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Carmine didn’t hesitate to ask the question, but he grew hesitant waiting for the doctor to answer.
“Let’s step over here,” Dr. Valesko encouraged.
That made the family even more nervous, but they followed him to a more private conversational space. Gabriel’s eyes went to his father and then rested on his mother. He could see she was anxious about what the doctor was going to say.
“Doctor, please. What’s happening with my son?” Carmine reasoned, trying to keep his emotions at bay.
“Alessandro is in critical condition,” he began. Sofia stopped breathing as she held on even tighter to Carmine’s arm.
Gabriel’s eyes rested on his mother. He could feel her anxiousness, which caused his anxious feelings to increase.
“But, he’s stable,” Dr. Valesko continued.
There was a guarded sigh of relief from Carmine, but Sofia was no longer cognizant of whether she was breathing or not.
The doctor continued. “We had to sedate him to allow for his injuries to heal and for the pain meds we administered to take effect.”
“He’s gonna be okay, though, right?” Gabe said. He asked the question for affirmation for his mother so she could hear the doctor say so.
“It’s too early to say, unfortunately,” Dr. Valesko replied empathetically. “We need to monitor his vitals closely to get him on the road to recovery. We’re getting Alessandro settled on the third floor of the intensive care floor. You all can go up and wait in that waiting area. I’ll be up to introduce you to his attending physician.”
“Will we be able to see him?” Carmine asked.
“Yes,” Dr. Valesko answered. “Briefly.”
Chapter Fifteen
It was an anxious wait for the family. The doctor’s words hadn’t been that reassuring. Each of the family members was left with their own level of concern. Each was isolated with their own thoughts even though, for the most part, they remained in close physical proximity to each other, which was the small space of the intensive care waiting room. Carmine thought past his son’s current condition. He would have liked to feel confident that his son would survive against immeasurable odds. Yet, if he didn’t make it righteous, no, more than righteous retribution would be the only thing to partially satisfy him. Focusing on how to hurt the culprit and his family became his fantasy focus as he waited to see how his son was really doing.
Sofia still remained a nervous wreck. She even found it hard to sit still, waiting and then waiting some more. She kept looking down the hall towards the nursing station and then at the other end toward the elevators, hoping that someone was headed to tell them they could go see her son. But no one came. No one emerged. That unnerved her even more. Maybe he had a crisis in the room, and no one was there to see about him. He would be too weak, too medicated to reach for the emergency button she was sure was there. Why weren’t they helping her son? Sofia’s heart started to beat fast again, and she got that maternal bad feeling. Sofia needed to lay eyes on her son to see for herself that he was okay. Without that reassurance, her heart and soul would still be filled with doubt that he would even survive.
His brother sat off to himself, away from his parents. Initially, he was preoccupied with thoughts of his brother’s survival and whether or not the guards left at the house had properly hidden the bodies that were left at his parents' front door. He needed that part to go right. He needed to prove to his father, again, that he was capable of handling difficult situations and running the family business, and not as a second fiddle. He’d always been second fiddle. Although Gabriel was very concerned about his brother, he did have a wayward thought that he wasn’t really proud of. Well, sort of. If something, God forbid, happened to his brother where he met his demise, Gabriel would then become the de facto head of the company after his father’s reign. But that wasn’t the only wayward thought that crept into Gabriel’s mind. His thoughts went to Valentina and how she would love to see Alessandro right now.
They waited longer and then even longer. Just as Carmine stood up to go and confront someone at the nurse’s station, they saw movement in their direction.
Carmine didn’t retake his seat. Instead, he stood waiting for the person to arrive in the waiting room, where he impatiently waited. Carmine kept his eyes focused on the person moving in their direction to make sure they didn’t make a misstep and go somewhere else. Just then, the elevator door opened at the other end of the hallway, and two people stepped out. They moved in the direction of the waiting room.
Sofia and Gabriel started to pay attention to the people heading in what they hoped was their direction. And then they converged in the waiting room. Sofia immediately became concerned that something terrible had happened to Alessandro until the doctor spoke.
“I wanted to introduce you to your son’s attending physician, Dr. Descartes.”
“I have taken over your son’s case. He is currently sedated but should be waking up from that soon, at which time we will assess him to determine if the sedation was effective in helping to regulate him. Even though he is still under, you can visit him for a few minutes. The nurse will lead you to his room, after which, if you have any questions for me, we can discuss.”
Sofia visually checked in with Dr. Descartes, silently confirming that she could go and see her son. When Dr. Descartes nodded, Sofia stood to her feet, her heart again lurching in her chest. She grabbed her husband’s hand and moved out into the hallway. Gabriel followed behind, also anxious to see what kind of condition his brother was in.
The hall seemed longer than it really was. Outwardly, they hurried to Alessandro’s room, but inwardly, they all felt a sense of immense dread in seeing him, confirming that he was standing at death’s door. When they finally reached Alessandro’s door, they all paused, their eyes drifting to each other for strength. Carmine was the one to enter the room first, with Sofia close behind. They rounded the curtained-off section, and then they stopped short of moving toward his bed. When Gabriel joined them, he understood why they didn’t take another step.
It was the noise, the consistent and intermittent sounds that emanated from the machines that surrounded the head of his bed. There were also colors accompanying the sounds: streaks of red and yellow on one machine and lines of blue and green on another. Then there were the lines that led from the machines to their son, multiple lines, some clear, some not, but all connected to him, helping to breathe life into him. It was an overwhelming sight that would take some time to get used to seeing and, hopefully, eventually be able to ignore.
Carmine took a deep breath, pushing aside all the things he felt seeing his son that way, and took a step forward, taking Sofia with him. She wanted to go, in her heart, but her steps were still hesitant. As they moved a few steps ahead, Gabriel fell in line behind them. They wanted to feel hopeful that at least the machines were making beeping noises instead of one long beep that would indicate that their loved one was flatlining, but that still proved difficult. He looked so bad, the bruises on his face and exposed body finally taking on more color, defining just how hard he was struck by hand or something that broke the bones that were hidden underneath.
He looked bad before when he was lying out in front of his parents' house, but as Gabriel neared, he realized that his brother looked even worse despite the crisp white sheets he lay under that blocked the visuals of the rest of his injuries. Still, he moved closer to the bed, suddenly mesmerized by what he saw: tubes and casts, black and blueness and machines, and his brother lying perfectly still.
Sofia and Carmine stood beside their son while Gabriel lingered closer to the foot of the bed. He was as close as he wanted to be. She watched his chest, momentarily looking past Alessandro’s obvious injuries and focusing on what determined his continued life. Sofia watched her son’s chest intently to see it rise and fall. She had to see it. She just had to. Sofia needed to see the steady rise and fall of her son’s chest to make sure he was still alive. Her eyes were so focused she didn’t blink. She didn’t want to because, in blinking, she might miss something. Sofia heard the machines, and their noise became distant because all she wanted to see was Alessandro breathing.
Carmine nor Gabriel knew why she was so focused. They had their own thoughts and their own areas of focus. Then, she saw it. Sofia saw her son’s chest move up and then fall slowly, which, for her, was an indication of life that her son was still alive, past the bandages and bruises. Alessandro was still alive. Only then could she release the breath she’d been holding for who knew how long.
There was a light knock on Alessandro’s hospital room door, and then it opened. In walked Dr. Descartes. Their attention momentarily moved to her.
