I squinted at the black and white image. I could make out the legs, and at the vee between them, another appendage stuck out. A penis.
“A boy?” I said, just to be certain.
“Definitely,” she confirmed, and Romeo released an explosion of gleeful laughter.
“We’re having a son,” he announced, beaming at me again and kissing my cheek.
“I’ll print off a few of these images for you. Your readings are mostly normal, but I’m still going to recommend you stay on bedrest for the next four weeks. I’ll provide you with care instructions before you leave.”
Hope surged through me. She’d made it sound as if I wouldn’t have to stay in here much longer. And when Dr. Shapiro came back a few minutes later, he reaffirmed this.
“Your scans are good. When you arrived, you’d suffered a severe concussion and a cracked rib from your fall, but all indications are looking very positive. Due to your coma, I’m going to keep you for an additional twenty-four hours. But unless some other complication arises, we should be able to send you home tomorrow.”
If we hadn’t been on the intensive care unit floor, I would’ve cheered and clapped my hands in delight. They moved me to another floor, and all the famiglia who’d been standing by were finally able to visit.
That night, Romeo hauled himself into my narrow hospital bed to sleep beside me, but I didn’t miss his frequent winces of pain.
“I wish you’d do something about your hip,” I told him with a sigh. But he responded like he always did.
“I’m fine, farfalla.”
Tired from the activities and emotions of the day, not to mention yanking myself out of a comatose state after so long, I didn’t argue. Maybe he considered his injury a penance, his own personal cross to bear. So deciding to let it go, I rested my head on his suit-clad chest and melted into him.
30
Romeo
One thing I’d had no idea about was that after a patient has awakened from a coma resulting from a head injury, someone would be by every two hours to wake them up again and shine a bright light into their pupils to check cognitive function. This often meant that Lucia would get into a deep slumber just in time for a nurse or other member of the medical staff to disturb her. It didn’t make for a comfortable night.
I was looking tremendously forward to taking her home.
If my father would still allow us in. I hadn’t heard anything out of Angelo for the past four days and didn’t know how he might react to my challenge. I’d thrown down the gauntlet and openly defied him. It’d been overdue. Now he knew if he expected me to choose between him and Lucia, he would lose. But it might mean I’d have to find other accommodations for us.
Around dawn, I texted Marcello.
Romeo: Where is everyone?
Marcello: Here at the mansion.
Romeo: Including the old man?
Marcello: He’s holed up in his quarters.
Romeo: Has he taken any countermeasures against me bringing Lucia home?
Marcello: He hasn’t changed the deadbolts if that’s what you’re asking.
Romeo: Good to know.
That afternoon as she insisted I share her lunch—every bite of which was tasteless—my curiosity got the better of me.
“What was being in a coma like? Do you remember anything, or is it all one giant blank?”
“I remember all sorts of things, but now, I’m not sure how much of it was real.”
“What sorts of things?” I prodded.
She glanced up at me through her eyelashes. “I remember you.”
“You heard me?”
“Absolutely, I heard you. It was both the best part and the worst part of the entire ordeal. It was so soothing to hear your voice saying all these beautiful things, but it was also terrible to try to wake up, to try over and over to talk to you, only to keep failing.”
I swallowed around the lump that lodged itself in my throat. “You didn’t fail. You came back to me, just like I asked.”
She offered me a flirty grin. “I never could deny you anything.” She brushed her lips across my chin but because my beard had grown so long, I hardly felt it. “My parents were there, too.” My heart flipped over. “And Antonio. They know everything that occurred after they passed. They’ve been right here with us observing.” Well, wasn’t that just the creepiest idea ever. “Discussing my life with them… It made me feel much differently about their deaths. While I’m still sad, I’m not upset about it anymore. I know they’re okay. I suppose being with them like that gave me closure.”
Later, when they released my wife into my care, I guided her step by step up the three sets of stairs. While she seemed mentally healthy—visions of deceased famiglia aside—physically, she remained unsteady. She had to lean on me wherever she walked, her gait slow. As we traversed the two stairwells on the first and second floors, I wondered for the first time why my father had never installed an elevator. All this lavish excess, only to forego something so potentially useful. As we approached the landing that led up the spiral staircase to the third floor, her snail like pace came to a stop.
“Need a break?” I asked her. She tired incredibly easily. But when I looked at her, I noticed she was trembling. And then it hit me. “This is where you fell, isn’t it?”
We hadn’t discussed anything about her accident thus far, and I hadn’t been here when it’d happened. Her gaze had fixated on one specific spot, and my stomach twisted as I imagined her lying there unconscious, helpless.
“Where’s Philippa?” she whispered in a strangely hollow tone. Was she hungry?
“I’m sure she’s around here somewhere. What do you need?”
“I…” she trailed off, her skin blanching of all color. She looked like she’d just seen a ghost. “Romeo, I just remembered something else.” But then she went silent, a deep line marring the space between her eyes.
“What did you remember, farfalla?”
“Philippa…”
I’d looked through the aftercare instructions the doctors had given me, and one of the items they’d mentioned had been an iffy memory. Marcello had told me the maid had come upon Lucia sometime after she’d fallen. “Philippa found you,” I told her, hoping to soothe her, but she shook her head.
“No, she didn’t. She… Romeo, I remember her pushing me.”
“Pushing you?”
“It was the night after Angelo sent you away. You and I talked on the phone before I went to bed. Then, in the middle of the night, she came to get me, telling me you were downstairs. She told me there was an emergency, and I had to run to meet you. But I hesitated…” She sat down right there on the floor and started rocking back and forth. I dropped to my knees beside her.
“I didn’t come back home until after your accident,” I explained. Was she confused, or was she remembering it like it’d actually occurred?
“Something about how she was speaking to me made me doubt her. And then, right before she pushed me, she spoke in this—I know this doesn’t make sense—but she didn’t sound like herself.”
“What do you mean?”