“We’re having a son,” he announced, beaming at me again and kissing my cheek.
“I’ll print off a few of these images for you. Your readings are mostly normal, but I’m still going to recommend you stay on bedrest for the next four weeks. I’ll provide you with care instructions before you leave.”
Hope surged through me. She’d made it sound as if I wouldn’t have to stay in here much longer. And when Dr. Shapiro came back a few minutes later, he reaffirmed this.
“Your scans are good. When you arrived, you’d suffered a severe concussion and a cracked rib from your fall, but all indications are looking very positive. Due to your coma, I’m going to keep you for an additional twenty-four hours. But unless some other complication arises, we should be able to send you home tomorrow.”
If we hadn’t been on the intensive care unit floor, I would’ve cheered and clapped my hands in delight. They moved me to another floor, and all thefamigliawho’d been standing by were finally able to visit.
That night, Romeo hauled himself into my narrow hospital bed to sleep beside me, but I didn’t miss his frequent winces of pain.
“I wish you’d do something about your hip,” I told him with a sigh. But he responded like he always did.
“I’m fine,farfalla.”
Tired from the activities and emotions of the day, not to mention yanking myself out of a comatose state after so long, I didn’t argue. Maybe he considered his injury a penance, his own personal cross to bear. So deciding to let it go, I rested my head on his suit-clad chest and melted into him.
30
Romeo
One thing I’d had no idea about was that after a patient has awakened from a coma resulting from a head injury, someone would be by every two hours to wake them up again and shine a bright light into their pupils to check cognitive function. This often meant that Lucia would get into a deep slumber just in time for a nurse or other member of the medical staff to disturb her. It didn’t make for a comfortable night.
I was looking tremendously forward to taking her home.
If my father would still allow us in. I hadn’t heard anything out of Angelo for the past four days and didn’t know how he might react to my challenge. I’d thrown down the gauntlet and openly defied him. It’d been overdue. Now he knew if he expected me to choose between him and Lucia, he would lose. But it might mean I’d have to find other accommodations for us.
Around dawn, I texted Marcello.
Romeo: Where is everyone?
Marcello: Here at the mansion.
Romeo: Including the old man?
Marcello: He’s holed up in his quarters.
Romeo: Has he taken any countermeasures against me bringing Lucia home?
Marcello: He hasn’t changed the deadbolts if that’s what you’re asking.
Romeo: Good to know.
That afternoon as she insisted I share her lunch—every bite of which was tasteless—my curiosity got the better of me.
“What was being in a coma like? Do you remember anything, or is it all one giant blank?”
“I remember all sorts of things, but now, I’m not sure how much of it was real.”
“What sorts of things?” I prodded.
She glanced up at me through her eyelashes. “I remember you.”
“You heard me?”
“Absolutely, I heard you. It was both the best part and the worst part of the entire ordeal. It was so soothing to hear your voice saying all these beautiful things, but it was also terrible to try to wake up, to try over and over to talk to you, only to keep failing.”
I swallowed around the lump that lodged itself in my throat. “You didn’t fail. You came back to me, just like I asked.”
