“I know, I’m a very bad person. I should have asked you! And now look what I’ve done!”

“No, darling,” Gwen said again. “He came home with the heart attack.”

“Why did you do that?” Seth asked Iris.

“Because you were so brilliant. Because it was important for your parents to see. Because they’d be so proud of you and all you’ve done with your life!”

“Iris, what if you find something online that’s embarrassing and humiliating and gives me a heart attack?” Seth asked.

Scott got to his feet, stethoscope around his neck. “I don’t think there’s any heart attack. I’m not real sure of the condition of his heart since he hasn’t been a regular patient. His blood pressure is high at the moment, no doubt due to severe gastric distress and the pain. But I think what you gave him is a giant gallbladder attack. He says he’s had indigestion before and had a big, fatty pork sandwich for lunch. And the whites of his eyes are taking on a jaundiced hue.”

“Iris, you gave my father a gallbladder attack,” Seth said.

“Oh, Seth, do you hate me?” she asked, tears running down her cheeks.

He just laughed. “I love you, Iris. But you’re a runaway train.”

The paramedics arrived, talked to Dr. Grant and they unanimously decided on transport to Pacific Hospital. Scott called the E.R. An IV was started. Norm quietly asked Scott if Seth could ride in the ambulance.

“Don’t you want your wife to ride with you?” Scott asked.

“I’ll take her and follow,” Iris said. “Seth, go with your dad.”

“I’ll go,” he said. Then he looked at his mother. “Mom, make sure you turn off the stove.”

It was a pretty tight fit in the back of that ambulance but before they were out of town, Norm was much more comfortable thanks to a little pain medication. With Seth on one side of him and a young paramedic on the other side monitoring his blood pressure, Norm closed his eyes and his breathing relaxed.

Norm opened his eyes and looked at Seth. “If I die I want you to sue Stu for that sandwich.”

“It’s pretty unlikely you’re going to die, Dad,” Seth said. “I think animal fat is pretty famous for causing gallbladder attacks.”

“He doesn’t have any warnings posted,” Norm said. “Sue him!”

“We’ll talk about that when you’re feeling better.”

“I could die, you know. It’s one thing to get a gallbladder attack when you’re thirty but at my age...”

“You’re going to pull through, I think.”

“I watched that movie. I thought I was having a heart attack but I watched. Your mother told me it was a heart attack, otherwise I’d have been fine.”

“You should always get a second opinion when Mom is diagnosing,” Seth said.

“I watched it. Iris brought it over, I think.”

“Iris has been a troublemaker since I was about four,” Seth said. “You don’t have to do everything she says, you know.”

“I bet you do,” Norm said.

“That’s different.”

The paramedic laughed discreetly.

“I gotta say something because I don’t think these youngsters know squat shit about gallbladders and heart attacks and I think there’s still a chance I could die. I don’t talk much anymore. I lost the will. Your mother does all my talking for me and I got arthritis in all my joints. But I wasn’t mad at you about that car accident.”

Seth’s eyes widened.

“Okay, for a little while maybe I was, but not that long. I figured you were mad at me since it was my fault.”

“Your fault? How was it your fault?”

“I was the one pushing you the whole time, telling you you’d never get a chance like that again—going pro. I didn’t think you’d turn your fast buck into a fast car. So for a while it just turned me sour, but I got over that. You never came around. I figured you blamed me for it.”

“I never came around because I seemed to make you miserable.”

“Shit, son, breathing makes me miserable! You should’a finished college before taking a pro contract. But hell, how’m I to know? Everything ever went right in my life was on account of taking the opportunity, hear me? I wasn’t that smart—I was just lucky. You were lucky and smart. I pushed on you and you were just a kid and I guess not smart enough to know better.”

“Dad, you’re the smartest man I know,” he said. “You turned a one-pump gas station into a success and sold it at a profit.”

“Lucky,” he insisted. “Before I die...” He cringed and made a face. “I want you to know, I was proud of you. No need for me to say so. Your mother never stopped talking long enough for me to get a word in anyways. When I die, tell your brothers. They mighta never got a pro contract but I was proud of them, too. They did all right.”

Seth smiled. “You’re not going to die. But on the off chance you do, anything you want me to tell Mom?”

“Yeah.” He cringed again. “Tell her have a good time on her cruise. And, Seth? If you’re going to stick with Iris, you might want to see if you can rein her in a little.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks, Dad.”

“And you sue the diner, you hear me?”

“Sure, Dad.”

* * *

Norm didn’t die. Instead he had his gallbladder removed about twenty-four hours later, as soon as it settled down and his stomach was empty. It was a simple and pretty uneventful procedure...unless you asked Norm.

“Horrible thing,” he told Seth. “I nearly died of it. So, when are you filing the suit against the diner?”

“We’re not suing the diner for a pulled-pork sandwich,” Seth said.

“Then how about a citation of some kind? Isn’t there some law he broke by not warning people they could end up in surgery from eating his food? Maybe he could just pay a fine or something?”

“I think you should stop blaming him for your gallbladder before he sues you,” Seth advised.

“What’s he gonna sue me for?” Norm demanded.

“I don’t know—defamation of character? Slander? Giving him a headache?”

A couple of days later when Norm was home and possibly permanently embedded in his easy chair, Stu came to visit. He was still wearing his apron and bearing gifts. A pulled-pork sandwich, still warm. “I heard you were suing me,” Stu said. “I thought I’d bring you this, see if you think it’s any better.”