Louise sat at the counter of Bob's Burgers pouring over the webpage that she had created and nurtured for her family's restaurant, when she initially suggested her ideas for changes to the menu and advertising her parents weren't thrilled but luckily her one semester of business classes seemed to have paid off. Louise ran her hand over the counter thinking about all the time she had sat here in her nineteen years, the meals with her family and the pranks with her brother and sister, all the antics of the Belcher's had left quite an impact on this place, such as where Bob and Teddy had a hammer and knife fight and they had to replace a small piece of counter.
She stared at the slightly less faded portion of counter with a smile on her face and started to question again if her decision to leave college was right, she had managed to convince all of her family and customers that had become friends that she had failed out of classes and come home. Honestly even though she'd never admit it she was a perfect student, she just couldn't stay there, she missed her family and even the restaurant to much and after everything that happened she felt obligated to come and take over the place. Tina had gone off to college in New York and gotten a job writing for a magazine directly after graduating, she outgrew her obsession with Jimmy Jr in high school and finally started steadily dating Josh, when she went to New York he went with her but good things never last and after almost 6 years of being together they broke up and she'd been focused on her work hiding under a rock ever since. Gene was a little closer to home he decided to forego college and went straight to Ferdie Spratt, got a meeting with the board members, and has been living his dream ever since writing jingles for Spratts and some of their subsidiary companies. This job was also helped along by his new father-in-law, he and Courtney got married straight out of high school and we got the call a week or so earlier that they were expecting their first child.
"All kinds of things are going to be wrong with that kid." Louise chuckled to herself, she glanced out the window it was dark and gloomy outside it was most likely going to storm within a few hours, she never liked days like this as a kid; when it stormed she couldn't go make trouble down at the beach, she couldn't go riding on her green machine through the streets, and she couldn't go down to Wonder Wharf. She hated the gloominess for an entirely new reason now though, it just reminded her to much of the day she got that awful call from her mother.
"Mom whats wrong?" This was the second or third time that Louise had asked Linda the same question just to receive silence at the other end and she was seriously starting to panic, if even her mother couldn't find words or even tears then something was really wrong. "Mom please just say something, you're seriously starting to scare me..." She all of a sudden heard a small sob on the other end of the call, hearing Louise admit that she was afraid was a rare thing and it made what Linda had to tell her even harder as she broke down in tears. Finally she decided she had to muster up some courage and be there for her poor little babies as she had to break the news to all of them.
"Louise, sweetie," Linda stared to get choked up as she thought of all the times that Louise had proved to be the spitting image of Bob, he was her best friend. "It's your dad baby, he's been at the hospital in Bog Harbor for a few days now and the doctor just came and talked to us-" All of a sudden Linda was cut off by Louise's yelling that she would be right there and the silence on the phone. Louise sprinted from outside of her class at the campus to her car and drove 90 the entire way down the interstate until she reached the exit for the hospital.
As she ran through the large white lobby to the elevators three hours later Louise heard a voice that stopped her in her tracks, "Let's sit and talk for a bit." Louise turned around to face her sister who she hadn't talked to in over a month, she took Tina in for a minute and realized that girl was a mess. Her hair was unkempt and it looked like she had been wearing the same clothes for a few days, she had obviously came straight here after her mother called her as well. Tina's eyes were red and puffy and instead of wearing the contacts that she had adopted in high school she was back in her glasses.
"Damn girl, you look like a mess." Louise tried to break the tension with a joke but it caused little more than a smirk from Tina.
"Like I said, let's sit and talk Louise." Tina immediately turned around and started towards and area filled with chairs and tables littered with magazines, from the looks of it at least Tina had made this her base camp as the tables were scattered with wrappers and there was a laptop set up in at the main table.
"Is this all yours?" Tina who was preoccupied with clearing the chair next to hers just shook her head so Louise continued. "Okay so is Gene here to?" Tina finally sat down and patted the chair next to hers, Louise rolled her eyes as she took a seat.
"Mom and Gene have been sitting down here periodically to, there's to much commotion upstairs for everyone to stay in dad's room but none of us want to leave, they've left to get lunch now. I'm going to lay out everything that happened so just sit and take it in, okay?" Louise nodded knowing not to really fight it when Tina was in her down to business mood, so she sat and she listened. She listened to how Bob had been severely tired and worn down for weeks but had refused to say anything to anyone, and how he had started to lose weight but everyone brushed it off as him getting healthy, and most importantly how when Linda was out for drinks with Ginger, Teddy rushed Bob to the hospital after he collapsed while cooking. When Louise heard what the doctor had told them that morning she just sat and stared blankly at Tina. Louise stood up without saying a word and headed to the elevator to go to the fourth floor. Tina watched as her sister walked away and went back to working on her laptop to try and clear her mind.
On the way up the to the fourth floor she stared at her reflection in the doors vaguely aware of the tears rolling down her face, she wanted to contain herself but she just couldn't, she started to blame herself for what was going wrong. She hadn't been home since she graduated high school and hadn't seen any of her family more than twice in that amount of time. She, Rudy, and Jessica all packed up the day high school was over and took off on a road trip across the country, they ended up staying gone so long that Louise was only able to be home for a day or two before moving into her dorm. She started trying to recall if there had been any signs but she couldn't think of anything, sure Bob seemed a little tired but she figured it was the lack of help in the restaurant. Maybe if she had been there she would have been the one to see that something was wrong.
When she reached Bob's room she stood frozen in front of the door before taking a deep breath and slowly walking in. As soon as she saw him she immediately broke down, he looked so small laying there asleep hooked to so many monitors. His hair was graying and it seemed like he had lost almost 50 pounds, and there were dark bags underneath his eyes. Louise stormed out of the room she was pissed, really pissed, it was obvious that Bob had been physically bad for a while but still nobody did anything, or said anything, they just accepted his bullshit excuses and moved on. Linda was always dense but the one time that she needed to have been overbearing and vigilant and she couldn't have cared less. All of a sudden she heard Linda's voice coming down the hall talking to Gene and Tina rambling some fucking nonsense about Gingers fucking cat, then all of a sudden she let out a chuckle.
Before she could even think about what she was doing she was storming angrily up to Linda and less than a foot from her face, Linda may have had a good three or four inches on Louise's height but she still seemed to shrink beneath Louise's glare. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Louise screamed immediately getting the attention of the hospital staff, "why the hell would you let him get this bad? Why didn't you fucking call me? You know I would have been down here to help him! This is your fault, he's' in there dying and you're sitting here laughing? You couldn't fucking care less!" With that Louise strode back towards Bob's room immediately regretting her actions, she knew deep down it wasn't Linda's fault, she could still see the pain in Linda's eyes, and the tears running down her face as she took Louise's anger in stride.
As Louise marched back into Bob's room wiping her eyes and trying to control herself she heard a familiar but weak voice talk to her, "you can't blame her Louise, this isn't 'her fault. It's life, it happens. This is cancer not the flu, it would have happened anyway."
She stopped in her tracks and looked at her father, he laid there eyes open staring at his daughter, she saw tears rolling down his face. It was never an oddity to see Bob cry, he was a fairly emotional person but this was different, she couldn't stop herself, she ran to her bed and grabbed his hand, tears pouring down her face. She dropped to her knees beside him shaking with sobs she could only get out one word, "Daddy..."
In that moment as she sat there on her knees, her father's frail hand in hers, crying harder than she'd ever cried before she felt three sets of arms wrap around her, she laid her head on her mother's shoulder supported by Tina and Gene and they all sat there for hours until Bob had to be taken away for testing.