35. Anders
Anders
T ime is a selfish temptress. She always leaves us wanting more of her. Unsympathetic to our desires, she flees quickly and shrugs callous shoulders when we ask her to stay.
Even so, I’d give her anything— anything —for more time with Carmela.
Cara looks frail as she lies in the hospital bed, her chest falling and rising with shallow breaths. It’s an off-putting sight because she’s anything but frail.
She’s a fucking warrior. She survived childbirth and raised Maya on her own as a single mother. What’s a bullet to the chest?
I’ve seen men go down for less.
My phone rings for the millionth time since they stabilized Cara and got her settled in the ICU. It’s Maya. I let it go to voicemail because I have no idea what I’m supposed to tell her. I’m still covered in her mom’s blood.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I balance my forearms on my knees, clasp my hands together, and pray to a God I’m not sure I believe in. “Bring her back to me. Please. I beg you.”
The only answer I get is the sound of the ventilator pumping air into Cara’s lungs.
Flashbacks from discovering her surface: Mick flying past Carmela’s office, chasing after the sound of retreating footsteps. Rushing through the open door and freezing momentarily, trying to process what I was seeing. Carmela on the ground. Blood pooling beneath her. Shallow, gurgled breaths filling the room with each raspy inhale.
“The bullet ricocheted off a rib and hit her lung,” the trauma surgeon had explained. “She hit her head pretty bad on the way down, too. Miss Lane is stable, but it’s unclear when she’ll wake up. She’s lucky to be alive.”
“Come on, baby girl,” I whisper, reaching for her hand. “Come back to me.”
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a couple laugh and play like you two do.” The memory of my mother’s words haunts me.
“We’re not done playing yet, Cara. I need you to come back and play with me, baby.” Tears gather in my eyes as my voice cracks. “I love you.”
Still, the only answer I receive is the soft whirring of a thousand moving parts in the machine keeping her alive.
“You look like shit. Where the fuck have you been?” I analyze Mick with a skeptical glare. His skin is ashen, and the dark circles under his eyes make him look like a ghost.
“Dealing with…things.” He doesn’t elaborate, hands bunching in the pockets of his slacks repeatedly. It’s a nervous tell—one I’ve never seen him display.
He peers over my shoulder into the room behind me. “How is she?”
“Stable.” I narrow my eyes. “Now, are you going to tell me where the fuck you disappeared off to?”
“Language, Anderson!” Letitia, Carmela’s mom, scolds as she emerges from the room.
It’s been hours with no change, but I wasn’t about to keep Cara’s family in the dark about what happened. Not after they spent so much time apart.
Not if this is their only chance to say goodbye.
Mick freezes, his already sickly pallor turning more gray as the petite woman sizes him up with a frown. “What are you doing here? You are not her family! You have no right!”
“Ma’am, I know we got off on the wrong foot?— ”
“The wrong foot? ?Hombre estúpido! Foot, leg, torso—the whole body is wrong! You are a very bad man!” Letitia shakes a finger at him, preparing to charge, when Geo grasps her shoulders to hold her back.
“Lettie, what’s all the commotion out here for, love?” he asks, looking at me before fixing Mick with a stern regard.
“Sir, if we could just talk for a moment,” Mick starts, his voice taking on that tone I never liked—the one that says he thinks he’s better than you, and because of that, you need to listen to him.
However, he doesn’t get to complete his sentence because Carmela’s machines start beeping loudly, their wailing reverberating throughout the room and into the hall.
“What’s happening?” Maya shrieks from her chair next to the bed.
A nurse rushes toward the room as a voice over the speaker system calls a code blue. Letitia and Geo are too shocked to do anything but move out of the way of the nurse, leaving me to retrieve Maya. She tries to fight against me as I pull her from the room. “We have to let them do their jobs, Maya,” I explain, even though she already knows.
She tucks her head against my chest as she cries. Mick and I lock eyes over her head. From the look on his face, it obviously pains him to see his daughter treating me like a parent even though I’ve only been in her life for a few weeks.
I herd everyone over to the waiting room, my limbs starting to ache from all the tension I’m carrying. “It’s gonna be okay, little one,” I whisper as Maya curls into my side, crying into my chest.
Letitia and Geo sit across from us, whispering prayers with their heads bent together.
Mick paces the hall, furiously typing on his phone.
And we wait.
The smell of overpriced, burnt coffee and artificial sweetener floods my senses as it drains from the machine into a white paper cup, juxtaposed with the sharp antiseptic smell of the hospital.
As the sun rises, butter-yellow light pierces the glass walls next to the vending machines—too bright and optimistic for our melancholy group.
Cara’s been stable since last night, but no one could bring themselves to leave the hospital for a chance at a decent sleep. Everyone is on edge. Stiff with worry and unresolved anger.
Placing a to-go lid on the cup of overly-sweetened sludge for Maya, I sip my bitter black cup and start on a hot chocolate for Letitia. Distant footsteps pound down the hall—probably another doctor on the way to another emergency.
“Anders!” I hear Geo’s cry echo from down the corridor. My chest constricts sharply as I turn toward the sound. “Anders! She’s awake!” he cries again as soon as he rounds the corner and sees me.
Forgetting the coffee, I rush down the hall, passing him by as I race back to Carmela’s room.
Just as I approach, a young nurse emerges from the dark room, leaving the door cracked open behind her. She holds up her hand with a stern look. “One at a time. She doesn’t need to be overwhelmed right now.”
Glancing behind me, I notice Maya and her grandmother are still waiting in the hall, matching frustrated scowls on their faces.
Fucking Mick.
“Why did you let him in there instead of her family?” I demand.
“He’s her emergency contact and power of attorney,” the nurse says in a tone that denotes how much she’s not in the mood to deal with any shit.
Well, fuck.
I can’t argue with that.