Chapter 112: Bad penny

DEACON

"Well, Ted, welcome back to the oncology floor." I leaned against the doorjamb outside my father's hospital room. He was propped up in the bed, looking much better than anyone in his condition had a right to be.

After a week in the ICU during which we thought we were losing him more than once, Ted had taken a sudden turn for the better. His improvement had been rapid and unexplainable.

"Sometimes it happens like this," one of the doctors up there had observed to me, shrugging. "They surprise us."

Now whether this was a pleasant surprise or not, I hadn't decided. My father watched me with shrewd eyes as I came into his room.

"I wasn't sure I was going to see you alert again. But here you are."

Ted grinned. "Heaven won't have me, and the devil's afraid if I get down there, I'll take over and run the damn place into the ground." He coughed and adjusted the nasal cannula. "Guess I'm like a bad penny, boy. You just ain't getting rid of me yet."

"Yeah, well, you're not ou