"Mr. Ellis… Mr. Ellis… are you okay?" They asked again once they had gotten him back in bed.
"Bring the oxygen mask." The doctor instructed.
"I'm fine… I'm fine… I was just a little shocked…" He assured them as he struggled catching his breath.
"Do you recognize his name?" The doctor asked again and Jacob nodded his head yes.
"Would it be okay if he comes back in?" He asked. Jacob hesitated and then nodded yes again as he took a deep and shaky breath.
"Nurse…" the doctor called out and she stepped out bringing Jayden back in with her. This time Jayden wasn't nearly as nervous as he was the first time. He surmised that Mr. Ellis was more nervous than he.
"Will it be okay if I talked to him alone?" Jacob asked the doctor and all exchanged nervous gazes.
"Do you think that you'll be okay" his doctor inquired dubiously.
"I'm fine now… It was just the shock; that's all." He assured them.
"Okay, you've got about thirty minutes before the transportation bus will be here. We'll be back for you then." The nurse explained as they all reluctantly left, leaving Jacob alone with his son.
"How have you been?" Jacob asked once the door closed.
"Good…" he said as he took the chair that was opposite his father's bed.
"So how did we end up like this?" His father asked curious as to how did he end up being the one that they called and not his children Markus and Dinah.
"Surprisingly you wandered into my shop a couple times and you were lost. Then there was the time that I was going to work and I saw you standing in the middle of traffic looking like you were lost." Jayden told him.
"And you thought you would hang around to see the old man suffer, right?"
"Don't flatter yourself. It was nothing like that. For some reason you started calling me Markus and latched onto me. When I stopped coming you refused taking your meds and eating. The nursing home called asking me to see if I could help."
"So out of the goodness of your heart" Jacob's voice was filled with sarcasm and Jayden couldn't help but thinking if this had been a year ago, he might would have gotten angry with the man and began hating him and himself. However this time was different. Mia had taught him that sometimes guilt and pain manifest themselves with anger and sarcasm when people want to hide their true feelings. For some reason he felt as though he could see straight through his father. Besides that, she had also showed him that he was not like his father but rather he was better than him. He didn't have to stoop to his father's level but he had the power of choice and he could choose to rise up.