“Absolutely,” Ronnie said.
Dana Sue wanted to protest, but knew she couldn’t, not if she wanted Annie to get well. “Agreed,” she said reluctantly. “But what if that’s not enough?”
“Then we talk inpatient treatment facilities,” Dr. McDaniels said, her expression grim. “In the long run, that may be the best option.”
“What should we be telling her?” Ronnie asked.
“She’s going to want you to make me back off,” the psychologist said. “She’s going to plead with you to take her home, since the cardiologist says she’s better. She’ll make all the promises you want about doing whatever she needs to do once she’s home again. You have to back me up—no progress, no release. End of story. We’re in a situation that calls for tough love. Can you handle that?”
“We’ll have to,” Dana Sue said, her gaze locked with Ronnie’s. For all of his promises to do whatever needed to be done, and her own guilt-ridden misgivings, he was the weak link in this. If anyone faltered, it would be him. He hated to see his baby miserable.
He finally winced under her scrutiny. “I can do this,” he muttered.
“Even when she cries?” Dana Sue asked skeptically.
“Even then,” he said with surprising resolve. “I know I was always too easy on her, but not about this, Dana Sue. Not this time.”
“I hope you mean that,” she told him.
Dr. McDaniels nodded in satisfaction. “Good. If you’re even tempted to cave, remember one thing. Annie needs you to be her parents now, not her friends.”
“When are we supposed to start this whole tough love thing?” Ronnie asked.
“No time like the present,” Dr. McDaniels said. “Maybe it will put her in a more receptive frame of mind when I see her in the morning.”
Dana Sue gave the doctor a wry look. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up. She’s got her daddy’s stubbornness.”
“Pot calling the kettle black,” Ronnie retorted. “Let’s go, darlin’. We might as well do this while we’ve got the backbone for it.”
Dr. McDaniels chuckled at that. “Anytime your backbone starts to weaken, remember I’m right here. Remember this, too. I’ve dealt with tougher kids than Annie. We will get through to her and make her well.”
Dana Sue wanted to believe her. She needed to believe her.
Chapter Twelve
Ronnie and Dana Sue were almost to the elevator when he panicked. He tucked his hand under her elbow and steered her toward the hospital exit.
“Ronnie, what is wrong with you?” she demanded. “I thought we were going to see Annie.”
“We were. We will,” he said. “Just not now.”
She stared at him with confusion. “Why not now?”
“Because I don’t know if I can do it now, that’s why not,” he admitted. “You were right to question me back there. If Annie looks at me with those big eyes of hers and starts to cry, I’ll give her whatever she wants.”
“Not with me in the room,” Dana Sue said fiercely. “You agreed we had to be tough, Ronnie.”
“And I know that’s the right thing to do,” he said. “But we’re talking about Annie here. She’s still a kid.”
“She’s sixteen and she almost killed herself,” Dana Sue reminded him, her voice thick with emotion.
Her anger was justified, but somehow Ronnie couldn’t reconcile those words with his beautiful daughter. “It was an accident,” he said.
“If you mean that she didn’t realize she could die from not eating, then, yes, it was an accident,” Dana Sue agreed, her tone calmer but no less impassioned. “But not eating was a decision, Ronnie. Maybe there were a lot of factors at work that we don’t understand yet, but she looked at food every single day and made a deliberate decision not to eat it, not even after she passed out at Maddie’s wedding and scared us all to death.”
“She passed out before?” he asked, shocked. “Why didn’t you tell me? I don’t give a damn how mad you were at me, I had a right to know.”
Dana Sue looked vaguely guilty. “Probably so, but I was still in denial then. I was able to convince myself it was no big deal, the same way you’re doing right this second. Lots of people skip meals. Lots of people faint. It doesn’t have to mean they’re in trouble. Sound familiar?”
Dana Sue’s words resonated a little too clearly with Ronnie. He had thought all those things, even after seeing Annie lying in a hospital bed looking like a shadow of her former self. Even after grappling with the fact that a cardiac arrest had put her there.
“I hate this,” he whispered. “I just hate it.”
Dana Sue touched a hand to his cheek. “I know. Me, too.” She started to move away and head back to the elevators. “Let’s just go see her, okay?”
“No!” Ronnie said sharply. “We need to talk about this, Dana Sue. I want to know everything. Maybe then I’ll be able to make some sense of it.”
“I’ve known about it for months and I haven’t made sense of it,” she responded. “What makes you think you’ll get it after one conversation?”
“Please, let’s just get out of here for an hour and have something to eat. Then we’ll come back and talk to Annie.”
“But Dr. McDaniels said...”
“She doesn’t know everything,” Ronnie said tersely. “Apparently, neither do I. That needs to change.”
Dana Sue’s gaze faltered. Finally she nodded. “Okay, where do you want to go?”
“Only one place in town worth eating at, the way I understand it,” he said, his tension easing now that he sensed she would go along with his request. “Admit it. You’ll feel better if you check on how things are doing at Sullivan’s, anyway.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “I get five uninterrupted minutes in the kitchen to check on things,” she bargained, then stopped herself. “Make that ten minutes.”
Ronnie chuckled. “Take as long as you want, sugar. I’ll still be waiting when you’re through
