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Sofia was transfixed yet again. Her son wasn’t better. He wasn’t. But she couldn’t move as her husband and son did. She couldn’t look alarmed, standing to her feet, trying to follow after him. She couldn’t be a responsive mother and dutiful wife. All Sofia could do was sit with the heartache she felt as her son was rushed out of the room. Carmine and Gabriel followed behind the nurses, rushing to get Alessandro back to surgery. They followed as far as the medical team would allow, but they were halted, unable to pass any further. Someone said they would keep them posted, but what they said fell on deaf ears, and Carmine especially insisted on going further behind Alessandro. Security guards stepped in to try and quell Carmine’s advancement.
“That’s my son,” Carmine insisted.
“Sorry, sir. This is as far as you can go.” The security guards moved in a more pervasive position, separating Carmine from his son.
That’s my son!” Carmine angrily insisted, his eyes still trailing after the gurney Alessandro was on. He wasn’t accustomed to being told no, being deprived of what he desired. Carmine wasn’t used to someone standing in his way. The audacity. And as the guards took a more demonstrative position, hell-bent on holding their post, Gabriel had to intervene. He eyed the guards, asserting an authority they clearly didn’t recognize. Gabriel didn’t allow his gaze to fall until there was an understanding of where the real power resided. The security guards didn’t immediately relinquish their posture, but the longer Gabriel held firm, refusing to allow them to think they could put their hands on his father, the faster they bowed down.
It was only after Gabriel saw acquiescence in their posture that he disengaged his gaze from them and focused on his father, who was still trying to push past the interference. Gabriel’s gaze softened as he gained his father’s eyes and stared into them.
“Father,” Gabriel spoke with some insistence but not disrespectfully. He would never be knowingly disrespectful to his father. But it took Carmine a moment to defer his insistence from what he demanded to do to even hear and see his second son.
Gabriel spoke to him again, even more intense yet softer, and truly gained his father’s attention.
“We must wait,” Gabe insisted.
Carmine was still huffed, beside himself with concern. Yet, as he looked into his son’s eyes, he started to deescalate, his breathing starting to level and the angst in his heart beginning to settle. Gabriel reached out his arm and wrapped it around his father’s shoulder, turning him away from where Alessandro had been taken. Carmine still resisted, but he eventually gave way to what his son required. Gabriel and Carmine moved away from the breech that stood in their way and methodically made their way back to Sofia.
When she saw movement at the door, Sofia honed in and alerted. When she saw her husband and son, her heart escalated in just how fast it beat. Sofia started to rise from her chair in anticipation of what they would say, but a commanding hand from Gabriel kept her in her place. Her heartbeat didn’t slow, nor did the more engaged, eyebrows-raised look on her face subside. Sofia waited until they were close and then waited again until Gabriel spoke.
“They have taken him into surgery. We don’t have any word yet as to how he’s doing. It hasn’t been that long.”
Gabriel paused, allowing his mother to register what he said before continuing. Carmine just stood there. He understood the need to explain to his wife. Carmine understood he needed to be there for her. Yet, his thoughts were with his son.
“There is a waiting closer in proximity to where they took Alessandro. When you’re ready, we can move closer.”
Again, Gabriel paused, allowing what he had said to register with his mother. He didn’t attend to his father because his mother was his primary focus. He anticipated that she would have questions, but the look on her face indicated that she had taken in as much as she could for the moment. The questions she may have had waited.
The room fell silent, with everyone relegated to their own thoughts and preoccupations. In the emergency room, things were very different. It wasn’t quiet there. Nurses buzzed around, ensuring that they were attentive to what their patients needed while Dr. Descartes hurriedly scrubbed in preparation for surgery. But the pace didn’t slow when she drew close to her patient. His breathing remained thready. The sedative they’d given Alessandro worked quickly, and they replaced the long tube down in the throat. But not before he heaved up more of the bloody phlegm that led them to the emergency room in the first place.
“Heart rate?” Dr. Descartes asked.
“Still thready with a deescalated beat,” the lead nurse advised.
Chapter Seventeen
“Let’s open him up.”
The incision the doctor made coursed down the middle of Alessandro’s chest. She two-handedly delved into pulling back everything that blocked her view from his heart. There was blood where it shouldn’t have been, pooled in thick globs in a space where there should only have been traces.
“Wipe,” Dr. Descartes sounded, trying to get a clear visual as to what caused him to nearly aspirate on his own blood.
The attending nurse did what she was instructed, carefully wiping where Alessandro’s heart lay. Because she did, the nurse noticed it before the doctor did, and her eyes heightened.
“Doctor, we have reinjury.”
Dr. Descartes zoned her eyes to the cleaned-off place and saw the increased tears in her patient’s heart. Where the initial scar had been on the periphery, the new injury explained the profuse amount of blood he spewed. She had to intend to the reinjury very decidedly and quickly. But the reinjury wasn’t something she could just suture. More precise work was required. Yet, no sooner than she focused on his heart and what she planned to repair, the doctor was alerted to an escalated fall in rhythmic heartbeat and rate.
Alessandro flatlined.
Sofia felt something.
Ricardo lay in a bloody heap. He drifted out of consciousness to barely conscious, but Ricardo had a hard time caring. He would just as soon die. All the concern he had for his own family had fallen by the wayside as Ricardo realized that death for him was emanant. He silently said goodbye, making peace with those who remained part of his family. Parting was difficult but necessary because he knew the end was near. And Ricardo welcomed it, finally understanding the inevitability of it all. There was no sense in trying to fight it. There was no sense in trying to outsmart those who were clearly more intelligent than he was. There was no more sense in begging or bargaining that his life be spared. The Esposito family had no more use for him, which became increasingly evident as he began to once again fade into oblivion.
There were a few guards around him who could come to his rescue and ensure that he did not die. But they remained on their posts, guarding against anything or anyone that would try to interfere with the natural order of things. What was meant to be would be.
Ricardo’s heart still beat. He accepted his demise, which seemed to be slow in coming. All he hoped was that his death would come to its conclusive end.
All he could do was hope.
