Page 8 of Five

A sob wrenches from her throat, and she runs from the room. Worried the odor in the room has set off her morning sickness, I chase after her, but she heads for the front door of our traditional Sicilian townhouse, jumps into my car and screeches off.

“Maria!” I shout after her, even though it’s pointless since she’s already gone.

Dragging my fingers through my hair, I trudge back into the house, wondering what the hell I did that upset her so much.

So much for my grand gesture.

An hour later, there’s a knock on the door. My heart leaps as I rush to open it, thinking Maria must have forgotten her keys. I’ve been trying to call her, but every attempt goes to voicemail.

But it’s not Maria at the door. Instead, two officers of the Polizia di Stato are standing there, and the expression on their faces makes my blood run cold.

“Jesse Russo?” I nod, already numb. “I’m sorry, sir. We regret to inform you that Maria Costa has been involved in an automobile accident.”

“Is she–” I stop at the look on their faces. “I need to see her.”

My CO drives me to the hospital, and an hour later I’m standing in the corridor outside her room, feeling like the bottom has dropped out of my entire world.

“No! She can’t be gone,” I whisper to the nurse who’s just broken the news to me.

I feel like I’m having an out of body experience or something. Everything is numb and I’m functioning on autopilot while my heart and soul feel like they’ve been wrenched out of my body.

It’s hard to breathe beneath the crushing weight of despair that encompasses my entire being. Inside I’m silently screaming, but on the outside I’m still standing there. I’m still asking questions.

But my mind is stuck on a loop of denial.

It can’t be true.

I don’t want to believe it.

Any moment now, someone is going to tell me it’s a mistake.

Maria is going to walk through that door and tell me everything’s all right.

She doesn’t.

I don’t know how long it is before my brain starts functioning again. It feels like hours.

They eventually allow me to see her, and that’s when it finally sinks in.

She looks like she’s sleeping, but her face is gray despite her olive skin tone. Her lips have a purplish-blue tinge and so do her fingernails. I clutch desperately at her fingers, wishing for a different outcome, even though they are stone cold, and her chest doesn’t move.

She really is gone.

I’m still in a daze when a cold and stern-looking nurse comes into the room. “You need to leave now, sir.”

I stare at her without comprehension for long moments, while she busies herself unhooking various monitors.

“Sir, I really must insist.” The glare she throws me lacks empathy, but I can’t focus on things like that right now.

I climb to my feet, reluctant to let go of Maria’s lifeless hand, but before I leave, something clicks in my mind.

“My fiancé, she was pregnant. Is there any way to find out…” I swallow around the lump in my throat that is trying to stop me from saying the words, because if I utter them, they’ll become real. “Is there any way to know if it was a girl or a boy? I… I just…” My voice breaks and the following words are strangled. “I just want to honor my child’s memory.”

The nurse doesn’t look happy, but she checks through the records she has on a clipboard, before throwing me a narrow-eyed stare. “And you are?”

I shake my head in confusion. “I’m Jesse Russo.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Russo, but I have the fiancé, and father of Ms. Costa’s child, listed as an Arun Li.”