Page 55 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
“We’re going straight to the hospital?” Melissa says. She looks nonplussed.
I say, “I know we’ve been traveling all day, but we had a good meal on the plane and you look fine.” She really does. My appreciative smile is automatic.
She doesn’t look convinced, but doesn’t argue, knowing this is an emergency.
* * *
We arriveat Modena Medica Poliambulatorio at three p.m. Though it’s a good hospital, close to our family home, with a cardiac unit, I’m concerned that Mama hasn’t had my father moved to the Policlinico Tor Vergata University hospital in Rome. I’ll need to talk with her about it.
We’re met at the door by two men who look like security. They tell us to follow them. Melissa slides me a look and I shrug my shoulders. But it’s coming back to me now, the environment surrounding me like a pool of water as I submerge—the special treatment, the notoriety, the feeling that I belong, that I have a place here.
The only problem was, back then, that my place seemed to be on a pedestal, too high for the nineteen-year-old boy I’d been. So, I’d left. Headed west. I look at Melissa and her face is closed, cool, composed, but I can see the anxiety in her eyes, the fish-out-of-water panic causing tension lines around her mouth when she tries to smile at me.
“What?” she says as we ride in the elevator with the two silent uniformed men. I put my arm around her.
“I’m sorry I’ve not been attentive,” I say and I mean it. Damn. “I know you’re overwhelmed—”
“Not at all. Don’t worry about me.”
I chuckle at her brave words and she bristles. “Mia bella,” I say, squeezing her closer, “I will always worry about you and your welfare. That is my promise.”
“You sound so . . . Italian, now that we’re here,” she says with an assessing glint. Any anxiety she had is gone. I attribute that to my arm around her, our bodies touching along one side.
She goes on, “It’s as if your English is drifting away, getting more and more accented, and soon you’ll be speaking straight Italian and I won’t be able to understand a word you say.”
The elevator doors open before I have a chance to reassure her, leaving me unsettled, unsure if she’s implying some deeper meaning about a change in me, a change in us.
The two security men escort us off the elevator into a bright white corridor, past a nurse’s station. It’s Melissa’s turn to squeeze my arm in reassurance as if she knows the tension in me has doubled in the past second and grows with each stride.
We’re led to a private room where I see my mother and older sister, Sabrina, standing outside the door. My mother opens her arms to me and I watch her calm features crumble, sagging under the weight of worry and succumbing to a sob and tears. Reaching her, I let go of Melissa and envelop Mama in a consoling hug, gazing at Sabrina over her shoulder with a question in my eyes.
Sabrina whispers, “He’s stable.” A profound and unexpected relief rolls through me, releasing tension I’d been holding in every tight muscle of my body since I received the call last night. I introduce Melissa to my mother and sister and they exchange tense nods.
Any hesitation I had to see my father leaves me as I stride through the door. Even as I see the tubes hooked up to his arm and inserted in his nose, notice the ghostly pallor of his skin, the sunken cast of his features as he lies motionless, his eyes closed, I don’t slow down or stop until I reach his bed and lay my hand on his cheek. The once feared strong jaw lies slack, but he opens his eyes and turns to me.
Then he smiles, a weak smile, but it’s the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen on his face and it makes me want to weep with joy. The years of anger, defiance and regret fall away in that instant and I lean forward and kiss his forehead. He reaches for my hand and grips it, still strong for an old man who just had a heart attack.
“Son. You came.” His voice is raspy as if his throat is dry and I take the pitcher and pour him a cup of water, using only one hand because he’s holding my other hand tight. I’m not about to let go, even for all the gold in the Vatican.
“It’s about time I came home.” I manage to say the words without choking up. I want to say so much more, but it’s hard to admit to so many things that I did wrong, to betray my younger self completely.
“You made your mother happy,” he says. I smile because I know he means that I madehimhappy, but he can’t say it, can’t admit to any vulnerability even as he lies in his hospital bed with a blue flowered hospital johnny, the kind I know has no back. My father is nothing if he’s not dignified. I hate to see him less than that, so I put the hospital room out of my head and focus on his strong dark eyes.
It’s as if I’m looking to a mirror at the fading veneer of stubborn pride over the churning emotions, the love, the sadness, the joy, the regret.
“Will you stay?” he asks. He cuts to the chase as if he has no time for the preliminaries. But I’ve been expecting the question, knowing he’ll want me to stay and take over the family business. I can feel the extra thudding in my chest like my heart is revolting on my behalf.
“I’ll stay as long as I need to.” It’s a compromise meant to convey whatever it needs to for his sake and mine. I know ultimately he will get his wish, but I have so much—toomuch—unfinished business, too many unfulfilled goals, to stay for good now, to walk into the Fierro Motor Company offices tomorrow and change the name on the corner office door from his to mine.
He gives me his pensive stare, not showing how he feels, not giving away what he’s thinking, but I know what he’s thinking anyway. It’s not so hard. We’re the same, he and I. My papa is determined and confident and he knows he’s won, knows I’m conceding the ill-conceived fight started years ago when I left.
“It’s a good thing. You’re ready now,” he says. Like he’s reading my mind too. Maybe we don’t need to talk at all. Maybe my walking into this hospital room now has told him everything he needed to know.
I take a deep breath, still holding his hand—or rather letting him hold mine. He’s still wearing his big ring, the one with the Fierro family crest designed by his grandfather and meant to be passed down to the first-born son in each generation. I used to dream about wearing that ring when I was a boy.
A knock on the open doorway precedes a doctor, who walks into the room with his hand outstretched and a wide smile. I take his hand.
“I’m Dr. Moletti. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Fierro,” he says with a vigorous pump of my hand before he lets go.
