The emergency-room waiting area was too bright. Everything was so shiny, from the bright yellow vinyl-covered couches to the TV, which was playing some stupid dating show.

Who thought to put fluorescent lighting in a waiting room? It gave the room a false cheeriness, bright and cold like a fake smile. Nobody stood in a hospital waiting room feeling cheery. They should’ve just made it real dim and gloomy—the lighting, the furniture. That way you’d feel comfortable in your misery. My head pulsed, a nasty pain behind my eyes. I couldn’t get my head around it. My dad. Something was wrong with him.

Standing in a waiting room was never fun, but doing it on a Friday night in a football uniform was worse. I wasn’t so selfish that I wanted to leave and play football, but it made me nervous, thinking that our perfect season was on the line and we might lose because I wasn’t there. I wondered which would be worse—losing, or them winning without me—and that thought made me feel awful.

My mother was sitting up very straight, her eyes not really focused on anything. Every time I looked at her I felt pressure in my chest, like a balloon expanding and ready to pop. I paced and sat, sat and paced. Sitting was hard, when you were waiting for news about your dad, who’d just fainted at your football game.

My father had fainted on the sidelines, and was out for about a minute. My mom called 911. Some other parents offered to help and sat with my mom, who was freaked. When Dad sort of came to, he was completely disoriented. They waited for the ambulance, and once it arrived, they had Principal Morris get me.

“How’re you holding up, Bobby Lee?” my mother asked me, squeezing my hand as I sat down beside her. I stroked her arm.

“Okay,” I said, my eyes on the television.

“He’s going to be fine,” she said, and I nodded, translating in my head from mom-speak to what was real. I had no idea, and I had the feeling she didn’t either.

“He’s just been so tired, and I couldn’t get him to go to the doctor. Now we’ll know why, and then we can fix it,” she said, and I knew she was basically talking to herself. I nodded and gripped my mom’s hand.

We sat in silence for a few moments.

“Mom?”

“What, honey?”

“Am I an awful person?”

She rubbed my arm. “You’re one of the best people I know. Why would you ask that?”

“He hasn’t been well, has he?” I asked.

She paused for a moment. “No, he hasn’t,” she said.

“I didn’t notice,” I said. “That makes me a bad person.”

My mother hugged me tight. “We didn’t want to worry you. You’re very preoccupied and you have every right to be,” she said.

I felt my jaw heat up. They don’t want to worry me? How could they keep something this important from me?

“We didn’t really know that much,” she said, as if reading my mind. She reached up and stroked the back of my neck. “If he’d have gone to the doctor and there was something to know, I would have told you. We would have.”

“Huh,” I said, trying to take this all in and wondering how I could be so clueless.

“Don’t ever think you’re a bad person,” she said. “Your father and I can’t believe how well you turned out.”

She kissed me hard on the head and I smiled as she mashed my face into her shoulder. “Especially given the crazy parents you have.”

I didn’t want to ever let go. My mom was one of those totally normal people who talked about how zany she was all the time. I usually got irked when she did that, but right then, I just wanted to hold on forever and never pull my face away.

At ten-fifteen, an hour and a half into our stay at Durango Medical Center, a doctor came out. My mother stood up, so I did, too.

“He’s alert and he’ll be fine to sleep at home tonight,” the doctor said, and my mother exhaled deeply. I shut my eyes and thanked God. “You can see him in a moment.”

“Do we know what this is? He hasn’t been right for months,” my mother said.

“We ran a whole battery of tests,” the doctor said. “He fainted because his blood pressure is so low. Why that happened we don’t know. Some people just run low.”

“He’s been so tired,” my mother repeated. “Could that be related?”

The doctor smiled. “Most definitely. We’re giving him fluids by IV right now, and we’ll want him to rest for a bit, but there’s no reason he can’t go home tonight.”

The tears streamed down my mother’s face, and I could feel the sense of relief in her body, could feel it in my shoulders and chest. I allowed myself to breathe, and it felt good. Good like it hadn’t felt in a long time.
My dad was going to be okay.