Chapter 92
OSPEDALE PAOLO MERLO was a couple of small buildings that sat at a busy intersection at the top of the hill.
It was hard to tell where the emergency room entrance was, or if there was an emergency room entrance, so I hoped that the taxi driver was depositing us in the right place.
When the car came to a stop, I threw several thousand lire at him, then ran around to Laura’s side of the car and helped her out.
“You okay?” I asked, but it was a stupid question because she looked about as far from okay as it was possible to get. She was crying again, but the truth was she’d never really stopped.
“Let me get this for you,” I said, and removed her stupid red wig.
Underneath all that red yarn, her brown hair was tied back into a tight ponytail, which she’d bobby-pinned to her head.
I pulled a few of the bobby pins free, to make her look a little more like herself, but until I got my hands on a wet washcloth, there was nothing I could do about the face paint.
At reception, I told the woman behind the desk that Laura was having a miscarriage. Except I didn’t know the word for miscarriage, so I said, “Penso che la sua gravidanza stia finendo,” which translated to something like I think her pregnancy is ending.
I was thankful for once that Laura’s Italian was so terrible.
The woman asked for Laura’s ID, and Laura opened her wallet, then seemed to lose steam on the assignment. I took the wallet from her, shuffling through her cash and coins until I found what we were looking for. “Ecco.”
“Lei è americana?” the woman asked, and I confirmed that this was the case, then steered Laura toward the empty waiting room.
We had waited only a few minutes when a triage nurse came to get us. I could watch her taking in Laura’s clownish appearance. “Eravamo al Carnevale,” I explained.
She led us to an examination room and began peppering Laura with questions, which I translated.
I did okay with that, but even after all my lessons, there were plenty of words I didn’t know.
Trimester, due date, spotting, blood. When you don’t have the precise word you need, you say things the long way.
So, instead of describing Laura’s cramps, I said she had pains in her stomach.
Instead of describing the bleeding, I said there was red in her underwear.
While we waited for the doctor, I wet some paper towels and dabbed at Laura’s face. The makeup left a waxy residue under her eyes, around the rim of her nostrils, and in the creases of her mouth. Still, with her own skin showing, she looked better prepared to deal with whatever was coming next.
At one point, on my way to the restroom, I ran into Bianca. In my panic, I had forgotten she worked at the hospital. She asked what I was doing there, and when I told her, she gave me a sympathetic hug and said she’d try to get the doctor to hurry.
The doctor was a man named Milo Brambilla, and when he arrived a few minutes later, he asked us many of the same questions the nurse had asked, then invited Laura to lie down.
Back then there were no ultrasound machines, at least not in rural hospitals like Paolo Merlo, so the doctor took measurements of Laura’s stomach, then spent several minutes pressing a stethoscope into it.
Finally, he looked at me and said, “Non c’è battito cardiaco. ”
I turned to Laura, terrified to translate what he’d said, but she must have read it in my eyes.
“It’s bad?” she said.
I nodded. “I’m so sorry. There’s no heartbeat.”
God, did she wail then. It was a full-bodied scream that ripped its way out of her throat, past her lips, and into the tiny room.
I could feel the sound in my chest, and it made me want to cover my ears, to crawl under her hospital bed and hide.
I forced myself to wrap my arms around her, to stroke her head, to whisper I’m so sorry over and over and over.
“I want Bobby,” she cried, and I promised that he would be there soon, and the miracle was that, not two seconds later, he came running down the hallway, calling her name.
Paul was there, too, but he hung back. I told Bobby what had happened, and he took my place beside Laura, pulling her into his chest in a bear hug so big I thought he might break her.
I wanted to give them time alone, but Bobby’s Italian was almost as bad as Laura’s, and they needed someone to translate the doctor’s instructions.
“Do you want to do it?” I asked Paul, who had a better vocabulary than I did, if not a better grasp on grammar.
He shook his head and said it looked like I had things under control.
Together with the doctor, I walked Laura and Bobby through their options.
The doctor recommended Laura remain at the hospital overnight.
She was technically in labor, and the bleeding would continue until she had passed not only the fetus but also the placenta.
He warned them that, at fifteen weeks, most women needed a D&C.
I started to explain the surgical procedure, but Bobby stopped me. “She had one before.”
“Right,” I said, “of course.”
“Ask him if he thinks she needs to go to Naples for that,” said Bobby, but it was an awkward question to pose because it insinuated that we believed the man standing in front of us might not be up to the task.
“Her husband,” I translated, “wants to know if she should travel to the American hospital in Naples for the procedure.”
“Perché mai dovrebbero volerlo?” the doctor asked.
“He wants to know why you’d want to,” I said to Bobby softly, and he seemed to get that this was delicate.
“Maybe talk to Doc Callaway at the clinic tomorrow,” said Paul. “See what he says.”
Paul and I remained at the hospital for another quarter of an hour.
When we left we promised to bring Laura and Bobby back some dinner and a change of clothes.
Bobby gave us his house key, and we hugged them both, and it was only after we got out of the building and into the parking lot that I began to bawl.