Chapter Four.

Corrie.

I woke up to an incoming new text the next morning. Checking the caller ID, it was from my mum.

Momma.

Your dad's situation worsened just this morning and it is worse

than it has ever been. You need to come over, your sister needsyou here cause she can't stop crying.

Seeing her words left me in so much woe. I got up and went for the shower as soon as I was done, I wrote a note and left it on the counter hoping not to wake up the two love birds whom I had figured slept in today.

"Headed to mum's. Won't make it to school today either. Corrie."

I left and entered into my mini SUV and drove off without even putting into thought where I was heading but the hands seemed to know where to turn the wheel. My parents lived just one hour from where I went to school. The place I had grown up was not a very big town and did not even have half the number of the people that lived where I currently went to school. My mum had told me they had once lived in some mansion where they were thrown out by a guy who took it from my dad because he owed him a pretty large sum of money. My dad had pleaded to pay him half of it the next month before they had been thrown out but the guy simply told him he couldn't wait that long cause he knew my dad was too poor to pay him back that soon. My dad had lost his job after he hadbeen accused for stealing from the company which also happened to belong to the very bustard that acted mercilessly and thrown them out. I was just three by then and didn't seem to notice what was happening. My mom had moved us into the place they currently lived with my younger sister, Catie who is currently thirteen, nine years younger than I am. After Mr. Parker who I still didn't get to know had thrown us out, my mum's uncle had given us his place which he was about to sell and got mum a small job at a coffee shop which money she normally earned catered for Catie's and my school. Shortly after the misfortune, my dad got severely sick with very high pressure and suffered from depression and with all that on my mum's plate, she decided she needed to earn more money so she started even working nights as a waitress in some restaurant after working day at the coffee shop where everything was working out normally just until last week where my dad met Mr. Parker again and his situation worsened even more. The doctors told her he needed to undergo some kind of therapy that needed ten times the money my mum earned for two months.

That's when she called me and I decided to get a job where I just recently started working hoping to help out my mum with the expenses where she thought she could get a loan but I told her wecouldn't afford to pay it back by the time the bank would need it.

So I guessed his situation had plummeted by the way my mum wrote. We still didn't have the money to afford his treatment as yet.

God only knew how much loath I felt towards Mr. Parker for his haughty actions. I knew the hospital we always used when I was growing up and I figured that was most definitely where my dad, mum and sister could be and just pulled over to the parking lot of St. Augustine's hospital. I went to the reception and asked for my dad's room number where they directed me. Soon I was inside and my mum and sister were curled up on the seat in the corner where I guessed the screeching sound of the door woke them.

"Corrie," my sister wailed as I moved swiftly towards them. She hugged me with her eyes soaked in tears. I asked my mum what the doctor had said and she told me they had done all they could and were waiting for his body to respond to the treatment but it had now been five fucking hours and no response. I crouched down next to Catie who couldn't stop crying just to convince her everything would turn out fine. But God knows not even me believed that but we had to avoid the pessimism of it all.

"Take Catie out and get her something to eat as I stay here and wait for the doctor." My mum said to me.

I did as she requested and sat by Catie as she ate up her favorite ice cream where she only accepted to eat it if I fed it to her. Her fingers kept trembling but I kept caressing them to ease her nerves as I fed her. Luckily she relaxed and we sat there talking about her favorite sitcom and she started laughing again. Shortly we moved back to the hospital after she had relaxed but came to a stop as soon as we saw so much commotion along the corridors with nurses moving towards the same direction. At this moment I hoped it wasn't my dad as I felt Catie's hands tighten around mine. We moved closer and found my mum with her eyes to her thighs and she was seated exactly outside my dad's hospital room.

"What's happening? Did anything happen to dad?"

I asked her and she looked up at us with a rueful look.

“He just started shaking and I called the doctor. Corrie, he is dying.”

“No, mum. He is going to live.” I hugged Catie close to me as we waited for the doctor to come out. Catie started crying again and my mum looked hopeless. The door opened revealing a tall dark man who I guessed was the doctor cause of his outfit. He was removing his gloves and coming towards us with sorrow written all over his face.

"I'm sorry but we tried the best we could." The doctor's words sunk in until I felt a tear run down my own cheek. I looked at my mum who seemed not to believe as if waiting for the doctor to say it was a joke but doctors didn't usually make such jokes unless in the movies. Catie even looked worse and I knew it had to be my responsibility to stay strong for them and handle everything cause they had handled everything in the past when I was in school. And so just like that my father was no more.

Just Like That ©2020 by Laurie Lae.