“This is bullshit,” I grumble, unable to continuing hearing him out.
HIs inability to admit fault is sickening, and he has taken full advantage of my wounded state to get his word in and I cannot tolerate this any longer. I want to be home where I can recuperate and make leeway on a real plan for my future. I want to be in the solace of my room where the rest of that murderous house can fall away and be left forgotten. I don’t want to be cooped up in this room, listening to the beeping of my heart, waiting for nurses to come in and mollycoddle me. I cannot stand to see Zane’s distress at trying to make my world right when it’s all going to pieces. I want to be home and able to make plans for Manuel’s funeral, so I can start some of this healing process.
Being stuck here with my father trying to make amends is doing nothing but slowly killing me more.
I push up, ignoring my aggravated stomach as it protests for too much movement and I start to tear away at the pads on my chest, the ones that register my broken heart, and struggle with my body to get up a little more. The heart monitor flat lines with no beating heart to disclose and as I go for my IV, my father flies into action.
“Bambina, stop!” he shouts, grabbing a hold of me. “You cannot do this! Stop before you hurt yourself more.”
“Get off me!” I shout, fighting against him. “I don’t want you to touch me.” It’s as that final sentence falls from my lips that I break, crack, and collide with the misery that lies in wait for me. I sink and I collapse and I give up the little fight that resonated from a deep part of me. “I want to go home,” I sob, held up only by my father’s hands. “I want this hell to go away. Please,” I cry, my head sinking forward. “I just want to go home.” I look up to see Zane standing in the doorway, flanked by my brothers, Carlo and Enzo. I ignore my paternal father and look straight to the one man who has fathered me and raised me to become the woman I am – the one I always wanted to be. “I want to go home, Enzo.”
“I’ll make it happen.” My father’s vow is ended as I finally find his presence replaced by one I want – Enzo. “I will pay for whatever you need, Amelia. You and Enzo will be home within the next twenty-four hours, I promise you that now.”
“That’s the least you can do,” Enzo growls to our father as his arms envelop me and he slowly lays me down again. I can feel his tense posture around me, but it’s the words that ring out that worry me most – the detachment is still there ringing louder with every syllable. “Get a nurse on your way out, Salvatore.” Enzo’s grasp on me offers much more protection to anything transcending in the room and I just cling to him, waiting to calm down. “C’mon, Amelia.” His pushes me away, preparing to leave me. The act in itself lashes out as I realize he’s still the cold, aloof man I’ve woken up to. “You need to calm down. He’s gone now.”
However, as he leaves me, I don’t calm down, not even as Zane comes forth to take the spot that Enzo’s quickly vacated. Zane obviously picked up that Enzo is more isolated as the days go by because the emotional support and stability I used to survive with is slowly dispersing and leaving empty air for me to grapple with. Maybe that’s what I need – the ability to stand on my own two feet. But in the same sense, I need my family just as much. Like Zane said before, we get through this as a family, but with Enzo’s constant disconnect, we’re never going to bounce back.
Zane holds me as a nurse ushers everyone out of the room, and as she begins to shoo Zane away, I cling on more, scared to be left alone with her. I need a constant in my life, and Zane is that. Apparently, my disrespect for my own health has me awarded with a sedative as I feel the piercing of a needle in the top of my arm.
As I fight the drug invading my system, all I remember is whispering for my brother to come back.
Then everything swirls into a glorious calm.
***
When I open my eyes again, the sun has fallen slightly in the sky, shadowing dawn across the view out of my hospital window. My head lulls back on the pillow, and I now notice that I am free of the heart monitor and am no longer tied down.
I feel groggy again, but I can assume that was the sedative used to calm me. I try to shake the fog from my mind, but inwardly I’m thanking the nurse’s initiative to put me out of my misery for a little while because I feel calmer now. That aching my father brought on is now diminished back to the refines of my heart, but I still cannot quieten that ebb that resonates through my entire body.