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FIGHTING DOWN PANIC, Yuki exited the elevator on Municipal Hospital’s third floor; she followed the arrows around turns and through doorways until she found the ICU waiting area and the nurses’ station beside it.
“I’m here to see Dr. Pierce,” she said tersely to the nurse at the desk.
“And you are?”
Yuki gave her name and stood until Pierce came out into the waiting room. His weathered face was buckled with concern as he led Yuki to a pair of small straight-backed chairs.
“I can’t tell you much right now,” the doctor finally said. “Most likely, plaque flaked off an arterial wall and formed a block to her brain. She’s on an anticoagulant —”
“Just tell me. What are her chances?”
“We’ll know soon,” Pierce told her. “I know this is hard —”
“I have to see her, Dr. Pierce. Please,” Yuki said. She reached out and clamped her hand around the doctor’s wrist. “Please.”
“Thirty seconds. That’s all I can do for you.”
Yuki followed the doctor through the swinging doors to the curtained-off slot where Keiko was lying. Wires and IV lines were running from her body to machines that had been assembled around her bedside like concerned friends.
“She’s unconscious,” Dr. Pierce said. “But she’s not in any pain.”
How could you possibly know that? Yuki wanted to yell at Dr. Pierce.
“Can she hear me?” she asked instead.
“I doubt it, Yuki, but it’s possible.”
Yuki bent close to her mother’s ear, spoke urgently.
“Mommy. It’s me. I’m here. Hold on, Mommy. I love you.”
She heard Dr. Pierce speaking to her, as if from miles away. “Will you be waiting outside? Yuki? If I can’t find you out there, I’ll call your cell —”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right outside. I’m not leaving under any circumstances.”
Yuki walked blindly out of the ICU, took up a position in a chair.
She sat, staring straight ahead, nerves screaming, all of her frightened thoughts fused into one.
There was only one way this could turn out.
Her mom was going to make it.
Chapter 33
KEIKO CASTELLANO HAD never been more frightened in her life. She felt the prick of a needle in the back of her hand.
Then she heard a rhythmic beeping sound—then the whoosh of machines.
Voices mumbled around her, but they were not her concern.
She had a flash of understanding. She was in the hospital. She’d had a serious incident of some kind—there was a pressure in her head, jamming her thoughts.
She remembered being a young girl at the Dontaku Festival, the street full of people in bright-colored costumes playing samisen and beating drums.
Thousands of paper lanterns floated on the water. Kites with tails of red ribbons danced overhead, and fireworks burst open the sky.
Keiko felt more pressure building inside her head, a thunderstorm. Dark and cold and terribly threatening. The noise of the storm was a loud rumble, drowning out all other sound.
