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“Months?”Riker felt his stomach tighten into a hard knot and he felt like he was going to be sick. “That’s fucking unacceptable.”
“I’m not saying it will take that long. I’m not saying that at all.” The doctor put his hands up and backed away until his back hit the hard wall. “There’s just not a one size fits all when it comes to this kind of thing. The condition that Gia is in, along with the measures that we have had to employ in order to keep her stable, can be very painful. Gia has been given a combination of sedatives and opiates in order for her to be able to tolerate the mechanical ventilation and breathing tube. And because sedatives and opiates accumulate in the body and are not able to get out of her body system immediately after they have been taken away, there is often a delay in “waking up.”
“So, this is normal?” Riker pushed.
“We don’t like to use that word in medicine, Mr. Devlin.” The doctor hedged.
Riker leaned in and growled at him. “Again, with the bullshit none-answer?”
“As I said these things are difficult to determine, but by all indications, Gia should be waking up soon.”
“And if not?” Gianni asked.
“Then we wait. Now if you will excuse me, I have other patients to attend to.” Cahill made a quick exit out the door.
“It’s the three P’s.” Nurse Nightingale told him.
“Pissed off, Panicked and Pacing?” Riker muttered as he circled the bed where Gia lay without moving except for the occasional twitch.
“Positivity, Persistence, and Patience.” Nurse Nightingale raised her eyebrow and put her hand on her hip. Then she lowered her voice. “Honey, I’ve been at this a long time, probably too long and I’ve seen them come and go. I know that Cahill can be an arrogant dickhead.” Here Nurse Nightingale paused and gave Riker a knowing wink. Riker raised an eyebrow and almost smiled in response. She continued on. “But your wife’s in good hands. This is a teaching hospital and we have students from all over the world, and a medical staff full of geniuses. We’re taking good care of your sweetheart, but a bit of praying wouldn’t hurt you either.” Then she walked over to her patient and smoothed Gia’s hair gently. “You’ve got a beautiful baby boy and this big, strong man waiting on you to wake up, honey. You do your best to find your way back to them.”
All eyes turned to Gia in expectant hope, but except for a small twitch in her left eye, there was nothing.
Gia felt like as if she were floating on a deep dark cloud. Like she was caught in a velvety net where sensory was non-existent. It wasn’t entirely an unpleasant feeling to… just be. Time was a fluid thing trapped in the “neither here nor there.” Sometimes, Gia would get a small glimpse of “the someplace else.”
“The someplace else” was a world of flashing light, blurred images, and hushed voices. In this place Gia’s senses slowly came back to her. Sometimes Gia could feel a gentle touch on her cheek or soft kiss placed against her hair. She could smell the sweet scent of lilacs mixed with the stinging astringent of industrial cleaner. And there were times when Gia thought she heard her name, moments when she could almost see through the veil that separated this life and the other.
It was the strangest sensation of being caught somewhere in between.
But through it all there remained a warm presence, comforting, strong, and steady. A fixed point that stood straight and tall when everything else seemed to be drifting and tumbling in a thick fog. Once or twice, Gia tried to reach out and capture some of that strength and hold it for her own, but her arms were leaden weights bound to the earth by chains and shackles. Sometimes in the far off distance she could hear what sounded like the mewling sound of a small kitten or the soft hiccup of a baby crying.
It was almost midnight. A thick fog had settled outside and was pressing against the hospital window. Valentina had fallen asleep on the small couch next to Gia’s bed. The walls seemed to be closing in on Riker. His eyes were blood shot, his beard was overgrown, his hair unkempt, and his knuckles swollen and bloody from punching the concrete wall of the hospital whenever Nurse Nightingale forced him to go outside for a few minutes.
He still had not seen the baby, although he wanted to. More than anything he wanted to go to his son, but Riker was afraid.
Scared to death.
He had this horrible, nagging feeling that if he should do that, if he should step up and begin the journey to fatherhood alone, that he would always be alone. In saner moments, Riker believed what the doctor had said, that Gia would wake when her body was ready. In his crazy, insane moments Riker feared that Gia was waiting for him to step up, to become a father to their baby so that she could leave this world for the next. If there was even a chance that Gia could see what was going on, Riker wanted her to see that he couldn’t, that he wouldn’t, raise the child alone without her.
He knew that the baby had finally been moved out of NICU and was coming along even better than expected. If the infant continued on this positive road, he would be released soon to go home.
Home.
What did that even mean without Gia by his side? Riker had no idea how he was going to handle it. He had taken a rare respite and now sat on the bench right outside the hospital door. The air felt cool and clean against his skin, the fog blanketed him in a quiet cocoon. The stillness of the night gave Riker the quiet time he needed to breathe. He took a couple of sips of the dark, bitter coffee that had become a dietary mainstay and leaned back on the bench wishing he had a smoke.
Riker lifted his chin toward the big man who suddenly emerged from the shadows. “Hey, boss.”
Prosper plopped down hard on the bench. “So, you done feeling sorry for yourself?” Prosper asked without preamble.
Riker’s head snapped around “Me? You talking to me?”
“Who the else would I be talking to?”
“I don’t know.” Riker’s eyes glittered with fury. “But I can pretty much guarantee that I’m too fucking busy watching over my comatose wife to feel sorry for myself. And only a real asshole would say that to a guy in my position, so I know you couldn’t have been talking to me.”
“Watch yourself, brother.” Prosper warned.
“No, boss. With all respect, you watch yourself. Because I’m hanging on by a goddamn thread, and it’s not gonna take a whole lot to push me over the edge.”
