Kind Hearted (Patrick Kane)

28- Too Late

Patrick

Since Andy was in the hospital and Tori worked at the hospital, I spent a lot of my free time in the hospital. And it wasn't all that bad, Andy was pretty upbeat and loved all the same vintage video games I did so we played a lot. I loved hanging out with him and just talking about life. He was almost as insightful as his daughter was. Plus it was nice to see Tori walking around around all the time and give her a little distraction.

"Dad... stop holding your breath" Tori warns as she takes his blood pressure. Andy sticks out his bottom lip as he starts to pout.

"You're no fun" he grunts.

She takes off the blood pressure device and finishes up taking care of him before she sits on the end of the bed.

"So how are you feeling today" she wonders. He had his surgery three days ago but he looked like he was doing good.

"I'm fine. There's no more sharp pain but I have this huge thing I can't seem to get off my chest" he claims.

"Is it your scar" she asks and he laughs.

"These games don't work if you don't play correctly" he whines.

"Your life isn't a game Dad" she reminds him and he lets out a sigh.

"Fine. I feel fine" he says with a small smile.

"Alright. Take yours medicine and rest. That means no video games with Patrick until after lunch" she says.

"Awww" I pout.

"You come with me" she says pointing to me.

"Me" I ask.

"Yeah. The cutie with blonde curls and blue eyes" she assures me and I smile big.

I happily follow her out of the room and down the hallway. I help her figure out what to get Andy for his stay here. Some food and clothes and of course his newspapers. He wouldn't be here for all that long but she can't go out and get him stuff if she's stuck here too. So I offered to help her out and do whatever I can to make this shitty situation a little bit easier.

"Thanks so much for doing this Pat. I owe you" she claims.

"You don't owe me anything. I want to help. I've been begging for you to let me help" I remind her and she giggles.

"Yeah. I'm not exactly the most open minded when it comes to getting help" she admits.

"That's okay. As long as you know that I got you" I claims.

"I know it" she smiles.

"Good" I reply.

I quickly pull her into a kiss and we break apart. But she pulls me back for a quick second and gives me one more kiss for good measure. I go to take off to the elevators but stop when I see something. I see a older women outside of Andy's room looking in it. She was kinda short and had on jeans and a blue tank top. She had hair like Tori's and the same nose. I wonder if it was a relative.

"Hey Tor, who is that in front of your dads room" I question. She squints for a little trying to figure out who this mystery person was.

"I'm not sure" she admits. She walks over to her dads room and I follow behind her. She quickly stops once she got a real good look at the stranger nearly causing me to run into her. I can feel her freeze in her spot as she tries to move but she can't.

"Mom" Tori asks and my eyes go big. The woman turns around and she smiles a little when she sees Tori standing there.

"I'm sorry... did you just say mom" I ask.

"Hey sweetheart" the woman says and Tori shakes her head. Immediately I can tell something wasn't right here.

"I cannot believe you... You have the audacity to show up in the hospital after what you put us through? After all these years you had your chances to come back to us you and decide to do it now? You had all these chances to make things right and now that my dad is hospitalized you finally decide to show up? Why are you here, why now" Tori questions.

"I came here as soon as I heard your dad was in the hospital. I wanted to make sure he's okay" she claims.

"He had a major heart attack then had surgery to fix his heart so it doesn't fail, he's not okay" Tori nearly yelled.

I've never seen her mad before, not even upset. She's the most positive and open minded person I've ever met. But right now, she was seething. She wanted nothing to do with her own mother, but she had some pretty good reasons to feel that way.

"I just want to make sure he's okay" her mom claims.

"He wouldn't even be here in the first place if it wasn't for you" Tori accuses. "You put his heart through so much wear and tear over the past years. You broke his heart when you walked out without a cent of closure or a reason as to why you gave up on him. He loved you, he needed you and you left him alone with a kid to figure it out on his own. His heart was slowly breaking from the moment you left and now that it's too late you finally decide to show up?  He worked his ass off every single day to be everything I needed him to be, never took a day off of work and fought for me every step of the way. Now you think you can just show up like everything is okay? Act like you weren't gone for nearly twenty years? That's not how this works" Tori insists.

"I'm here to support him. To see him get better" her mom insists.

"He doesn't need you now. We've figured it out without you. I promise you he wants nothing to do with you" she argues. "How did you even find us" she asks.

"I saw you and your dad in the news" she explains.

"Right. So you were just waiting for us to hit rock bottom for you to show up again? Act like you're the answer to all our problems" Tori questions.

"It's nothing like that" her mom claims. 

"I don't want to hear it. I'm not sure wherever it is you decided to crawl out of, but you need to go back" Tori claims and her mom gasps.

"Wow. I figured Andy would have raised you better than to talk to someone like that" her mom accuses.

"That's really not correct" I jump in and they both stop. They turn to me as I feel the tension build. I swallow hard because my intentions wasn't to escalate things, but I wasn't going to let her mom sit here and lie about Andy or Tori. "Tori is actually the kindest and most respectful person there ever was. She cared for me when I didn't deserve her time or thoughts. She takes care of everyone both big and small, lets them know they're loved and that she wants them to be happy. She makes them happy. She is the most incredible person ever and it sucks that you will never be able to see it" I admit.

"Just because you're famous doesn't give you the right to stick your opinion in my family" her mom claims.

"Family" Tori asks. "What family? Did you have another family? Is that why you ran? Because we... we're not a family."

"How can you say that" her mom asks.

"How could you leave" Tori challenges and it falls silent. They stare at each other for a little before her mom breaks.

"Listen. I want to start over" her mom admits.

"You can't mom, you really can't. You can't undo the things we went through. You can't just show up here and expect anything to change because you realized that you made a huge mistake" Tori explains.

"I see" her mom nods. "I'm sorry you feel that way."

"Yeah mom... me too" Tori says.

Her mom turns around and leaves us there. I can tell Tori was upset but she'll never show it. Not here at least. So I pull her to the side before wrapping my arms around her. I hold her tight as she starts to cry. I know that was hard for her but I think she did the right thing, and that's never the easiest things.