Page 141 of Falling for Mr. October

After a few seconds, I fumble my phone out of my pocket, but it only has half a bar of service. I try calling Theo anyway, but it won’t connect.

“It’s my nonna,” Giovanni says, his voice a harsh whisper in the quiet of the car. “I know it. I was thinking of breaking my promise, and⁠—”

I put my hand on his thigh and squeeze. “We don’t know what happened. It won’t help to assume the worst.”

Glancing back, I see Miles running his fingers along the edge of the plastic-wrapped tattoo on his arm, his expression serious and deep in thought.

If our grandmother’s the one who’s taken ill, what’ll it do to him? Will he be thrown back into his old patterns?

I hear a quiet murmur, and I realize it’s Giovanni, praying the rosary again and again under his breath. Tears fill my eyes, because he’s doing for her what she did for him weeks ago—not because he believes in its power, necessarily, but because she does.

Finally, we pull into the turnoff for the hospital. We’re not supposed to follow the ambulance into the emergency area, but Giovanni continues on—though he gives the ambulance a respectful distance, providing plenty of space for whoever’s being transported to exit the ambulance, whether they walk out or are carried.

“What if Theo broke a nail?” Miles asks, trying to break the tension, but it doesn’t land, even for him. The worry in his eyes is the same feeling pulsing through my body.

As we exit the car, the driver of the ambulance climbs out. I recognize him from the brief time I spent working at the hospital. “You’ve got to move,” he tells Giovanni. “You can’t park there.”

Then he notices me.

“Who’s in the ambulance?” I ask, my voice shaking. “We followed it from the house.”

“It’s not your grandma. It’s another old lady.”

I hear Giovanni’s pained groan—another old lady, as if she were no one important—and my heart rips for him as they open the back of the ambulance and a couple of EMTs hop out and begin to guide a stretcher out.

Nonna Francesca looks so small lying on top of it. Especially since Theo is sitting in the back next to her.

“Nonna,” Giovanni cries out and hurries over to them as Theo clambers out behind them. “I’m here, Nonna. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. I’ll always be with you.”

“Nonna Rose is at home with Isabella,” he whispers to Miles and me.

Nonna Francesca reaches for Giovanni’s hand as they start to roll her toward the doors. “It’s nothing,” she says, her voice like sandpaper. “I only fell a few steps. I told them I don’t need to come here, but they don’t listen. All I need is rest.”

“This is your grandmother?” one of the EMTs asks Giovanni as they glide her stretcher into the lobby of the hospital. The space is small and cramped but serviceable.

“Yes,” he says.

“They’ll need to do some scans to make sure nothing was broken. When someone’s this age, a simple fall can be serious.”

I know the EMT is only trying to be helpful, but at the moment, I feel like slapping him. Because with every word, Giovanni’s face is becoming increasingly anguished.

I follow them toward the back, needing to be with Giovanni, but the EMT pulls me back.

“Only family right now,” he says.

“She is my family,” Giovanni protests.

My heart fills even as it breaks.

He’s right. Over the last month and a half, it feels like he and his nonna have become a part of us. They belong with us, and it’s not right for them to be separated from us as if that doesn’t matter.

“Only one visitor right now,” the EMT says regretfully. “Y’all can wait in the waiting room.”

I squeeze Giovanni’s shoulder, feeling the gulf of agony inside of him and trying to take some of it away. “It’s okay. I’ll be here. I’ll be waiting. I love you.”

“I love you too.” He kisses the top of my head, and then they’re gone, rushing out of sight.

“Is someone going to move this car?” a nurse hollers from the entryway, sounding put out.