Ice and Fire

Chapter 8 ~ Lachlan

After a restless night of tossing and turning I woke up at least two hours before I needed to. Seeing no need to go back to sleep I got up and went down to the home gym. Might as well get my workout out of the way before gathering a few things for my mother and heading back to the hospital.

Getting out of bed, I walked quickly to my dressing room and picked out a pair of boxer briefs, socks, shorts and a t-shirt. When I was finally dressed I picked out a pair of trainers and headed down the to the gym. For the next hour I tried to go through my regular routine, but my head was just not in it. Loosing track on what set I was on I kept stopping in the middle and begin it all over again. So in stead of continuing for nothing I set the timer on the treadmill and ran. 20 minutes later I quit and headed back to my room for a shower.

After my shower I got dressed in a pair old faded jeans, a light blue long sleeve shirt and a grey sweater. I walked down to the kitchen for some coffee and maybe some breakfast. Expecting to find the room empty I was happily surprised to find my father and my brothers having breakfast themselves.

"I guess you are unable to sleep like the rest of us." Said Jay as I sat down at my place on the right of our father. Throughout our childhood we all had our own place at he table, that even now we still sit use. When Deborah arrived she sat, as the youngest, on my father's left. This morning the table seemed really empty without the ladies of the family.

Pouring hot water into my mug. "Aye, tried to workout but me mind was nae in it." Took a sip from my cup. "Athair (Dad), I was thinking of taking some clothes to the hospital for mathair (mom)...make her more comfortable for the tests this morning. Could ye gather some clothes up in a bag as well as her toiletries? I would like to be at the hospital before they take her into the exams."

"Aye son. I'll go up and get ye what ye want. Just give me a few minutes. Never been in yer mathair's affairs, not in the 40 years we've been married." He smiled and walked out of the kitchen and went up to their room.

"I nae know about ye, but I'm staying at the hospital all day. I'll have me computer and mobile with me and will be available at all times, but I am nae leaving our mother and, I can imagine, our father alone. We have a great group of people that can run the company in our absence for a couple of days, but we can reassure them that in case of extreme emergency we are available."

"I'll work from home and make sure Deborah goes to school. After school's out I'll take her to the hospital so she can see mathair (mother)."

"Thank ye Ben. That's perfect." I took my phone and was ready to send out a message to Walter, but I noticed that the time was still early so I set my phone back on the table. A small unimportant conversation continued until our sister Rebecca with what looked like our mother's agenda walked into the room.

Sitting at her usual spot she turned the pages of the small book. "I see that I am not the only one unable to sleep. I thought maybe we should see what mathair (mother) had on her agenda for the next couple of days. Even if she comes back tomorrow she will probably be stuck in bed, resting and will not be able to see to her rendez-vous. So..." she looked at each one of us before continuing, "...maybe we should all take over her tasks until she's up and running things again."

For the next couple of minutes, our sister gave us our different tasks for the rest of the week. Might as well make it a week cause our mother, with all our help, will not set a foot out of the house for at least this week.

"Shouldn't our athair (father) be back by now? Don't you think he's taking too much time gathering a few things?" Asked Jay.

"I'll go see what is taking him so long." I said as I left the room.