On weekends and during bad storms he often slept until ten or eleven in the morning. During high school there had been Saturdays when he had stayed in bed until long after lunchtime had come and gone. But working with his father had gotten him into the habit of rising before dawn, which helped this morning. He had slept poorly and woken to find the weather had not improved. If anything, it had worsened. Last night, his father had collapsed in his hospital room. What he had been doing out of bed in the first place, Tommy had no idea, but he spent the night worrying. Instead of recovering from his heart attack, the old man seemed to be getting worse. According to the doctor he’d talked to just before going home last night, his father’s heart functions showed continued strain, but they were having trouble determining the cause. The doc had suggested it might be nothing but stress, but stress sure as hell hadn’t caused the initial heart attack, so that didn’t seem to make a hell of a lot of sense.
