“I’m here for the Cavetti family…”
“Lucia is my wife,” I told the physician, who introduced himself as Dan Shapiro.
“Mr. Cavetti, this is what we know so far. The fall she sustained has left her with a severe concussion and lots of contusions. Since she has entered a comatose state, we’re monitoring her progress closely. She won’t be leaving the ICU anytime soon.”
“She’s in a coma?” Giorgio interjected from behind me, his expression apprehensive. “I’m her brother.”
“Yes. But that’s common in these types of head injuries.”
“But she’s still in there, right?” Her brother pressed. “She’ll remember who she is when she wakes up?”
“She has sustained some swelling around her parietal lobe, so it’s impossible to tell so early.”
I couldn’t allow myself to think that she would be brain damaged when she woke up, so I made myself ask, “What about the baby?”
Dr. Shapiro squeezed my shoulder. “The health of the mother must be seen to first, that’s our policy.”
“Yes, I agree,” I said. “Do whatever you must to save Lucia.”
“We will, and we are. In cases like hers, it’s impossible to tell which way things may go. Her markers show she has not miscarried yet, but that could change at any time. The challenge is that she is currently unable to consume any nutrition in a traditional manner. If her coma persists, we may have to start her on a feeding tube.”
“I give you full permission to do that and anything else to preserve her life. And the baby’s, if at all possible.” I imagined her waking up to realize she’d lost our child, and my throat stung.
“What are her chances of a full recovery?” Giorgio inquired, and I stared at the doctor just as hard as her brother was, needing to know.
“I could offer you statistics, but the truth is every case is different and unique. It’s too soon to tell, but I can assure you we’re doing everything we can.” My eyes and nose both burned, and I knew I might just lose it right there in the hospital. Fortunately, there was the sound of a stretcher coming down the hallway, and we all looked up at it. “Ah, there she is. You may each go in, one at a time.”
I glanced up at Giorgio, ready to glare at him if he dared to say he should go first, but when I met his gaze, I was stunned to see his gray eyes go from hard to relenting. “Come get me when you’re ready for a break,” he said, doing an about face and heading toward the waiting room. I blinked at him, unable to even offer him some caustic remark.
“Yeah. Okay.”
When I went in to see her, I tried to prepare myself for something traumatic, but other than a small bandage on her forehead, she looked just like my farfalla. It made it easier to pretend that she was merely sleeping, and that everything would be okay, even though I knew it might not be. So I pulled the lone horribly uncomfortable plastic chair up to her bedside and caressed my wife’s limp fingers with my own. I sat in silence for several minutes, but then a nurse came by to check on her vitals.
“How is she?” I demanded as the nurse read the machines attached to her.
“The same, sweetheart. But don’t give up. Patients in her state are known to be able to hear you, so don’t hesitate to talk to her. That way, she’ll know you’re here.”
I nodded and waited until the nurse had moved on to her next patient. Then, I leaned forward and whispered in Lucia’s ear.
“Can you hear me, farfalla? I’m here. I’m back.” I traced the little half moons of her fingernails. “Can you feel this, Lucia? I’m touching you. Squeeze my hand if you can feel me.”
I watched to see if she would, but she didn’t. Couldn’t, I understood, even though it was difficult to accept.
“Listen. I need you to do something for me, all right. I need you to open your eyes and come back to me. This is extremely important, the most important thing I’ve ever asked of you, so I want you to work on that. Work on it as hard as you can.” I swallowed. “Because here’s the thing. I don’t want to go on without you. I’m basically just not interested in my life if you’re no longer in it, so I’m laying this huge guilt trip at your feet. You’ve got to wake up.”
My nose burned, but I did my best to ignore it.
“Do you remember our vows? We exchanged them awfully recently, so you should.” I smiled. “We swore to honor and cherish each other all the days of our lives and beyond. Beyond, remember? So that means forever. Always. I need you to know that, but what I need even more is for you to squeeze my hand. Try again, okay?” I squeezed her once as if to show her how it was done. “See? Like that? Your turn.”
But, of course, there was nothing.
“Okay. That’s okay,” I told her, kissing the back of her hand like I had the day that I’d left for California. “I’m not mad. You’ll do it as soon as you can, I’m sure. You know how when I gave you that burner and had you call me, you teased with our ‘Yes, husband’ thing? I told you not to do it so I wouldn’t be hard when I was trying to work. I take it back. I don’t give a flying fuck about work or anything but you anymore. You’re all I think about. You’re the one I look forward to coming to bed to. You’re the one I feel so happy to see every morning. You’ve made my life so much better, you’ve made me so much better, so I need you. I need you back. As soon as possible.
“I’m just going to stay right here until you wake up. And then, we’re going to go home, and I’m going to spoil you rotten. We'll have more dinners out on the patio, or we can travel if you want. We can travel all around the world. The sky’s the limit.”
I glanced down at the sheet covering her stomach and the miniscule amount of roundness that was only visible when she leaned a certain way while in the buff. And even that had been a recent development.
“I meant to tell you that you’re starting to show. Two mornings ago, I noticed it for the first time, that little baby bump. And you know what? I think it makes you even sexier, if such a thing is possible. You were always so alluring to me. I always felt hot for you, even if I was a bastard about it in the beginning. I want to watch you grow big and round. I want to feel our baby move and be there when it’s born. I never knew I’d want that so much, but I do. It’s another reason why you need to come out of this.”
I continued to talk to Lucia for a long time. Long enough that I felt my mouth go dry and my throat go raw. Long enough that my voice sounded like it’d been through a cheese grater. But she stayed unconscious. Over the next few days, I told her everything I could think of. Things I was proud of—most of which had happened once I’d fallen in love with her. Things I was ashamed of—a much longer list.
I told her about my childhood, about my mother, about how Savio and Natalia went to live with our grandmother while Marcello, Gianni, and I had been raised by our father. I told her about the dreams I’d had when I was small that I’d been told by Angelo I could never pursue. I told her maybe I’d go ahead and chase that dream once she woke.
And I rubbed at my throbbing hip.
A week passed. And then two. Lucia remained unchanged, and with each sunrise and sunset, I felt my hope dwindling. Dr. Shapiro told me that if the coma stretched beyond weeks and into months, her status would be updated to a persistent vegetative state. If that happened, her odds of ever recovering dropped exponentially.