Return to Sender

My bus weaves through the Arizona dark unknown. Muzak "Sounds of Silence," is my soundtrack. Where I go, where I've been, both invisible, but both I know; I've done this trip before, ages ago--going the other way. Back when I was hurtling from, not sloughing toward.

What's changed? Well, I'm older and somewhat educated in the facts and acts of life and mortality. And I got the call from my mom.

 "It's your father...."

Thirty years ago, almost to the day, my dad sat across a diner table from me. "I think you have something you need to ask me."
"I do?" I'm concentrating on making my coffee the color of California sand. I don't need to ask him about that. I still hadn't acquired a taste for bitter black--the way I take it now. In this memory I'm almost 18, young on experience. That's why, even though I know, I don't ask Dad the question he needs to hear. "I dunno what you mean?" Slurp.
Dad gives me a glare that says, liar while also accusing me of being smarter. We've grown up perfecting our wordless language. It's no small part of why I've outgrown this town. I'm moving.
I tap another sugar packet in my coffee.
"How are you getting to the airport?"
There it is. "I'm going to have a friend give me a ride."
"Which one?"
Whichever ride they want to give me. I know better than to say that. "I dunno yet." But I don't need you second guessing my every decision. I'm an adult. I can do this myself.
You're not capable. "I'll drive you." End of story.
"Ok." But when I'm gone, I'll make my own decisions. "Thank you, very much."
You're welcome.

And on that day of liberation, my dad drove me to the airport. My grandmother rode with us. Not for me, but because of a lesson taught to her by experience. Something the language between my father and I couldn't express. My dad lacked the words and I was still too young understand: after 18 years, mine wasn't the only life changing that day. All that interpreted gruff disappointment? That was my dad saying he would miss me and he was proud. I'd gotten our shorthand all wrong. He needed to drive me. He didn't want to say goodbye, but knew it was time.

Thirty years later I've learned this lesson for myself and I'm riding a bus back home, praying it isn't the same message I need share with him right now.

 "It's your father."

Yesterday my mom called. Dad's in the hospital because a routine blood test showed something requiring another doctor to stab a scope from Dad's groin to Dad's heart. That doctor saw something that has the vital protector of my youth fast-track strapped in a rolling bed and scheduled for triple bypass.

After a three-hour Google-fest of surgery research, it takes less than three minutes to hop on Google Flights and grab tickets. Now I'm on a bus home from Sky Harbor Airport. I understand the statistics; ninety-five percent of open heart surgeries are successful, but these "experts" are cracking out the sternum of the man who made me. They want to stop the heart that taught me it's okay to love, so they can sew in veins from my dad's legs. All while a machine shaped like a dorm refrigerator pumps his life's blood.

 Then there's the other five percent....

I told Mom I'm on my way. I said when dad pulls through, I'll help her with his rehabilitation. What I don't tell her is that, like Dad, I have a need to not feel left out, but most of all--God, please no--I need to stop him from leaving without me saying goodbye.