I was adrift in the pages of my favorite book when my cell phone rang from the kitchen. The loud, insistent chiming forced me to emerge from my cocoon of blankets and re-enter the real world. As I trudged over to my phone, I touched the crescent moon necklace that adorned my neck. It was given to me by my adoptive mother on my thirteenth birthday. The necklace was attached to the blanket I was wrapped in when I was given to her just over twenty-two years ago. I hadn’t taken it off since the day I got it.

Mary wasn’t a horrible mother to me, but we both knew she could never love me like she loved her own children. As a result, I never fully fit in anywhere, my heart never really whole.

When I picked up the phone, a tired and apathetic voice emanated from the other end of the line, “Is this Quinn Miller?” he inquired.

“This is she, ” I responded, tentatively, “Who are you?”

“I’m calling from Sun Valley hospital. Daniel Weston has recently been admitted to the emergency room,” he said.

“Sorry, I don’t know anyone by that name,” I snapped. I looked at my Jane Austen novel longingly from this kitchen, I could hear it calling to me from the couch I had left it on.

“Oh...ummm...you’re listed as Daniel’s emergency contact. Quinn Miller right?” The apparent apathy in his voice kept me from taking him seriously. “He asked me to call you. It seemed rather urgent.”

Life was pretty boring these days. I weighed my options, fiction versus a possible real-life adventure. How unsafe could a hospital be anyway?

“All right, I’m on my way,” I sighed.

“Good.”

Click

I threw on a coat, grabbed my keys and exited my dingy apartment. My stomach was queasy with apprehension and my head was racing with questions. The hospital was just ten minutes away from my house and soon, I was pulling my beaten up Chevy into the emergency room lot.

I shuffled into the waiting room, stopping at the recepitionist’s desk for directions.  I tried to avert my eyes from the sea of sullen faces that seemed to surround me and instead, stared at the white linoleum floors of the hospital hallway. After a long walk, I finally arrived at a large wooden door. I felt an icy shock as I reached out and turned the handle.

Lying on a hospital bed was a man. He was almost sixty, his formerly dark hair streaked with signs of age. His arms and legs were spindly branches extending from his small torso, but what struck me the most were his deep green eyes, piercing mine with an intensity I had never encountered previously.

“Quinn,” he croaked, after what felt like minutes of uninterrupted silence,“ I was worried you weren’t coming.” His pale hands were almost indistinguishable from the white sheets of the bed, and they only whitened further as he attempted to sit up. There was something about him that felt familiar, I just couldn’t pinpoint it. As he continued to work himself into an upright position, I saw a flash of a tattoo on his arm.

“What’s your tattoo of?” I inquired. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled and lifted the sleeve of his gown to reveal a small moon inked onto his upper left arm.

“What do you think?” he queried, looking at me with a slyly. My hand immediately went to my neck where my necklace rested.

“Dad?” I squeaked, just hoping that I was correct in my assumption. He nodded and distant memories began to fill my mind, flashes of a stranger helping me reach the top shelf in a library, a man smiling at me during a second-grade dance recital. He was always there, silently, in the background, even though I wasn’t really his.

“W- Wait, what happened? How did you find me? How long have you known about me?” Questions flooded my mind but the one that truly prevailed over the others was the one I didn't say. Why did you give me away? Tears pushed at the rims of my eyes. “Sorry, I’m just confused,” I murmured.

“It’s OK Quinn, ” he consoled,“ I know you have questions.” It was strange to have someone try to make me feel better, to have someone care. “Your mother,” his voice broke,“ she died giving birth to you. And I loved you, Quinn, I really did but I couldn’t take care of you. Not without her.“ His green eyes turned to glass as they welled with tears.

“So you just...gave me up?” I asked. I tried to be okay with it, he had just lost his wife and maybe he couldn’t have taken care of me. It stung though, that I had only now been made aware of his existence when he was lying on his deathbed. “What happened to you?” I inquired.

“I have cancer, Quinn,” he sobbed quietly, “It’s the end for me.”

“N- No, it can’t be,” I cried. I refused to believe that the one person who seemed to care for me was almost gone.

“Just...stay with me Quinn,” he pleaded. And I did. I told him everything, about my foster mom and my brothers. I relayed stories from middle and high school. And he listened, he hung on to every word for dear life. In those few ephemeral hours, I felt different, better. For once in my life, I felt like I meant something.

“Quinn, you have to promise me to move on when I go, ” he begged. I nodded solemnly in agreement. I could see how his face was slowly draining as I talked to him more and I knew his time was almost over.

“I love you Quinny,” he whispered as he smiled at me one last time, his eyes closed and his head fell to the side. I kissed his cheek and stepped away as he took his agonal breath.

Then, as if to push me away, the monitor above his bed started beeping so loudly I felt my ears would burst. A doctor rushed in. I was abruptly lost in a sea of people trying to save him, trying to shock his heart back into rhythm but, I knew he was already gone.

As my father’s heart slowed, mine was beating at an impossible rate. I sunk into a corner, alone and confused. Tears spilled out of my eyes as the hole in my heart that had only just been filled, emptied once again. This time, however, it didn’t leave anything behind. No love or hope, just a barren landscape of loss and betrayal.

At that moment I regretted ever picking up the phone, and when the heart monitor sang its final note there was no applause, but I was begging for an encore.