Social Norms (Synacky)

Chapter Thirty-One

When Brian awoke that night, he assumed it was because McKenna was screaming. He groaned, turning over and covering his face with his pillow, when he heard the sound again, urgent and desperate. “Brian, wake up!”

He sat up, looking groggily at his open doorway to find his dad standing in it. “Suzy and I are leaving. I need you to know that so you can take care of McKenna if she wakes up in the night, alright?”

“What?” Brian blinked at his alarm clock, waiting for the disorientation to subside so he could read the numbers. “Dad, it’s two in the morning…”

“Something happened with your grandfather and Suzy and I are going to the hospital. Don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine.” His dad’s voice was thick with emotion.

“Is it… Is it Pops?” Brian ventured. He prayed it wasn’t, but he knew otherwise.

“Yes. We’ll be back in the morning sometime.”

At that, Brian was left alone, to question and worry.

His Pops was his grandfather on his dad’s side, the one he loved and cherished. His life was riddled with fond memories of fishing on the lake, learning hammer-ons and pull-offs on the screened in back porch, old records that would sometimes get scratches and skip tracks in their living room. He could spend weeks at his Pops and Gran’s, and never notice the time was going by. He didn’t even mind helping Pops out with his cement business, and didn’t mind getting his hands dirty pouring and smoothing cement as long as Pops and his uncles were doing it along with him.

So he lay in bed, worried, fisted the sheets tightly in his hands, and worried some more. There was no way he was getting any sleep. He wanted to be at the hospital. He could sit in the waiting room. He could rock McKenna to sleep in the hard backed chairs they had there. Brent would be fine, he wasn’t even here.

Would Pops be fine? Who was sitting with Gran, reassuring her and keeping her mind off things? Brian and Suzy, but surely he could help. What was even wrong with Pops? His dad said everything would be fine, but what did he know? Was it a heart attack? Had he fallen down? Pops was still pretty agile for his age, it couldn’t be that bad… could it?

He wanted to cry. Brian didn’t cry often, he didn’t like to cry, but he wanted to now. He couldn’t lose him, not now. Not ever. He wanted to cry and be miserable and cling tightly to someone.

Brian wanted Zacky.

He wanted to go to the park and swing on the swings and bide his time until he knew Pops was okay. He wanted Zacky to push him and he could vent everything out and then they could kiss and cuddle and Zacky would make everything better. Right?

But Brian wouldn’t cry. He huffed stubbornly, staring up at the ceiling and waiting for sleep to take him. There was nothing he could do anymore. And the longer sleep evaded his grasp, the more frustrated he became. So he sat up, flicked on the light, and reached for his guitar case.

~*~

When Brian awoke again, his hand was asleep, guitar strings pressing deep lines on his cheek from where his head rested on the neck. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep. The light was still on, a few tabs at his feet. He groaned, stretching his sore muscles and rubbing his face, before padding to McKenna’s room.

She peered at him through the slats of her crib, sleepy eyed and dazed. “Bribri?” she reached up, and he scooped her into his arms.

“Hey, sleepyhead. You ready for breakfast?”

The morning was somber. Brian fed McKenna yogurt and Froot Loops, not in the mood to actually cook anything or think about balanced nutrition. It would keep her quiet. He was worried that it was morning and neither his dad nor Suzy was back yet.

As if on cue, the phone rang, and Brian dove to answer it.

“Hello?” he answered.

“Brian,” his dad’s voice came over the line, and Brian sighed in relief.

“How is he? How’s Gran? Do you want me to come over there? I can bring McKenna, I have a car seat-“

“No, don’t worry about that. Pops is resting.”

“What happened?” Brian breathed, “Is he gonna be okay?”

“He fell down in the night last night. Broke his hip. They won’t know if it will heal correctly until it has a chance to set.”

“Do you want me to come out there? Does he want visitors? And what about Gran?”

“Pops is asleep. Suzy and I are going to spend the afternoon with Gran. He’s going to be alright, Brian, it’ll just take a while for him to get back into the swing of things.”

Brian heaved a sigh of relief, tension rolling off his shoulders. “Thank god.” He whispered, “I was worried.”

“How’s McKenna?”

“She’s fine.” Brian smiled over at her as she dipped her fingers in the yogurt. “Messy as usual.”

 “Were you planning on going to practice today?”

“No.” Brian’s voice was firm. “I’m not up for that.”

“Okay, good. So we’ll just stay out today instead of coming back to pick her up, you can take care of Kenna, right?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

He could hear his dad’s smile as he replied, “Good. We’ll see you this afternoon, Bri. Love you.”

“Love you too.” Brian hung up, turning to McKenna, who was dumping her food onto the floor. “Hey! What’re you doing that for?”

She giggled, holding up her hands which were covered in sticky cereal. Brian sighed, smiling softly, and grabbed the paper towels.