my hair. “Shall we go and check on Ray?” he asks, his voice soft.
The ICU on the sixth floor is a stark, sterile, functional ward with whispered
voices and bleeping machinery. Four patients are each housed in their own
separate area, attached to hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of hi-tech
equipment. Ray is at the far end. Daddy.
He looks so small in his large bed, surrounded by all this technology. It’s a
shock. My dad has never been small. There’s a tube in his mouth, and
various lines pass through drips into a needle in each arm. A small clamp is
attached to his finger. I wonder vaguely what that’s for. His leg is on top of the
sheets, encased in a blue cast. A monitor displays his heart rate: beep,
beep, beep. It’s beating strong and steady. This I know. I move slowly toward
him. His chest is covered in a large, pristine bandage that disappears
beneath the thin sheet that protects his modesty.
Daddy.
I realize that the tube pulling at the right corner of his mouth leads to a
ventilator. Its noise is wea一ving with the beep, beep, beep of his heart monitor
into a percussive rhythmic beat. Sucking, expelling, sucking, expelling,
sucking, expelling in time with the beeps. There are four lines on the screen
of his heart monitor, each moving steadily across, demonstrating clearly that
Ray is still with us. Oh, Daddy.
Ray is still with us. Oh, Daddy.
Tentatively, I reach for his hand. Even though his mouth is distorted by the
ventilator tube, he looks peaceful, lying there fast asleep. A petite young
nurse stands to one side, checking his monitors.
“Can I touch him?” I ask her.
“Yes,” she smiles kindly. Her badge says KELLIE RN , and she must be in
her twenties. She’s blonde with dark, dark eyes. Christian stands at the end
of the bed, watching me carefully as I clasp Ray’s hand. It’s surprisingly
warm, and that’s my undoing. I sink on to the chair by the bed, place my head
gently against Ray’s arm, and 337 | P a g e
Fifty Shades Freed
start to sob.
“Oh, Daddy. P
本章未完，点击下一页继续阅读。