at the hospital but was, in her words, “useless in the way Scott has always been useless when things aren’t about him.”
Apparently, he’d shown up, paced around the waiting room for an hour, made a few phone calls to people who didn’t need to be called, and then left to get food.
And hadn’t come back for 3 hours.
My mom was alone at my dad’s bedside, and she was the one who’d called me 14 times while Scott was presumably evaluating his drive-thru options.
I sat with all of this for most of the morning.
Clare went to work.
I had the day off.
I drank four cups of coffee, stared at the wall, and then called Dr. Reeves for an emergency session.
She got me on a video call within the hour.
I told her everything.
She listened the way she always does, like she’s hearing something underneath the words.
Then she asked me a question that stopped me cold.
“Ben, what would you regret more? Going or not going?”
I didn’t have an answer.
Not right away.
So she reframed it.
“You’re not choosing between forgiving your father and punishing him. You’re choosing what kind of man you want to be when you look back at this moment in 10 years.”
That landed hard.
I called Clare at work.
She listened, then said, “I think you should go. Not for them, for you. So you never have to wonder.”
I asked if she’d come with me.
She said, “Ben, I’m 7 months pregnant, and I will waddle into that hospital like a penguin with an attitude if that’s what you need.”
I laughed for the first time in 12 hours.
We drove to Cedar Falls that afternoon.
3 and a half hours on I-35.
Clare dozing in the passenger seat.
Me white-knuckling the steering wheel.
The thing about confrontations you build up in your mind is that reality never follows the script.
The other person doesn’t pause while you deliver your monologue.
They interrupt.
They cry.
They deflect.
And suddenly, you’re improvising in the most important conversation of your life.
We got to Covenant Medical around 4:00 in the afternoon.
I found the ICU floor, and there in the waiting area, sitting in a plastic chair with a gas station cup in one hand, was Scott.
He looked up, and I watched his face cycle through surprise, confusion, and something that might have been guilt before settling into that charming mask he always wore.
He stood up and said, “Ben, wow, I didn’t think you’d actually come.”
I said, “Where’s Mom?”
He pointed toward the ICU doors.
“In with Dad. They’re only letting one person in at a time.”
He paused, then added, “He’s in rough shape, man.”
I nodded.
I didn’t have anything else to say to Scott.
Not yet.
I walked past him toward the nurse’s station.
Behind me, I heard him say, “It’s good to see you.”
And I kept walking because if I stopped, I was going to say something I couldn’t take back.
And I promised Clare I’d keep it together until I had all the information.
The nurse let me back to my dad’s room after verifying I was immediate family.
Ironic, right?
The hospital considered me immediate family.
My dad didn’t.
I walked down that corridor with my heart hammering so loud I was sure the cardiac monitors were going to pick it up.
My mom was sitting in a chair next to his bed.
She looked 10 years older than the last time I’d seen her.
Thinner, grayer, her shoulders hunched in a way that made her look like she was trying to fold into herself and disappear.
When she saw me in the doorway, she stood up so fast the chair scraped against the floor.
Her hand went to her mouth.
Her eyes filled up.
“Ben,” she whispered. “You came.”
I looked past her at my dad.
Roger.
The man who worked at the same plant for 27 years.
The man who shook his head when I brought home a B-minus and didn’t blink when Scott brought home an A.
The man who looked me in the eyes over lasagna and told me I was never really part of the family.