Expect the Unexpected

One

Orlando, Florida

        March, 2020

"Mishy, I know we haven't had much of anything to do with each other in literally decades, and believe me–I Wish I was calling with good news. Butcha need to get out here to Florida ASAP, or you'll regret not getting to tell Zak how much ya love him one last Time."

Very few people ever wanna have anything to do with a former spouse once their divorce's been finalized, even for something as routine as a custody switch-off for visitation purposes. But nobody ever wantsta have to make a call to a former spouse so they can inform them that their child might very well be about to take their last breath–even after that child's grown. Unfortunately, that was the very call that veteran rocker Rob Bobby Dall found himself making after being forced to rush his twenty-nine-Year-old son to the emergency room in the middle of the Night.

        Already exhausted from having been trying to take care of him for the better part of a week, he was certain that the only thing to keep him awake'd been pure adrenaline. With the emergence of what he, personally called Godzilla Flu, he'd known it was very possible that any of his family–immediate and distant–could come down with the potentially fatal virus. But as healthy as Zak'd always been, he'd hoped and prayed that neither he, nor his baby sister'd wind up diagnosed with it.

        Unfortunately, the Silver Fox felt like his prayers'd gone unheard–or at the very least, that a God he was starting to lose Faith in had simply decided not to answer them. At first, it'd seemed like his son'd just caught a late-Season chest cold, which'd happened a few Times over the course of his Life. Even though he hadn't thought it a reason to worry, he'd still taken it upon himself to head over to said son's apartment to check on him nearly every Day after finding out he wasn't feeling good. But going over to check on him, even when the younger man'd insisted that he didn't need to, was prolly the only reason he was still alive. He was in bad shape, and there was no guarantee he'd pull through, considering the diagnosis he'd gotten, but for now, he was still alive.

        Having to sit next to his son's bed in the ICU, more or less trapped here since he was under a quarantine of his own now, almost put Rob at his breaking point. All the tubes and wires running between his baby boy and the machines and bottles keeping him alive was a sight that'd bring any man to his knees. Knowing that his ex-wife, the boy's mother, was in Texas with her second husband and may not get to see him again before the worst possibly happened–that was what finally brought tearsta his eyes and made them slip down his cheeks.

        "Son, I know ya can still hear me," he said, his voice soft, but rough and gritty as he bit back a sob. "If ya don't pull through this for me, ya gotta do it for Mama and Zoe. Ya know I've been through a lotta shit in my Life, and even though losing a child ain't gonna be easy, I can get through it–but those two won't come outta this sane, if ya don't pull through."

        The Silver Fox knew he wasn't gonna get a response since Zak was sedated and on Life support, so he wasn't surprised when he only heard the continued noises made by the respirator he was on.

        "Ya gotta keep fighting, lil man," Rob told him. "If nothing else, then for Mama to get here and see ya one more Time before..."

        He couldn't bring himself to finish that sentence, not even wanting to think about how irrevocably his Life'd Change, if his son were to become another statistic of this virus. But he certainly didn't wanna think about the guilt he'd harbor till he drew his own dying breath for not calling his ex-wife sooner than when he did so she'd have gotten more Time with Zak before the worst happened.