he could scribble on it. It took a hell of a lot more effort than he thought it would, the crayon slipping out of his hand, his grip weak, his fingers trembling, but he managed to spell out a single sloppy word. When.
“When?” the nurse read aloud.
“When, what?” the doctor asked, his face buried in a chart.
Reaching up, Dante again grasped the ventilator. Before he could do anything more, the nurse yanked his hand away.
“He wants to know when you’re going to wean him off the ventilator,” she said.
Dante cut his eyes at her. Huh. Intuitive.
“Soon,” the doctor said again.
Dante took the crayon and beat the tip of it against the paper, leaving sharp red marks all over the word ‘when’.
“He wants to know how soon,” the nurse said. “He wants a time-frame."
The doctor sighed dramatically. “Within the next twenty-four hours."
Dante glared at him. Not good enough.
He used the crayon and tried to write again, blindly scribbling on the pad, right over the first word he wrote. The nurse watched him, her eyes narrowed as she riddled it out. “No— concert? Constant? Concept? Consent?” Her eyes widened as she looked at him. "Oh, consent!"
Dante nodded.
“He says you have no consent,” she said, turning to the doctor.
“No consent for what?"
“To keep him intubated. He's saying you don’t have his permission, therefore you have to remove it right away."
“Yeah, well, nowhere in Mr. Galante’s extensive dossier did I read that he had a degree in medicine, so I hardly see how he knows the best course of treatment. Besides, he's in no condition to be making medical decisions. He’s barely lucid."
Dante reached toward the pad with the crayon, having a hell of a lot to say to that, and scribbled jumbled words that barely resembled anything from the English language, but it didn’t matter, because the nurse chimed back in without bothering to decipher what he wrote.
“He’s lucid enough to communicate his wishes,” she said. “He seems of sound mind to me, which means he has the right to refuse care that he doesn’t consent to."
“We received consent from the next of kin when he was brought in,” the doctor said. “We didn’t need his permission."
“But you do now."
The doctor cut his eyes their way. “Pardon me, Nurse Russo, but when exactly did you become a doctor?"
“I don’t need a Ph.D. to spot an ethical issue,” she responded. “All that takes is a bit of common sense, sir."
The doctor glared at her. Pissed. Dante could tell he had something he wanted to say, something that would probably drive Dante to rip the ventilator right out and throw it at the guy, but he seemed to think better of it, shaking his head as he turned back to the chart. “I’ll contact the respiratory therapist and we’ll start the process of weaning him.” He paused before mumbling under his breath, “If the patient doesn’t give a shit about his own life, why should we care, right?"
Dante scribbled on the pad again, right on top of everything else he’d written, big, fat red letters, the lines bold: FUCK YOU.
The nurse glanced at the pad, cocking an eyebrow as she cut her eyes at Dante, before she turned back to the doctor, smiling sweetly. “He's expressed his gratitude."
The doctor had no response for that, waving them off as he walked away, the sliding glass door automatically opening so he could exit. Dante gripped hold of the crayon as he closed his eyes, his pain escalating. Just that little bit had taken it all out of him. He had a brief moment where he wondered if maybe he was making a mistake, if he were fucking up, but he didn’t dwell on it long. The nurse chimed in before he got lost in his head, her voice chipper as she asked, “How about a visitor, huh? You haven't really had any of them. Might do you some good to see a familiar face."
Visitor.
Dante’s eyes again opened at the same time the glass door to his room shifted open. He glanced that way, a swell of emotion hitting him, so intense his vision blurred. His heartbeat picked up in anticipation, the beep-beep-beeping of the machine chaotic, when his eyes fell upon his father. Primo Galante stood there, all stocky six-foot-four of him, dressed in a dark suit.
It had been weeks since he’d last seen his father's face. He’d left the house with his sister in tow, never to make it back home again. Never to see his