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A brown-haired nurse briefs me. She says he was stabbed three times, and one time, the blade’s tip was in a “bad spot.” He lost a lot of blood, but he’s been given more, like as a transfusion. One of the stab wounds was right where he has a metal plate screwed onto his collarbone.
“Surgery will include a cardio-thoracic surgeon and someone from orthopedics.”
“Is he going to be okay?” Tears are pouring down my cheeks.
“We’re not in the business of giving reassurances, but he’s in good hands. He’s young and he got here quickly. Did you call, when it happened?”
I nod, wiping my eyes.
I’m about to ask if I did something wrong when she tells me, “You did a good job.” She pats my shoulder. “I’ll take you to the little waiting room that’s right beside our cardiac ICU. Usually, no one else is there.”
“Is he going to be in the ICU?”
“We don’t know, but if he is, then you’ll be ready,” she says in a reassuring tone.
“I’m pregnant.”
I don’t know why it pops out. She pats my back as we walk. “Well, you’re going to be a very capable mother. You did great getting your husband here.”
When she leaves me in the waiting room, I sob into my hands—because he’s not my husband at all, and now I may never know what it’s like to be his wife.34EliseI sit in that awful little room for almost three hours before a woman in scrubs steps in through a steel door. She’s clapping her hands lightly, as if to dry them. When she sees me, her dark eyebrows arch. “Mrs. Galante?”
I blink and make myself nod. I stand as she steps closer, and she reaches out to shake my hand.
“I’m Dr. Lin, one of your husband’s surgeons today.” There’s a small and horrifying pause before she says, “He made it through the surgery. He’s stable, and he’ll be moved to ICU in just a little while.”
Tears spill down my cheeks; I don’t know how I have more, but they just keep coming.
“Your husband did beautifully. Orthopedics was in briefly, removing a device from hios clavicle. That’s just fine, because it did its job a long time ago. The fact that he had it meant the blade didn’t go deeper. It basically ricocheted off the metal.” She lifts her brows, looking pleased with this fact. “We had a trauma surgeon, Dr. Johnson, repairing a spot on his lower left diaphragm. The blade pierced several inches deep there, but your husband was very lucky. It nicked his stomach, but we got that repaired.
“The most significant of the three wounds was near his sternum.” She points to her chest. “The blade punctured the right atrium of his heart. It was a tiny puncture, but the heart’s kind of important”—she trills a little laugh—“so the puncture was an issue. It wasn’t a difficult repair, though. With assistance from imaging, I was able to take a minimally invasive approach, something that’s not always possible in a trauma case. So we were pleased with that outcome.”
She nods once. “Everything looked good when we closed. If all goes well, he should be able to leave the ICU at some point in the next two to three days. You’re looking at maybe another few days in a floor room before discharge.”
I nod, wiping my eyes.
She gives me a polite, reassuring smile. “Someone will come out and let you know when you can see him. We like to keep our patients in the OR area for recovery and coming off the ventilator when the heart-lung bypass has been used. When they move him to the ICU, he’ll have his breathing tube removed…well, probably”—she makes a face—“but he’ll still be sedated. Surgery was completed in a little over two hours; hopefully you saw the updates come through on the screen for the patient with your husband’s initials.”
She gestures to a wall-mounted flat screen behind her, where I did indeed watch his progress. “We’ll get him extubated shortly. In the meantime, we’ve heard there’s a detective coming in to discuss what happened. If you don’t want to do that right now, you can tell them to call or come back later.”
“Thank you.” I wipe my eyes. “Thanks for what you did.” My voice shakes, and I feel embarrassed to be breaking down in front of a stranger.
“Of course. I’m sorry for what happened to your husband.”
She leaves, and I break down and send a text to Dani, who is stunned and upset and wants to come be with me…but I tell her to wait. As I’m texting her, a stocky, blond police officer comes through the door from the hallway, and I feel like I’m going to pass out from the terror of my high-stakes lies.
“Mrs. Galante?” the man asks, frowning slightly.
I nod, feeling all the blood drain from my face.
