Chapter 32
I’ve managed to avoid hospitals in the two years since my brother died in one.
I am grateful for my decent health, and that my parents and Alex have remained relatively healthy, though I do worry about my dad.
No distant relatives have croaked. Now that I’m back, I feel my skin prickle with anxiety.
The bright hospital lights seem to present everything in a slightly sinister manner, making everyone’s skin glow unnaturally.
It smells like cleaning fluid and bad cafeteria food.
That’s why I could never have followed my brother into medicine to become a doctor.
In Sri Lankan culture, the most prestigious job is a doctor.
Is there anything more important than saving a life?
I take out Amaya’s phone, which she shoved at me, telling me the passcode, which was, as I suspected, her birthday.
I call Amaya’s parents, who, in typical Sri Lankan parent fashion, scream dramatically and don’t stop until my third or fourth repeated promise that Amaya is really all right.
It is something I know my own parents would do: grow hysterical over the bad news until they could see how bad it is for themselves.
They will be here as soon as possible, they say.
They live in Delaware, I remember Amaya telling me.
“Can we speak to her?” they ask.
“No,” I reply gently, “she’s with the doctor and no visitors are allowed right now. But soon. She’s okay,” I promise them once again.
Finally, through breathy sobs on the phone, Amaya’s mother asks, “Who are you?” I tell them that I am a friend. That I promise I won’t leave her until they get here, and hearing that, they finally seem to calm just a little bit.
I remember how my parents were when my brother got sick.
They barely slept for months, the image of their son withering away in a hospital bed keeping them up at night.
My mother spent the first months at my brother’s bedside, until finally and firmly my brother said that our mother should sleep at home.
It was pointless that both of them should lose sleep.
The insomnia for both our parents and me continued at home.
For the months my brother was in the hospital, my mind felt foggy, as if I was going through the motions of life but not really doing anything.
I still live in the fog—just doing the bare minimum to stay alive.
Once I finish filling out the ER intake forms—thanks to Amaya’s driver’s license, I learn she is three years older than me, a fact I had been trying to figure out since I met her—I think of Alex.
Alex, shit. I scramble to call him, sweating profusely at the thought of Alex also lying somewhere stabbed.
Why had he chased Magnus Mouse? Probably because I told him to, I scold myself.
Pick up, pick up, pick up, I pray as Alex’s phone rings and rings before going to voicemail. I end the call and stuff my phone back into my pocket.
Suddenly, my phone rings, startling me. Alex. I breathe in sharply, realizing I had been holding my breath while I struggled to reach him.
“Hello? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I lost the guy,” Alex says, his ego sounding more wounded than anything else. Losing a chase to a man in an off-brand mouse suit is something that Alex would require me to take to my grave. “How is Amaya?”
“She’ll be fine.”
“Thank goodness.” The relief in Alex’s voice is palpable. “Do you think it was a random attack?”
Of course it wasn’t. “It seems a pretty big coincidence to be random. Whoever is behind this made good on all those threats,” I say.
“Crazier things have happened than an evil Magnus Mouse stabbing people in NYC,” Alex says unhelpfully.
“Did you get any promising information? A description? Anything we could tell the police?” I am still nervous about police involvement after my interactions with them, but who else could we turn to?
“Around six foot, black fur, red pants, two large circular ears…” Alex says.
“Alex!”
“Well, I couldn’t see his face, but he did drop a menu for a pizza place, somewhere right before I lost him.”
“Okay?” I say, wondering why that matters. “What pizza place?”
“A place called Lutrino’s in Brooklyn.”
I think of Sal Lutrino smiling at us in his back office. It is, I know, too much of a coincidence.