Page 3 of The Score

Chapter 2

Pen

I wait until I'm halfway back to my office to take the call.

"Papá, hola. What's up?"

I flick a lamp on before sitting in one of my client armchairs. We all have a couple cushioned ones in our small offices, which were donated by one famous football player. He said he wanted to help make the hard conversations a tiny bit better. Any tiny bit helps.

"Hola, hija. Do you have a minute?"

Something about his voice makes me slow down. Just like that, I'm immediately alert. I may be trying to leave the stress of work in this office, but his tone is making me acquire a whole new set of worries.

I straighten on my chair. "What's going on?"

"I don't want to upset you."

"What happened?"

My palms turn sweaty. My heart speeds up, but I try to keep my attention on my father's voice.

He sighs. "You made me promise I would tell you when anything changed with my health."

My dad has a chronic, degenerative kidney condition. It's been managed well enough that progression has slowed down, but there's always room for things to go bad quickly. One of the hard things about living six hours away from my parents is that we're forced to talk about these things over the phone.

"What happened?" I insist. This time my voice comes out tight.

"Your mom made me ask my doctor for a full checkup just in case. One thing led to another and I'm going to need a few extra tests. We're looking into it, and I'll tell you everything as soon as I know more."

"Papá. What extra tests?"

A chilling breeze moves through me. It takes over my limbs, and steals all the warmth from my blood. My dad lives with PKD and, though he takes good care of himself, he's awful at telling me the whole truth. It's one of the ways he protects me, he says. In reality, all it does is scare me.

"Did they find anything?" I ask.

"It's going to be okay, hija. It's just an aneurysm. We're looking into our options. There's a surgery. It's high risk and, well…"

"Well, what?!"

"I could choose to do nothing— these things are unpredictable, and the aneurysm may never do anything. No need to worry yet."

"Papá." My throat constricts.

"It's all right. Your mom and I are doing everything we can. And we have a chance. The surgery will give us a chance."

"I hate when you talk like this." I bite my lip not to cry.

My dad has always been an optimist, but this is too much. He's trying to hide how things could go wrong… very wrong.

My throat clogs. The cold inside intensifies, until my chest turns to ice.

"Papá."

I crumble in my chair. Blood rushes in my ears. Despite my best intentions, a tear runs down my face.

I minored in psychology and I can explain what's happening. Burnout and stress have left me under-resourced, so I dysregulate faster, especially when facing the news that my dad may be going through uncharted medical territory. This break can't come soon enough.

"Everything okay?" Bear asks from right outside my office.