Page 96 of Her Defiant Warrior

PROLOGUE

This was the first time he’d ever been in a hospital. Scratch that. The first time he’d ever been in a hospice center, which was probably worse. He hated it. There hadn’t been a hospital when Luis had died in a car crash, so they just identified him at the morgue. Just the morgue.

His boots didn’t make any sound as he walked over the linoleum floor toward the nurse’s station. He cleared his throat so that the middle-aged lady looked up.

“I’m here to see Graciella Aranda.”

She scowled at him.

“She doesn’t get visitors. Who are you?”

Yeah, because she never told me she was sick!

“I’m her son. Mateo Aranda.”

He kept his calm, just like his mom and the Navy had taught him.

“Let me check my list.”

She flipped through a sheaf of papers. Didn’t they have things like this automated?

“Yes, I found you. You’ll have to wear a badge.”

“Really?”

“It’s protocol.”

He watched as she took out a ‘Hello My Name Is’ sticker and looked back and forth between the name on her list and the sticker to spell his name correctly. She still got it wrong, spelling his name with two T’s.

“Here you go. The elevators are behind me on the left. Go to the second floor and then turn right to the nurses station. Someone will take you to your mother’s room.”

Mateo pressed the sticker to his bright white t-shirt and followed her instructions. The elevator seemed to take forever to get to him. He spotted the door to the stairs, but it was locked.

“You need to use the elevator.”

Mateo looked over his shoulder at the woman manning the front desk. She was smiling with satisfaction. He had seen that look many times before on people bloated with their petty little pockets of authority.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He went back and stood in front of the elevator and tried to will it to go faster. Hospice. His mom was in hospice. A place where people went to die. Why had she only contacted him two days ago?

The elevator was empty when he stepped in, but it smelled. It took a moment for him to discern the scent. It smelled like the time in the desert when his Cascade Blue SEAL team had carried two dead Marines back to their outpost. The elevator smelled like death.

When he got to the nurses station, he found a much friendlier woman behind the desk. She glanced swiftly at his nametag and smiled.

“You’re here to see Graciella. Are you her son?”

Mateo nodded.

She waved a big black man over to her. “This is Rodney. He’ll take you to your mother’s room. She’ll be happy to see you. But I have to warn you, she tires easily and she might be asleep when you go in. I suggest you just take a seat and read one of the books she has at her bedside. But it’s also okay to talk to her. Even if she’s asleep, some patients wake up and say they heard their loved ones.”

Mateo nodded again.

“Rodney, Mr. Aranda is Graciella’s son. Can you take him to her room?”

“I’d be happy to.” He grinned. “She’s a pleasure to have here,” he told Mateo. “She’s pretty well-medicated, so she’s not in pain.”

“Mom didn’t tell me much on the phone. What’s her diagnosis?”