White Space Season 2

Mom.
    Come on, Father, get up. Go say something to someone.
    But Father stayed sitting, holding Mother’s hand and displaying more patience than Warren had ever seen from him before. Warren tried telling himself, as he had all morning, that if Mother wasn’t worried, there was no reason for him to be. She had delivered a child before, and would know if there was reason for rattled nerves. Mother didn’t seem especially anxious, though Father was practically out of his skin. Mother said she wasn’t really nervous, just in pain, and only because no one had yet come to put the needle in her back.
    She’s done this before, relax. Everything will be fine.
    In a couple of days, we’ll all be back home, and I’ll have a brand new baby brother.
    Warren loved being an only child, yet there was a part of him that had always wondered what it would be like to have a sibling, someone to play and grow with. Of course, he was already 12, so his brother would be too young to share much in common, but still, Warren was excited. It was hard to see Mother’s brimming excitement and not absorb her enthusiasm.
    With Father always working, things had grown too still in their house, too serious. Quiet like a haunting. Something had slowly but constantly changed in Father over the past few years. While there was a time when he seemed to love spending time with Warren, doing normal things like any other father and son, their time together had started to change.
    Father was treating Warren more like an adult, expecting more from him — especially at school and in his many science classes, two of which he took at the high school campus. It was as if overnight, he had stopped being a kid to Father, and was expected to be an adult, even though he wasn’t yet ready. Whenever Warren tried to act like a kid — have fun, joke around, or do the sorts of things that once made Father smile and laugh — he would scold his son, telling him to “grow up” and “act his age,” even though Warren thought he was.
    A few months back, he had gone to his mom, and actually cried — something he could never do in front of Father — and complained about the way things were between he and his dad.
    Mother said, “Don’t worry, Warren. Your father loves you very much. He’s just so involved with work, that it’s hard for him to let go when he’s home. Things will change once your brother is born, you’ll see.”
    She added, “I promise,” with a giant smile, then fell uncharacteristically silent. She didn’t need to say more. Mother had given Warren a peg to hang his hopes. Once his baby brother Jonny was born, he would have his old Father back.
    Warren’s attention was savagely ripped from his magazine with a sudden, aching urgency in Father’s voice.
    “Honey, are you OK?” he cried out.
    Warren dropped the magazine into his lap. It fell in a glossy accordion to the floor as he leapt up toward his mother. She sat bolt upright in bed, arms stabbing out in front of her as she violently inhaled, gasping for breath.
    “What’s happening?” Warren shrieked as his mother’s eyes met his, her face turning a mottled shade of blue.
    Father jammed his thumb repeatedly on the bedside button, then tore into the hall, running and screaming, “Help! Please help me! Somebody help my wife!”
    Doctors and nurses poured into the hallway then flooded the small room. A stern doctor, with thick eyebrows and a strong but weathered jaw, turned to Father and ordered the king from his room.
    “What’s happening?” Warren screamed, fear coursing in an unrelenting current through his body.
    “I don’t know,” Father said, surprising Warren with his surrender, fleeing the room and holding his son tight, as he held the door with his eyes.
    They peered through the window together, though neither could see anything past the huddle of scurrying doctors and nurses.

    **

    Warren sat beside Father for nearly an hour, anxiously waiting for any word that might tell them what was happening. For the first 25 minutes Blake made one phone call after another, searching through his contacts, frustrated by how long it took to find each number, keeping each call less than a minute until finally getting one of the nation’s top surgeons, Dr. Westing, to agree that he’d fly out to New York from Houston immediately.
    Will immediately be soon enough? Even if he got a flight right away, we’re still talking hours and car travel on top of that.
    What if … No,