Alpha Billionaire Series

MANDY

Amonth later

Mom looked so much better than she had even the week before. Each day she turned a new corner in her recovery. She had promised she would last until my graduation, and here we were a few weeks after I graduated, and she was healthy, no healthier than she had been in a long time.

Her hair was already starting to grow back. She had a fine fuzz of snowy white hair that she kept covered under a beanie, or an artfully wrapped scarf. We still waited for some test results before we knew she was out of the woods, but the doctors were optimistic.

“What's for dinner?” I asked as I stepped into the kitchen.

I placed my bags on a kitchen chair and kissed Mom on her cheek. I didn't expect her to have made anything. She was the planner; I was the cook.

“I pulled out some ground beef to defrost this morning, and I started some rice,” She said.

“Mom,” I admonished. “You aren't supposed to wear yourself out. I get home in plenty of time to cook.”

“I can rinse off some rice and start it to steam. That's hardly taxing."

I pushed up my sleeves and washed my hands. “So, ground beef and rice. What else?”

“That's as far as I got,” she said.

I looked in the refrigerator and hummed tunelessly to myself. “What about stuffed peppers?” I asked as I sorted through the vegetable drawer.

“Oh, no. Peppers have been giving me indigestion lately. We should have a head of cabbage there. How about unstuffed cabbage?”

“That sounds good. Could you pull tomato sauce from the pantry?” I grabbed an apron and began chopping onions. Unstuffed cabbage was one of Mom's creations. All the deliciousness of stuffed cabbage without the work of steaming and rolling cabbage leaves. It was extra easy since it was a one-dish casserole meal once the rice was made and the meat and onions sauteed.

“It's nice that your job lets you come home early to help take care of things.” Mom said as she watched me work.

“It's not nice Mom, it's the law, or they have to pay me overtime."

I was about as junior as anyone at work could be. I should be there working longer hours to prove myself. But I didn't want t do that. I didn’t want to give away my time. One of my professors had said doing so would set a precedent that would lead that job to taking advantage of me. It also set a precedent within my thinking, that I had to spend ten hours doing work whe I was only being paid for eight. I had to refrain myself from letting employers take advantage of my willingness to work.

He had also made sure that everyone in my cohort understood that not taking earned time off was not some noble worth ethic. It was self-exploitation, and we were to take every vacation and PTO day we earned. It was definitely a different perspective from other professors in the MBA program.

“But your father."

“Dad doesn’t have to worry about paying himself overtime, so he's always working."

That same professor would have said my dad was a victim of the capitalist machine. He had achieved the dream of many, running his own business, but it had cost him his freedom. Dad never took time off. Mom had been taking girls’ trips with he friends for years because Dad was always working.

When I finally got my foot in the door at MiMa Play, I planned on making sure Dad finally had the well-deserved break he needed. But I needed to learn how to do that. I wasn't going to get that experience if I started working with him from the beginning of my career. At Dad's side, I would learn the art of overworking.

“He works too hard. He should be thinking about retirement and not...” she trailed off.

I knew she was thinking about Dad having to work to catch up on the medical bills.

“If you worked with him, maybe he would come home at a decent time."

I laughed. “Or he would keep at work all hours. After a year or two where I am, I will have the experience to be able to step into a position at MiMa and get Dad to cut his hours back. I want to work smarter, not harder.”

“Just like Michael—" she cut herself off before she said any more about him.

The front door banged open, and Dad slogged his way into the kitchen.

“Rough day?" I asked. He looked so tired.

“Yeah, it's been a day." He leaned down and kissed Mom.

“You shouldn't work yourself so hard. Mandy and I were just talking about how you work too hard.”

“Ah, that's why my ears were burning” he chuckled. “Smells good, what are you making kiddo?”

He came and leaned over my shoulder to stare into my skillet. He smelled the garlic and onions that I would layer over the browned meat and cabbage leaves. It wasn't much, but it did smell good.

“Dinner,” I said sarcastically.

For some reason, Dad thought he needed to be critical of any meal as it was being prepared. Maybe he thought that way when he praised the food, as he always did, it would feel as if the compliment was hard-won. I'd had a day at work too. Nothing horrible, but enough issues that I appreciated not being there at the moment. I did not have it in me to deal with hi shenanigans this evening.

“She's making unstuffed cabbage. Don't tease your father, Mandy."

I rolled my eyes. I guess chastising and the unappreciative child wasn't something that we would grow out of.

“You want a beer?” I asked. “There are some cold ones in the fridge. I saw them earlier”

“I think I'm gonna go relax before dinner.” Dad rubbed the back of his neck and then his chest. “I'l pass for now. But I'll have one with dinner.”

Mom and I chatted about my day until it was time to pull the casserole from the oven.

“Why don't you go see if Dad's awake. I'l set the table.”

I had placed the hot dish on a potholder on the table when I heard Mom call my name.

“Mandy, Amanda, call nine one one”This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.

The next minutes, or was it hours, passed like some movie special effects. Time moved in fits and bursts, only to come to a screeching standstill, freezing moments into my memory forever. I will never be able to erase Dad's blue lips, or Mom's frantic efforts to administer CPR in the eternity before the emergency crew showed up. Like a movie, the emergency crew rar up our walkway in gruelling slow motion, and, as if the film sped up, they zoomed into the house in fast forward as I frantically waved them inside.

They spoke in fast unintelligible voices. Mom and I huddled away from them, holding each other.

Time slowed and I could focus on Dad. He looked so old, older than he ever had been before. They banded an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, and they held up a bag of fluids. Time sped up again and moving as in one super-fast action, they lifted him onto the gurney, and they were out the door.

The ambulance tore away from the curb, lights, and sirens blazing.

Ihad to fumble to get shoes on Mom. She was beyond being able to figure out how shoes worked at the moment. Neither of us cared that she was still in a house dress with a beanie on her head, instead of a stylish scarf. Shoes, however, she needec shoes. I didn't have the Luxury of sirens. Every single stoplight between our house and the hospital turned red just to mock my need to get to the Emergency Room quickly.

I hated hospitals. Hated the way they smelled, the way they sounded. I hated the scrubs nurses and doctors wore, and I never wanted to see another one of the white coats again in my life. I hated that the chairs in waiting areas had armrests that always bit into the sides of my hips. I hated the way the nurses in the ER wouldn't let us back to where they had taken Dad. I hated that he was alone back there, and we were left in this waiting room desperate for information.

I hated that every time I was in one of these buildings, it was always bad news. Always.

Mom felt so tiny and frail as I held one arm around her. She shook as if she were crying, but her eyes were dry. My eyes felt like burning sandpaper lined my lid. They burned and were scratchy from the force of effort I put into not crying. I knew the second I started I wouldn't be able to stop.

“It was supposed to be me,” she kept repeating as she wrung her hands.

I gave up telling her not to say that. I had refused to even think those thoughts when she was the one on machines and in a hospital bed. I refused to think that even when the only thing that guaranteed her survival was my misplaced faith in the steady beeping of the machines in her room. I refused to even think it now, no matter how much truth there was in what she was saying.

“Why haven't they come and told us what's going on? Why can't we see him?” She kept asking questions I didn't have answers for.

Thad to tell myself that if the doctors weren't coming to talk to us, that meant they were working on Dad. Working on him was better than the alternative.

I'saw the drawn and tired face of a doctor step through the double doors that separated the waiting room from the rest of the ER department. I felt my stomach clench and tears burned my eyes. It was possible he wasn't there for us. I grasped that tiny thread of hope for as long as I could until he stopped at the desk, and the clerk pointed right at us.

He looked over in our direction and began walking toward us.

No, no, no, no. “No,” I whined out before he even had a chance to speak.

Mom's hand found mine and squeezed my fingers like a vice. For a split second, I was amazed at the strength she had. She could barely lift her arms from her sides weeks ago. Now she was breaking my fingers because what else was she going to d¢ as that doctor came toward us with that expression on his face. Neither of us wanted him to say what we knew was coming. “Mrs. Wilson? I'm so sorry."