blast, then another and … her heart starts beating.
It’s a faint beep but it’s there. I hear it. Beep… beep…beep, beep.
Her heart is beating! I release the breath I was holding on to.
I want to rush over to her and thank her for coming back, thank her for staying and not joining the ghosts of loved ones on the other side. However, the swiftness with which the paramedics next move tells me she’s not out of the woods yet.
“We have to get her to surgery now,” the paramedic says and they head out.
The next few hours go by in a blur because it happens so fast. Candace is taken to the hospital for surgery and we all go there and wait.
One hour goes then another follows and we wait.
The hospital waiting room is packed with those living on a prayer, hoping their loved ones pull through.
We’re all here but sitting apart, split like the wild cards life dealt us.
Dominic is in the far corner, Massimo is standing by the floor to ceiling glass windows gazing out to the night and I’m sitting with Isabella.
In the back of my mind I try to pin point when it was Dominic started to change. His grief over Pa made him slip. That was clear, but I think Andreas betrayal did something to us as brothers. it had to, and that explains everything since we’ve always been close.
I glance at his pale, grief stricken form sitting over in the corner and I find I can barely look at him. he looks like he’s climbed down from the high and he’s himself again, but fuck… fucking fuck, look at the shit that happened. He clearly didn’t know what the fuck he was doing if he was just shooting up the fucking house the way he was and waving the gun around the way he did when Candace tried to intervene. I know it was an accident. Having had that same gun pointed at me, I can say he would have been more likely to aim at me and shoot me than her, even in his state of drug induced craziness.
I can’t imagine how he must feel now.
Feeling the intensity of my stare he glances at me and shame makes him look away.
Yeah, fucking right. He’s right to do just that because accident or not, if he wasn’t my brother he’d be dead right now. I know Massimo feels the same way, and that’s why he’s keeping away from all of us. We came in here together and automatically split off when we were told we’d have to wait.
Soft fingers stroke over my palm. The motion so soft and stark against the roil of emotion raging inside me. I look down at my hand and see I’m holding Isabella’s. I don’t remember doing that. I’m holding her hand and squeezing. That’s why she’s stroking me. She knows I’m enraged.
My gaze climbs up to meet her tear stained eyes and she reaches out to touch my face. I go to her when she pulls me closer for a hug and allow myself to be comforted. I need it. I need this moment of respite. I need her.
I just need to have a break so I can find my footing. My mind needs to rest from the worry and her arms around me is helping.
As she holds me my mind drifts to the past. Far, far away to the past when I was a kid.
There’s one memory I’m sure all my brothers share and that’s all of us playing in the meadows of Stormy Creek. Ma did a painting of us. Massimo has it at home. We thought he was the best person to keep it but I kept the memory in my heart.
I remember because those were the days when we just had each other. life was hard. I remember life being so hard but having each other was all we needed. It was a life lesson of what we’d need as time went by.
Another hour drifts by, then another and I find I actually can’t calm my mind, not when I don’t know what’s happening.
I straighten up when the surgeon comes into the room. He’s closest to Massimo so he sees him too. Dominic next.
We all snap to attention and rush over to him.
“How is she?” Massimo asks first speaking the words tumbling around in our minds.
“She’s stable,” the surgeon answers. “We managed to get the bullet out and there doesn’t seem to be any grave