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“Your father is Gustavo Castillo, correct?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” I said and ignored her affronted squawk. “What can I do for you, Ms. —?”
“Jackson,” she supplied. “I’m your father’s caregiver.”
I pinched at the bridge of my nose. “Did my father die or something? That’s the only reason I said for any of you to call me.” The man had been in hospice for nearly nine weeks. Considering his prognosis, it seemed like he’d already lived far longer than he should have.
“He’s dying, sir,” the woman said, and she soundedsooffended by how much I didn’t care. “He’s requested that you come and see him one last time. We don’t think he’ll make it through the night.”
No, absolutely not. The answer was on the tip of my tongue, but then Emma shifted in her sleep. She kicked off her blanket, and her tank top had ridden up, showing me the sweet curve of her belly. I cupped her gently.
She accused me of being obsessed with her baby bump, and she wouldn’t be entirely wrong about that. When she started showing, I couldn’t stop staring; now that the baby was big enough to feel movements, I couldn’t stop touching. There was something unbelievably sexy about her body growing and changing for the benefit of our child.
“-ir?Sir? I’m going to hang up, sir!”
I had no idea how long the woman had been talking in my ear. “I’m on my way,” I said, forcing the words out of my mouth. I didn’t want to go, but to know for sure that Gustavo was dead was a peace that I didn’t know I needed until this moment.
I needed to know that he could never hurt Emma or our child ever again. Leaning over, I pressed a kiss to Emma’s cheek, careful to make the touch light so that it wouldn’t disturb her. “I’ll be back before you wake,mi esposa,” I murmured. Even in her sleep, a smile curled the end of her lips at my voice.
The hospice that we chose was just outside of Miami-Dade County, and despite Omar’s suggestion, the place wasn’t a shithole. I’d picked a state-of-the-art facility with topnotch care. I wanted the last few months of my father’s life to be painful because he was surrounded by strangers, not because he was being neglected. It would have been too easy to make him suffer like that.
The only cars in the parking lot belonged to the night staff: there wasn’t anyone at the desk to check my ID or anything like that. I had to wait for someone to wander by — I didn’t even know what room my father was in. “Can I help you?” the young nurse asked.
“Ms. Jackson called,” I said. “My father, Gustavo Castillo, is dying, apparently.”
She blinked, obviously confused by how calm and uncaring I appeared. “Uhm…Mr. Castillo is in room 323.” She pointed to the double doors to my right. “Down that way, nearly to the end.”
“And I can just go down there?” I asked.
The nurse nodded. “He hasn’t had any visitors. It’s …nice to see someone come for his last few hours.”
Hours?I tried not to groan; I was not planning to be here that long.If I put a pillow over his face, would I get caught?“Gracias,” I said and headed in the direction she pointed me in.
For the high ratings this place got, it still smelled like hospital and death: sterile and like bleach, but with an undercurrent that made my nose sting. I was going to have to take five showers before Emma was going to let me anywhere near her later: her nose was so sensitive now, and anything could send her running to the bathroom. Lara had to stop cooking bacon entirely because the smell made Emma instantly queasy.
That had been a particularly rough adjustment for Omar, but I knew that he had been getting breakfast at the diner that was close to Eliseo. No one but Lara seemed to be bothered by that.
I found room 323; the door was slightly ajar. When I pushed it open, I saw my father on a bed, hooked up to a machine that was monitoring his vitals and what looked like an IV, but he wasn’t surrounded by medical equipment. He would have no life-saving measures here. He seemed smaller in the bed, like he had dried out and shriveled up. It made a savage part of me smile to see the big man shrink and disappear in the face of something he couldn’t fight his way out of.
There was a woman in a chair beside him, clasping one of his hands with both of hers. She turned her head at the noise, and a look of relief passed over her face. “You must be Angel,” she said, gently letting go of his hand to stand up.
“Ms. Jackson?” I questioned, and she nodded.
“Gustavo has been talking about you non-stop since he came here.”
I could only imagine what that had been like: nothing pleasant, I imagined. “You said he was dying.” I glanced over at the man on the bed, who seemed to be sleeping peacefully. “He looks fine to me.”
She launched into all of the signs of an imminent passing, pointing out things on the monitor and how he was breathing; it wasn’t remotely interesting, but I tried not to snap at her. “Do you think this will take long?” I asked. “My wife is pregnant, and I really don’t like leaving her for long.”
Ms. Jackson sighed. “Death is like birth, Mr. Castillo,” she said. “It takes as long as it takes.”
Not when someone does it for you, I thought. “Fine,” I said. “I can wait around for a while.”
Her smile was blinding; it was unsettling. “You sit,” she said, indicating her chair. “Why don’t I go fix you some coffee?”
“Gracias,” I said, even though I didn’t want one. I didn’t want to be here, but I sat in her vacated chair.
As soon as the door shut behind her, my father’s eyes opened. “Look who came,” he said, and his voice was ragged, barely above a whisper. “I knew you wouldn’t let me die alone.” Gustavo’s thin lips twisted up into a wobbly sneer that could have been a smile.
