Blackmailing The Untouched

The Ringing Phone

As soon as I enter the house, I hear the home phone ringing, so I quickly set my purse down and jog to the bookcase to answer it. I'm out of breath when I connect the call.

"Hello?" I say into the receiver while trying to catch my breath.

"Hi, Is Mitch Abbott available to speak?" A woman with a tight voice is there on the other end.

"Not now, I'm his daughter. Can I take a message?" I respond with a curious tone. If this is a woman calling for Dad, maybe he's secretly dating?

"No, thank you. Would you tell him to give the hospital a call when he's available? We have his test results available, and It's urgent that he get into contact with us." My heart drops, and a cold chill sweeps over me. Hospital? Test results?

"What test results?" I request, my tone is weak and shaky.

"I'm sorry, but patient information is confidential. "She says with a snap.

My mind begins to race; I think of the worst-case scenario: Cancer. Does Dad have cancer?! Is he dying!? My heart hammers, and my ears begin ringing. No, maybe it's a blood test. STD? Cold? It's anything but cancer. He doesn't have cancer. He's fine. He wouldn't keep that from me. If he was sick, he would tell me, right?

"Okay, I'll tell him to call the hospital. Which hospital?" I say softly. I'm staring blankly ahead of me, on auto pilot. This can not be happening to me."Regional-Fox Memorial." She explains with a clipped tone. It's clear that she has experience in dealing with a family member, accidently answering one of these important phone calls. She knows how to defer from revealing too much, but she gets her message across. She sounds almost heartless; she's been down this road before.

After the call ends, I'm left there frozen while the dial tone beeps in my ear. Something breaks in me, and I quickly pull out my cell phone and quickly search the name of the hospital in the Google search bar. I feel my world shatter when I read the first result of the search. Regional-Fox Memorial is one of the four Cancer Hospitals in the state. I scan down the page, and the same word appears: CANCER. My mind gets blurry and my heart is beating violently in my chest, my ears are hot, and my palms are sweaty. I feel sick. I feel as though I'm spiraling down, down, down, and I know It's going to destroy me when I land. The living room begins to spin, my head pounds, and I feel a tightness in my chest that makes it almost impossible to breathe. My lungs are too tight, my throat feels closed, I'm trying to get a deep breath, and I'm trying to think. I look down where my hands are shaking fast, and my heart is in my throat.

I need to get out of here! Auto pilot is back on as I dial Sally's number. She answers on the second ring, "What's up, Hollie?" Her voice is peppy and sweet.

I try to calm myself before speaking, but I fall apart, "Sally, can you come and get me? I need to get away from here right now. I think I'll die if I stay here. Please?" I'm crying into the phone, the tears quickly sliding down my face, causing me to choke on my words.

"What is wrong?" She requests with concern.

I cry harder, and my face gets hot, my cheeks numb from the intensity of my tears. "I just got a call from a hospital. I think my Dad has cancer." I barely get the words out, and I'm not quite sure that she can understand what I'm saying through my mumbling.

"Sweetie, I can't hear you, but I'm in the car. I'm on my way." She reassures me with confusion. I hear the engine of her car in the background.

"Thank you. I don't think I should drive right now." I continue to sob. She stays on the phone with me, and when she finally pulls into the driveway, I run as fast as I can to her car.

"What's going on?" Her eyes are wide, and she has a look of terror on her face. She's never seen me like this. She's never seen me break down, and I can see that it is scaring her. "Hollie, please talk to me."

"I got home from hanging out with Toby, and the phone was ringing, so I answered it, and it was a hospital. They said that Dad's test results were in and that he needed to get back to them because it was urgent." I explain in a mess of tears and hiccups.

I am not a pretty sight.

"Maybe it's nothing -" She goes on to say while she gives me a look of pity. I shake my head angrily to stop her.

"No!" I shout a little too loudly than I meant to, "I searched the hospital. It's a cancer hospital!"

She opens her mouth to say something else - thinks for a beat and then goes quiet. We ride in complete, haunting silence to her apartment. I want to talk more, but the anger inside that I feel towards Dad from keeping something as important as having cancer from me is eating at me. I don't want her to become a casualty from the emotions I have stirring inside, pain that is slowly bubbling to the surface.

We walk into the apartment in silence and then go our separate ways. She sits down on the sofa while I head towards what was going to be my bedroom. I don't feel as though I can leave the house now that I know Dad is sick and could possibly be dying. Why would he keep this from me?!

I'm lying on the bed just staring up at the ceiling. I notice all the small details in the crown molding, the tiny imperfections in the white paint. I watch as the sun outside casts shadows on the wall. A far away clock ticks somewhere in the background. I realize that I don't have my cell phone with me and although It means that I wouldn't be called in the morning to have the college conversation with Dad, it also means that laying here staring at the ceiling is all I'm going to be doing.

I know exactly what he's going to say when I'm not home in the morning when he gets off his shift at the station. I know that he'll be blowing my phone up, demanding I get home immediately. If he knew where Sally lived, I'm sure he'd have a trooper come and pound on her door, but luckily, he doesn't, and I can cope with all this on my own time. I don't have to worry about starting a fight with him because he has been lying to my face every day since I don't even know when. Who knows how long he's known that he's sick? Who knows how long he's known that my entire life is about to change? I just can't grasp the fact that he kept this information from me.

But if I thought I knew anything about Dad, then I wouldn't be in the situation I'm in with Zach. I've learned a lot about Dad this past week, things that I would never believe or bother to give a second thought to if it wasn't for the proof that I've seen with my own eyes. I guess I really don't know him the way I thought I did.

He's almost like a stranger to me.