The family group chat tells me our 102-year-old father is in intensive care, but being typically ‘feisty’. A call from my brother next day leaves me as alone as I have ever been
I’m sitting in a stationary aeroplane at Madrid airport, looking idly out the window as a team of baggage handlers repeatedly try and fail to unload a shipment of mangoes from the hold, when I receive a text from my sister telling me that my 102-year-old father has been taken to hospital in the middle of the night.
As I digest the message, the group chat I share with my three siblings begins to buzz: my dad is in ICU; he has low blood pressure, a probable infection, and may have suffered a mild heart attack; my brother is also on holiday, and thinking about returning. I explain where I am, and about the mangoes.
