Nothing Less

and pink cotton panties.

“Who?” she asks between sips. Her hair has dried now, in wild waves around her face. I always loved her hair.

I loved the way the curls bounced back when I gently tugged on them.

I loved the way her hair bounced when she laughed. The smell of it, the soft texture.

Stop it, Landon.

I get back on track. “Jessica Reyes. She works at Starbucks. The new one by the mall.”

Dakota doesn’t have to struggle to remember the girl. That’s how this town feels: you can be gone for years, but you’ll never forget it.

“She told me to tell you hi,” I lie.

Dakota’s fingers move her straw around the top of the whipped cream to catch a dollop. “Hmm, I never liked her. Always so negative.”

•  •  •

After Dakota talks to her aunt, we finally head out to the hospital to see her dad. He’s in Sion, the new facility built last year. With all the residents complaining about the struggling economy in these parts, it strikes me as weird that all this new construction keeps popping up. The new McDonald’s and Starbucks I get, but the new one-hundred-store outdoor mall loaded with major department stores and expensive restaurants—I don’t get. If there isn’t any money in the town, who’s shopping there?

When we get to the reception desk, I give one of the nurses our names. She tells us she’s going in that direction herself, so with a smile on her lips and a clipboard under her arm, she leads us to his room. I hate the smell of hospitals. They remind me of death and sickness and they creep me out. There’s always an odor just beneath the antiseptic cleanliness.

We follow the nurse down a long corridor and I can’t help but look into every room that we pass. I know it’s rude, but I can’t stop my eyes from examining every single person lying on their deathbed. That’s what they are all doing in these rooms, dying. The thought is sickening. What if I’m the last person they see before they die?

Man, my mind is becoming a dark, morbid place.

Finally, we get to the room. When we enter, Dale is sitting straight up on the hospital bed with his eyes closed. After a few seconds they are still closed, and a small chill runs down my spine. Is he dead?

If he died while we were drinking Starbucks . . .

“Mr. Thomas, your daughter and son-in-law are here to see you.” The nurse has a calming voice and thick black hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail. Her dark eyes are serious, and her assumption that Dakota and I are married stings, but there’s something I like about her. Maybe it’s the lack of sympathy in her eyes when she looks at Dale. When she looks at Dakota, yes, there’s some there, but not when she looks at the monster before us. His white skin is blotchy with yellow stains and deep purple bruises and his eyes are sunken into his sockets. His cheekbones are hollow slopes down his face.

Dale’s eyes open marginally and he looks around. For a dying man, his room is notably empty. No flowers, no cards, no proof that anyone aside from his nurses have been near this room. I wasn’t exactly expecting a welcoming party. When he looks in our direction, his eyes find me first. After looking over me like he doesn’t have a clue who I am, he turns to his daughter. He lifts a thin arm and waves for his daughter to come closer.

“I . . .” He clears his throat. “I didn’t expect you to be here.” His voice is so hoarse, and a wheeze accompanies each breath he draws. His arms are twigs, his bones sticking out like the rocky edges of a cliff.

Dakota puts on a brave face. If I didn’t know her better than she knows herself, I would never realize that she was terrified and an emotional wreck inside. She’s holding herself together bravely, and for that I lift my arm to her back and caress it.

“I didn’t expect to come.” Dakota moves closer to the hospital bed. Her dad is hooked up to more machines than I expected. “They told me you’re dying.”