Demanding Ransom Read Free

it. Talk about your terrible bedside manner.
    “No, no one has spoken to me.” I give her a
stern look that she attempts to avoid by staring down at my arm like she’s
assessing something. “Spoken to me about what?”
    “I’ll go find your father, Maggie.”
    “I asked for my brother,” I clarify, but before
I have a chance to ask what is going on, she’s out the door, and I’m left in
the cold room alone, feeling numb, like I’m dangling upside-down all over
again.
    ***
    “Maggie Girl.” He breathes into my hair and the
hot air should warm me, but chills my scalp all the way down to my toes
instead. “Don’t you dare do that to me again, do you understand?”
    Do I understand? No, of course I don’t
understand. I still have absolutely no idea what is happening here, why I’m the
one in this hospital bed, and why no one seems to want to give me a straight
answer about Mikey.
    “Dad,” I speak, my voice soft not because I’m
trying to be quiet, but because it’s the only volume that comes out when I open
my mouth. Even if I tried to talk louder, I doubt I’d be successful.
“Seriously, what’s going on? Where’s Mikey?”
    Dad purses his lips and his straight brow knits
together. I’ve seen this look on him before. It makes an appearance when he’s
searching for the right words to say—the perfect delivery for a speech
he’s already prepared. He had the same face nine years ago when he told us Mom
wasn’t coming home.
    “Mikey is down the hall, Maggie.” He doesn’t
add anything to the statement, but the words weigh down on me like a stack of
heavy books, only I don’t know the information that’s held within their pages.
“He’s fine.”
    “You’re a terrible liar.” I stare straight into
his gray eyes and the red veins that web through them indicate nothing about
this is fine. People don’t cry when things are fine. Forty-year-old men don’t hide
their tears behind clenched eyelids when everything is fine. “What the hell
happened yesterday, Dad? I got your text, and now both Mikey and I are laid up
in hospital beds. What’s going on?”
      Dad
closes his eyes completely—an even worse sign than when he merely
tightened them—and I know I don’t want to hear the words he’s about to
say. Like when you’re a kid and you thrust your fingers in your ears and stick
out your tongue, trying to avoid the very real confrontation that is bound to
take place. I want to do that now. If I wasn’t so sore, I just might attempt
it.
    “Maggie Girl,” he sighs. That’s another
indicator of bad things to come. He’s pulling out the childhood nicknames. Not
a good sign. “Mikey had an accident during the game yesterday.”
    I recall the text. “Yeah, I know,” I say,
nodding. “A concussion. Stupid linebackers. And seriously, Mikey’s got to be
ready for them next time. That’s his fourth sack this season. He’s going lax on
us, Dad.”
    Dad’s eyes well and his front teeth sink into
the flesh of his bottom lip. “Mags.” In one swoop, he draws me into his
shoulders and presses his lips to my forehead. I wrench back from the sudden
action, but feel the spill of his fresh tears across my cheek and my breathing
cuts off as the room spins around me.
    “Oh no…no, no, no. Dad—please tell me
Mikey is okay.” My heart has catapulted into my throat; I can feel the beats
echoing loudly in my ears like the kick of a bass drum. “He’s not…he’s
not—”
    “Oh goodness no, he’s not dead, Mags.” Dad
pulls back and breathes a relieving sigh, but the tears continue to run streaks
down his cheekbones, sliding across jaw without letting up. “But he didn’t have
a concussion like we thought.”
    I shake my head. “No?”
    “He blacked out.”
    “Oh yeah? Well, tell him he’s not such hot stuff—I
blacked out too, you know. Multiple times. And I might have even told a random
guy he had a nice face. Tell Mikey he doesn’t get all the limelight, mm-kay ?”
    “Maggie.”