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“Alessandro,” she says as I pick up the call. She sounds terrified.
“Madre, is something wrong?”
“Your father.” I hear a stifled cry. “We are at the hospital. He had a heart attack,” she adds.
“Why did you take him to the hospital? How about the house doctor?”
“He’s out of town.”
“Where are you? Daniel got shot.”
“Mio Dio (My God)!” she exclaims sharply.
I turn to check on Daniel.
“He needs help, Mama. I don’t want to lose him.”
“We are at Harlem Hospital Center. Hurry, mio figlio (my child),” my mother says. Her Italian accent thickens, as it always does when she’s stressed.
Cutting the call, I toss my phone to the other seat.
While hitting the gas, I look at Daniel through the rearview mirror.
“Don’t fucking die on me, Daniel.”
***
“Nurse!”
I walk into the hospital with Daniel, his arm around my shoulder. I never knew he was so damn heavy.
“I need a fucking nurse. Now!” I bark. A man dressed in scrubs runs to meet me at the entrance.
“Emergency,” he calls out. Two other nurses spring into action, rolling a stretcher towards me. I set Daniel on the stretcher with the nurses’ help.
“Don’t let him fucking die,” I say as they wheel him in.
“You have to wait outside here, sir,” a female nurse says, stopping me from entering the ER with Daniel.
I grunt as I stop in my tracks, waiting outside the room.
“Alessandro,” a voice calls from behind. It’s my mother.
“Madre,” I turn to face her.
Her gray eyes are swollen from crying. She pulls me in a tight hug and I take in her familiar vanilla smell.
Her head rests on my chest because of our height difference.
“He’s going to be fine, mio figlio (my child),” she whispers against my chest.
“How is Father?”
I swallow a gulp, remembering his earlier outburst. Knowing he is on the sick bed doesn’t dissolve the anger I still feel towards him.
“Stable. The doctors here are good.”
She lets go of me.
