Answer:
“Oh yeeeaah… K. Love you so much. Bye”
I rushed upstairs and woke dad up from his slumber. “Dad! Dad! Jon’s hurt. He’s bleeding. Get up!”
I’m not sure what followed. I imagine Dad rushed down the stairs and wrapped Jon’s knee up in a towel or something. He probably packed us all in to our Red Lumina and rushed Jon off to the hospital twenty minutes away. Jon got stitches. I’m not sure how many. Jon doesn’t even know anymore. All Jon really remembers is the pain.
In the years that passed I began to wonder why we didn’t go upstairs to dad in the first place. Why’d we call mom first?
Through a conversation with my sister, we realized this was our normal. Although Dad was around, he was never present. He was absent so often that in a time of crisis we didn’t even turn to him. As a father, I want to be present.
