"Santiago." Marco pries my hand from her, and instinctively, I take a swing at him as I stagger to my feet.
He grabs me by the shoulders, shaking me, and when I try to fight him off, he backhands me across the face, shocking me back to reality.
"Pull yourself together, Santiago," he growls. "Do it for your wife."
My nostrils flare as a long, painful sound leaves my lungs. He's right. I know he's right. But I don't know how to pull myself together when the only thing that matters is falling apart. I watch them load her into the back of the ambulance, and Marco ushers me forward.
"You can ride with her, sir."
I glance back at him before the doors shut, and he gives me one last encouraging nod. "I’ll meet you there.”
The next ten hours are a blur as I'm left to hold my breath in the hospital waiting room. I alternate between pacing the floor and collapsing into a chair to hang my head in my hands, swinging between violent despair and brief glimpses of hope.
Doctors and nurses come and go, providing updates with little information. They did imaging tests on Ivy as soon as she arrived, confirming the baby is okay, but from what they can tell so far, she has three broken ribs, a fractured arm, a ruptured tendon in her leg, and numerous scrapes and bruises. The impact was to her face and the side of her head, but they told me she was responsive to stimuli before they took her back to surgery for the ruptured tendon. I wanted to see her, but the surgery had to be performed immediately to prevent further damage.
Marco told me that was a good sign, and the nurses have continued to assure me they are doing everything they can. But hours have come and gone, and something doesn't feel right. I know it, deep in my gut.
"I have to go back there," I tell Marco.
"You can't." He stands up and forces me back into the chair.
I'm too exhausted to fight him off, and I know it isn't logical. They told me as soon as she was in recovery, they would come for me. But I can't deny this desperate sinking inside me. It's an instinct that only intensifies with time, and after another hour passes, I can no longer deny it.
"It's been hours," I croak. "They said she'd be out of surgery by now."
"It takes time for the anesthesia to wear off," he answers. "Look at the screen, boss."
He points at the monitor in the waiting room with Ivy's number on it. The one that tells me she's still in surgery. It hasn't been updated for six hours, I realize, and I know that can’t be accurate.
When I stagger to my feet again, Marco sighs, and this time he seems to understand he's not stopping me. I head for the desk, where a terrified nurse blinks up at me as soon as she sees me.
"Mr. De La Rosa," she squeaks.
"I want to speak to a doctor. Now.”
She swallows, nods, and scurries off. Five minutes pass, and then ten before a weary-looking doctor appears. It's the same man I spoke to earlier. One of the best surgeons IVI has on staff. He was called in specifically for my wife's case today. I was assured she was in good hands with Dr. Singh. But one glance at his face tells me I was wrong.
"What happened?" I force the words between gritted teeth. "I want to see my wife. Now. Where is she? Where the hell is she?"
"Mr. De La Rosa." His eyes bounce between Marco and me. "I'm afraid there's been a complication."
"Complication?" The word falls from my lips in an unrecognizable voice.
"Your wife seems to be experiencing a prolonged delay of consciousness following surgery."
"She's not waking up?" My eyes move down the hall behind him to the closed doors they wheeled Ivy through. "But... she's okay? You said she was responsive earlier. You told me—"
"This can be a rare complication of anesthesia," he tells me. “There are cases when this happens without much of an explanation...”
His voice begins to fade as he rattles off rehearsed lines about post-op recovery times, organic and metabolic causes of delayed consciousness, non-traumatic causes for comatose patients. The words all start to blend, and I can't follow any of them. It’s too much to process, and there’s only one thing I know for certain.
"Take me to her," I order. "I need to see her. I’m going now, with or without you."
He hesitates and then offers a solemn nod.
32
Santiago
The steady beeping of the monitors in Ivy's room are the only solace I have in the darkness. Those rhythms mean, in some capacity, she's still here. She's still inside her body, even if she's not awake.
It's been three days since the surgery, and she's been transferred to the ICU, where they continue to run tests. Every doctor who arrives inevitably leaves without any answers, offering the name of another colleague who might be able to help. I send for all of them. A constant parade of elite medical professionals come and go without results. There are no concrete answers, only estimations.
Some tell me it's a complication of the anesthesia. Others insist it must be metabolic in nature. One recklessly began to suggest that it was psychogenic, a state of distress so rare the body shuts itself down. They run countless blood tests and imaging scans, interrogating me about any pre-existing conditions or medications she may have taken that day. They are all looking for something, but it's become clear they don't know what it is.
Her brain scans have revealed no permanent damage. No swelling. Her spinal cord is intact. But with every passing hour, I'm beginning to lose hope that anyone can help her.
Between the influx of specialists and nurses, I take to my phone to search for potential causes myself. I read case studies about prolonged comas with unknown causes, deep-diving into the bizarre and unusual. It becomes clear the more that I read, and the longer Ivy takes to wake up on her own, the dimmer her chances are.
In the hall outside the door, the staff has lined up chairs for the other visitors. Antonia, Marco, Eva, Hazel, Michael, and Eli are all keeping vigil there, awaiting their turn to visit. We work in rotations, something that was not my idea, but one I agreed to nonetheless. I thought maybe if she felt their presence, someone she still loved, it might encourage her to come back. But so far, that has proven fruitless too.
Admittedly, when Marco brought Eli here, I was angry. But the moment I saw his face, something hit me. The unshakeable truth that he knew exactly how I felt. The pain in his eyes was a reflection of mine. And once I saw it, I could not send him away.
Marco’s men are combing the city for Abel, and any plan we may have had to lure him out is in tatters now. None of it matters. The only thing that matters is that Ivy comes back, and only then will I leave her bedside to murder her brother.
Many times, I have considered moving her back home. But the hospital staff tells me it would be ill advised. It doesn’t matter if I hire an army of staff and purchase enough medical equipment to outfit an entire hospital. If something goes wrong, this is the safest place for her. It’s a fact I’m still having difficulty wrapping my head around. A defeat I don’t want to accept. She shouldn’t be lying on this bed in this cold, sterile room. Everything about it feels wrong.