Chapter 3: The Room of Truth
My parents walked into the ICU like they were walking into a slightly disappointing hotel room.
My mother, dressed in an immaculate cashmere sweater set and clutching a Birkin bag that I had bought her for her birthday, looked around the room with a deep frown of annoyance. My father trailed behind her, checking his expensive smartwatch, looking equally put-upon.
“Geez, Sarah,” my mother complained, stepping up to the foot of my bed. She didn’t look at the heart monitor. She didn’t look at the IV lines snaking into my arms. She didn’t even notice the blood seeping through the thick white bandages wrapped tightly around my torso. “I told you we were coming eventually. Why didn’t you text us the room number? We had to wait at the front desk for ten minutes.”
“And the parking here is an absolute nightmare,” my father chimed in, crossing his arms. “I had to park the Mercedes in the public lot. And why is it so freezing in this room? You should ask them to turn the AC down.”
They stood there, two perfectly healthy, wealthy people whose entire lifestyle was funded by my eighty-hour work weeks, complaining about parking while I lay bleeding internally.
“Do you have any idea how panicked Lily was when she heard you went to the hospital?” my mother continued, her tone accusatory, as if my car crash was a personal insult to my sister. “She has anxiety, Sarah, you know this! We had to promise to buy her that new convertible she wanted just to calm her nerves. Your father already put down the deposit using your supplementary card.”
