All he could do was stare at the melancholy scene before him. Was he dying? She there with him, holding his hand and weeping for him.
Who are you?
Kara… her name drifted through his pain fogged mind. He knew her name… but nothing else.
He tried to speak, but his words echoed only in the encroaching darkness as he fell into the black abyss again… only this time with no light to guide him home.
Kara stood just inside the waiting room entrance, holding a clear, plastic bag containing Angelo’s sweater, wallet and keys. They’d partially stripped him out of his clothes and put his wallet and other items from his pockets into a clear bag which they’d given to Kara. She’d been warned that the police might need to take any or all of the items into evidence. She’d flinched at the mention of the police, but she couldn’t run now. She had to know Angelo was okay.
I have to keep my promise. I won’t leave him.
A nurse guided her to the waiting room and spoke to the attendant before rushing back the way she’d come.
The emergency room desk attendant held out a clipboard of paperwork. “Here honey, fill this out for me.” The woman offered Kara a kind, sympathetic smile.
Hands still covered with streaks of dried blood, she accepted the clipboard. The assistant didn’t bat an eyelash at the state ofKara’s clothes, which suggested just how much she saw in this waiting room.
Numb, Kara sank onto a chair and stared at the form. After a moment, she started to fill out the information in the boxes of the form. She had Angelo’s wallet, so she could use his driver’s license to fill in some of the information. She didn’t know his Social Security number or his medical history, of course, but she filled what she could based on his license and health insurance card.
When she reached the relationship box and her contact info, she used her temporary apartment and listed herself as his fiancée. Then returned the forms and sat back down in a chair to wait.
She stared at the doors she’d come through, the doors that led to the hallway where she’d come in through the emergency entrance with the stretcher and the EMTs. All she could do was replay the entire terrifying encounter over and over again.
I was careful. So careful. Why did this happen? Why…
There was no way to explain why bad people did bad things… or why someone like Angelo Vertucci would step between her and danger without a second thought. Before she’d realized it, a full hour past and it was around nine o’clock at night. She had nowhere to be, no one to worry about her….
“Oh god!” She gasped.
Angelo’s family. Surely someone was waiting for him to come home. A wife…a girlfriend, or at least some family? How could she find them? Then it struck her, the answer so obvious.
She dug around her pocket where she’d tucked Angelo’s cell phone, which she remembered had no screen lock. She scanned the contact menu until she found the list of recent calls.
Momwas the one of the recently dialed contacts. She had to call someone for him. His family had to know what happened.
It rang three times, then a woman answered with a bright and husky laugh. “Angelo, where are you? Have you left the soup kitchen yet? We’re ready for dinner! I pulled everything out of the oven. We’re waiting on you.”
Kara’s chest crushed in on itself as she forced herself to breathe. The sounds of happy voices in the background threatened to drown her because she knew she was about to destroy it all.
“Mrs. Vertucci?” Her voice wavered.
“Yes?” The woman’s voice softened slightly. “Who is this?”
“You don’t know me. My name is Kara Gallagher. I was with your son tonight at the soup kitchen. He’s been hurt… H—he’s in surgery at the hospital. You need to come here at once.”
“What?!” His voice came muffled, probably covering the phone with her hand as she shouted for everyone to be quiet. The muffling stopped and she said, “Where is he?”
Kara gave her the hospital name and address. “I’m in the waiting room. I have Angelo’s phone if you need to reach me.”
“We’ll be there right away. We just need to get a neighbor to watch the grandchildren.” The call ended and Kara sank back into the uncomfortable hard wooden chair, suddenly overcome with exhaustion.
Half an hour later, four people burst into the waiting room in a flurry of voices. Kara knew immediately they must be related to Angelo because of their looks. An older man in his late sixties with a face much like Angelo’s was holding the shoulders of an older woman with dark hair and light brown eyes the same shade as Angelo’s. His parents.
The younger man was perhaps his brother—he looked close to Angelo’s age—accompanied by a blonde haired woman. They moved as a group to the check-in desk. Then the attendant pointed at Kara.
“That is his fiancée over there,” the attendant said helpfully. Kara wanted to disappear into the floor, but there was no way to avoid this. All four turned toward her, their mouths open in shock. Had the situation not be so dire, she would have laughed at their comical reaction.
“Fiancée?” The older man murmured to the older woman, who just shrugged helplessly, her eyes filled with tears.
