The next timeI wake up, it’s because I can hear a baby crying.
It’s really loud.
It’s reallyannoying.
“Jesus…” I mumble. “Someone feed that kid…”
“Finch?” cries a breathless voice, and I open my eyes to see Celia D’Amato sitting next to me, leaning in anxiously, with a squealing baby in her arms.
“Cee.” A rush of mixed emotion sends my heart racing: relief, sorrow, gratitude. Hot tears are coming down my face and I’m too weak to lift my hands to wipe them away, and then Celia is pressing her face to mine and crying as well, and the baby’s crying too, right in my ear, it’s all verywet—
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she sobs into my face.
“Same,” I sob back. “What about Frank? Luca told me—”
“Luca literallyjuststepped out to get more coffee. He’s been in here the whole time, and I told him to go take care of himself for ten minutes. But I can call him back,” she adds, going quickly to the door and jiggling the baby so that, mercifully, it stops screaming quite so loud.
“No,” I say, lifting my mummy-hand a little and then letting it drop. “Wait. Please. Tell me what’s going on first. Frank?”
“He’s come through the surgery and he’s in ICU, but they won’t let me see him and I was going crazy just waiting, so the nurse suggested I come in here and she’ll tell me the second I can go in to see Frank. Hudson’s still unconscious, too, but they say he’ll be okay.” She wipes her wrist across her eyes, sniffing hard.
“Marco?” I ask, hoping against hope that what Luca told me was just a bad dream.
Celia’s eyes well up again and she shakes her head. “He’s—he’s gone. I feel so awful about it,” she says. “Just so awful.”
“Yeah.” I can’t say any more than that, because my throat closes up just thinking about him.
“He saved Frank. I’ll never forget that.”
“What surgery did Frank have?”
Celia gets this look on her face like she’s trying to be brave, and I wish I hadn’t asked. “They say he’s lost a hand. He might—he might have been blinded, too, but they won’t be able to tell that for some time, although he definitely…he definitely lost one eye…” She presses her knuckles to her mouth and hugs the baby tight. “His lovelyface, Finch. It will never be the same and I know he wasn’t exactly handsome, but he had such a nice face, full of character, and his eyes, I loved his eyes so much, I…”
She bursts into tears again, and I wish I could go to her and hug her, but I’m so weak I can barely wiggle my toes. Celia and the baby are jiggling and crying, cooing and weeping all at the same time, and I’m lying here like a useless sack of shit.
“Cee,” I whisper, and when she hears the way I croak she comes over, weeping still, to hold up a sippy cup to my mouth.
If I were in any condition to refuse, I would. But I’mparched. I suck down a whole lot of water, then cough for a while, while Cee finally manages to get the baby quiet again and put it back in the stroller to sleep.
“When did you get back?” I ask after I’ve finally cleared my airway.
Celia rubs her face, and I can tell she’s totally wrecked, because her eyebrows aren’t their usual black and blocky selves. She looks much younger and more vulnerable for it. “Um…yesterday. I think. I’ve been awake for too long, that’s all I know.”
“You should sleep.”
“Lie down on the chairs in the waiting room, like Hudson did when he was waiting on Connie?” she asks with a wistful smile, and then her face crumples up again. “Oh, God, Finch, what ifFranknever wakes up? What if—”
“Don’t even think it,” I say, my voice steady and firm now. I reach out and pat her hand awkwardly with my mitt. “Frank’s gonna pull through.”
Celia takes a deep breath and shakes her head. “I don’t know, Finch. I don’t know. What if this is God…punishing us?”
I can’t help the snort, but it hurts my dry nose. “Ow. Listen. God doesn’t exist, but if he did, he sure as hell wouldn’t punishyou, Cee. You do too much good shit for him.”
She stands up, pulling her hand from under mine, but like she didn’t even realize I was trying to comfort her in the first place. “I think it must be that, for all the terrible things Frank has done…for all the terrible things I knew about and pretended I didn’t…and I’m soangryat Luca,” she says, pacing up and down, her voice rising. Bubbles stirs and gives a cranky, sleepy cry. Cee goes to the stroller and mechanically starts pushing it back and forth, soothing. “And—and you, too,” she confesses. “I’m so angry at the both of you. But I can’t be, because you’re lying there in that hospital bed. You could’vedied.”
“Why are you angry—”
“Because Luca sent me away,” she hisses, in lieu of shouting, I guess. “And you didn’t even tell me Frank was in the hospital until he gotblownup!”
