“The cardiologist is still with your wife, sir.”
“Will you at least tell me if she’s . . .” He lowered his voice. “Conscious.”
“Oh, yes, she is.”
Harry paced around the room like a caged gerbil without a running wheel. “Is my mom going to die?”
“Good heavens, no,” the nurse said. “She’s very lucky, you know—to end up here. Raleigh Regional has the best heart center in the state. We see more heart patients than any other hospital in North Carolina.”
Really. Well, this sure as hell wasn’t Duke.
“When you see her, your mom will be groggy from the sedative and antianxiety meds.” The nurse kept smiling at Harry. “‘Quietly happy’ is the phrase we use. Can I get either of you anything while you wait?”
Harry shook his head. “No, thanks.”
“No, thank you,” Felix said. What he meant was “Yes, I want my wife.” I want her to walk through that door, smile, and say, “Let’s go home.”
An hour passed. Harry listened to music and played Angry Birds. There had been several phone conversations with Mad Max, which was hardly surprising. The boys seemed incapable of navigating a day without multiple phone conversations. Some of their daily chats shared asinine observations—“Dude, the camping episode of SpongeBob is on!” Others led to laughter and clipped sentences in Harry-Max language. This afternoon, Harry had told his best friend over and over, “Still no news.” Felix was prepared to smash the phone if he heard that phrase one more time.
When squeaking wheels in the corridor moved closer and closer, Felix leaped to attention. Harry glanced at him and bounced up to stand by his side, rolling on the balls of his feet. Two orderlies pushed in a gurney; a nurse followed alongside. No one spoke.
Felix retreated into a corner, and Harry followed his lead.
The white mannequin lying rigid on the gurney with a tube taped to her wrist, a plastic cone hooked over her finger, a tube jabbed into the pale skin under her neck, pads taped to her chest, and what appeared to be a sandbag on her groin, was his wife. And her mouth was covered with an oxygen mask.
A memory flickered: Ella in Jackie O sunglasses, laughing at a shared, private joke. Felix stared at the oxygen tank and tasted bile.
Ella raised a palm and waved her fingertips. Harry jumped forward, but Felix put out an arm to restrain him. “Let the nurses get Mom settled,” he said.
Harry grimaced and blinked, grimaced and blinked.
People swarmed as orderlies grabbed the gurney’s sheet and, in one swift tug, slid Ella onto the bed along with a startling amount of paraphernalia. Felix recognized most of it from Tom’s last weeks: the monitor, IV fluid bag, catheter bag, and blood pressure cuff. The orderlies disappeared with the gurney; the nurse transferred Ella’s oxygen tank and began messing with leads, hooking up everything to the large monitor on the wall. Felix stared up at the words until he’d memorized them: heart rhythm, MAP, and O2 saturation.
“Are you having any chest pain, dear?” the nurse asked Ella.
Ella shook her head so slowly it barely moved. The nurse took Ella’s vital signs, listened to her lungs, and then checked the sandbag on the groin.
“What’s she doing?” Harry whispered.
“This is the arterial insertion site,” the nurse said. “It’s where they inserted the catheter that went into your mother’s heart. We keep the sandbag in place for a few hours to apply pressure and prevent a hematoma from forming. You must be Harry.” She turned with a smile. “Your mother told us all about you.”
Harry glanced at Felix, his lips almost as pale as his cheeks.
“Are you comfortable, dear?” The nurse turned back to Ella.
Ella nodded, grabbed at her oxygen mask, and missed.