Page 49

J ulia got off the elevator and slowed her step.

She didn’t want to make another scene with his family, for their sake.

She spotted a floor map posted next to the elevator and took a minute to orient herself, wondering if there was a way she could see Gianluca without his family seeing her.

Downstairs she’d learned that his room number was three, though they wouldn’t give her any other information.

She eyed the map. The floor was laid out in a rectangle, with rooms lining the perimeter. There were ten rooms in all, with three rooms on the unit’s long sides and two on the shorter. In the center was a large workstation and behind it was a small room labeled SALA RISERVATA , or waiting room.

Julia figured that his family would be in the waiting room or his room. There was no way she could get in, but she felt driven to lay eyes on him. She didn’t know why, but she wasn’t questioning her impulses any longer.

She located room three on the map, but it was at the near end of the unit toward the elevator, the north side of the floor.

If his sister or anybody else decided to leave or look around, they would see her.

She consulted the map again. It showed another elevator on the south side, and if she entered the unit from there, she could avoid being seen.

She hit the Down button and got back in the elevator.

She reached the ground floor, navigated to the south side, and located the elevator bank and went up.

The elevator opened on the intensive care floor, and she got out, breathing a relieved sigh. She was on the far side of the waiting room, and she walked to the door, which had a window in the top half. The layout was as she suspected, and all the rooms had glass walls.

She opened the unit door to find a nurse coming in her direction, carrying a clipboard. The nurse had patterned blue scrubs, a stethoscope around her neck, with a plastic flower clip and wisps of dark hair escaping her scrub cap.

“Excuse me,” Julia said, when the nurse reached her. “I’m here to check on Gianluca Moretti. He was in a motorcycle accident.”

“Oh yes.” The nurse smiled. “You must be the cousin from San Francisco.”

“Yes, it took me a while to get here,” Julia said, playing along. If she had to impersonate a cousin to find out what was going on with Gianluca, that was fine with her.

“His parents are in with him. I met his mother, your aunt. She’s a lovely person.”

“You mean Sherry? Yes, she is,” Julia added to establish her credibility, such as it was. “May I ask, how is he doing? I just wanted to know what I was walking into before I saw everybody in the waiting room.”

“That’s considerate of you.” The nurse met her gaze, with sympathy. “We’re monitoring him very carefully. He’s in a medically induced coma.”

Oh God, a coma. “Medically induced? What does that mean?”

“I know it sounds alarming, but it’s not uncommon after TBI surgery.”

“TBI?”

“Traumatic brain injury.”

Oh no. Julia struggled for composure. “And what’s the purpose of inducing a coma?”

“It reduces swelling and inflammation in the brain. It’s a state of unconsciousness that gives the brain time to rest.”

“And is it different from a regular coma?”

“Only in that it’s intentional. He’s given propofol and other anesthetics to stay unconscious, in a sleep state.”

Julia knew she’d heard his voice in her head, outside in the parking lot. She had to understand how. She wondered if Gianluca had communicated with her while he was unconscious. It seemed impossible, but maybe it wasn’t.

Julia asked, “If he’s in a sleep state, can he think ?”

“Yes, brain function goes on, but we can’t be certain at what level.”

Julia blinked. So maybe Gianluca had sent her that message, somehow. She couldn’t have imagined it. Unless it was drug-induced.

“The level of brain function depends on the patient. Some patients who come out of medically induced comas report having dreams and hallucinations.” The nurse cocked her head. “Some report they heard everything said to them, but others don’t.”

Julia couldn’t wrap her mind around it right now. She had to know more about Gianluca. “How long will he be in the coma?”

“I believe about two weeks.”

Two weeks! “Do you bring him out of it or he brings himself out of it?”

“We bring him out of it. We monitor his blood pressure and other vital signs and, of course, he’s on a ventilator.”

No. Julia hadn’t realized he couldn’t breathe on his own. “So can I ask, what is his prognosis?”

The nurse’s expression darkened. “You will have to talk to the doctor about that.”

Oh no. “Okay, thank you, I will.”

“I have to go.” The nurse gestured down the hall. “You’re welcome to the waiting room.”

“Thank you.” Julia walked down the hall but stopped short of the waiting room. There was a water fountain, and she leaned over and took a sip, then stood up and turned toward the room, getting a parallax view of Gianluca.

Julia’s heart ached at the sight. His bandaged head lay against the pillow, leaning to the side.

His eyes were taped shut, and his face was pale.

A blue plastic hose snaked from his mouth to a machine beside his bed, and ports and tubes ran from both arms. The wall behind him was screens and monitors, flashing colors, lines, and numbers.

His parents sat on either side of him, each holding his hand, and their faces were turned to him, so they didn’t see her.

Julia wanted to be at his side with every fiber of her being, willing him to get better.

Right now, horrified at seeing him so broken, she knew, in a way she hadn’t before, how connected she was to him, how deep was her bond to him, even though it didn’t stand to reason.

They hadn’t known each other that long, but she felt he understood her, and she understood him, and they appreciated each other fully.

She remembered Gianluca saying, The thing about a broken heart is that it’s open.

She felt the truth of that now, realizing her heart had opened to him without awaiting permission from her brain, bypassing her second-guessing and overthinking that got in the way of her feelings, blocking them even from herself, burdening her every day since Mike died, maybe every day she could remember.

Julia focused her mind and her heart on Gianluca, feeling that they were connected souls, able to speak subconscious-to-subconscious, because she’d received his message I want Thy Heart. So she sent him the reply:

I, too, want Your Heart.

Tears sprang to Julia’s eyes. It struck her that she’d fallen in love with Gianluca and she loved Mike, too.

She didn’t have to give one love up for another love.

She knew that it defeated the natural law that two things couldn’t occupy the same place at the same time, but that was never true of the human heart, anyway.

She turned away and walked down the hall.