I stay where I am.
The surgeon speaks quietly. Bill puts a hand over his mouth. Ryan closes his eyes.
When he opens them again, he looks at me.
I do not ask.
He gives one short nod.
Alive.
My hands tighten around the coffee cup until the lid bends.
An hour later, Susan is in recovery, Ryan is allowed in for five minutes, and Bill has decided I am going to the farm before midnight whether I like it or not.
“You can’t sleep in that chair,” he says.
“I’ve slept in airports.”
“That’s not an argument. That’s a cry for help.”
Ryan comes back from recovery looking ragged and wired. “Dad.”
“I’m sending her to the farm.”
“I’ll take her.”
“You’re staying until they kick you out. The driver can take her.”
Ryan’s gaze cuts to me.
There it is again, the instinct to manage the room even when the room is three exhausted people and a cup of terrible coffee.
I save him the work. “The driver is fine.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know women have been getting into cars with strange men since the invention of family emergencies, and statistically that sentence is horrifying, but your father seems to trust the arrangement.”
Bill points at me. “Funny under pressure. Good quality.”
Ryan does not smile. His mouth wants to and refuses on principle.
“Text me when you get there,” he says.
It sounds like an order. It feels like concern. I choose not to make either of them admit it.
“I will.”
Outside, the same driver from the airfield waits by the SUV, hands folded over the steering wheel, the radio turned low to a country station full of heartbreak and steel guitar.
“Ma’am,” he says, opening the back door.
“Peyton,” I say automatically.
He smiles. “Yes, ma’am.”
Got to be a Texas thing.