Emergency Medical Dad

LVIII: october, present

JESSIE

I wait with bated breath, a little bag of overnight stuff already sitting on my floor by the door in my room. He left five hours ago, the flight is around six hours long. It's longer for the usual citizen because you have to stop at Toronto Pearson but they have their own plane and that means they can go pretty much anywhere without the formalities of having to stop.

He's sent me some funny photos of the plane rides, some of the guys sleeping on the floor, games of cards he's been involved in, Bernie, his uncle, snoozing on the shoulder of Rod, another coach. Nico doing a handstand in the middle of the passage.

He's going to tell me when they land, then when I'm alright to drive over. He says there's going to be around a forty five minute window between each.

Which means I have two full hours to wait.

I manage another ten minutes before I'm distracted by a small blanket-clad figure by my door.

"Conn," I sit up, waving him in.

"Hi, Mom," he mumbles, slinking over and crawling up into bed with me, blanket pulled tight around his whole body. He flops his head across my lap, black eye making his face a little puffy on one side. I trace my fingers through his hair, waiting for him to say anything, if he wants.

He doesn't for quite a while, then he shifts, looking up at me, "Jorgen's in Chicago tomorrow."

"He is," I nod. "We're going to see him after lunch. I'm taking you out at the end of school to go see him."

"You are?"

"Mhmm," I brush my finger across his cheekbone.

"I miss him," he says. "A lot. I wish it was still summer."

"I know, me too," I let out a little breath, watching him pull himself tighter in the blanket. "But he's back tomorrow, we'll get to see him tomorrow."

"And then when?"

"I'm not sure," I brush my fingers through his hair again. Jay cut it halfway through the summer like he does with his, just because he's got a firmer wrangle on the curls than I do, and it looks like he's going to need to come back and do it again soon. "His schedule is a bit of a mess."

"He can't take time off to come see us?"

"Well-"

"He doesn't want to?"

"No, of course he wants to."

"It doesn't seem like it," Connor mumbles. "He doesn't want us around."

"No, he does."

"Why would he have left if he did?" He squeezes his eyes shut.

"He had to," I try to damage control. "Jorgen's been through a lot, staying here would've made him really sick. He didn't want you to see him get sick."

Connor focuses on that for a moment, thinking about it, then surprises me with what he says next, the words tumbling out of his mouth without any sort of prompting, just a thought, just some sort of subject breach. "He's my Dad, isn't he?"

"Conn-"

"That's why he looks like me."

I stay quiet, thinking about what I could possibly say to him to maybe save the situation, keep it a secret still without lying to him. I watch his face for a long few seconds, then decide that what he needs right now isn't denial of something he seems very sure of, "yes."

"Why wasn't he here the whole time?"

I pause, then sort through an answer in my head, "he didn't know."