A full-blown a-hole, quite frankly. He accepted nothing anybody offered and he certainly wouldn't thank you for anything forced upon him. A nurse's nightmare. The only thing he seemed to touch was the red Jell-O off of his food tray.
"You know, you can't live off of that alone. No fat, no carbs, no cholesterol, no vitamins… just mostly a crap-ton of sugar."
He nodded, continuing to eat it. "You moonlighting as a dietician now?"
"Maybe," she said, "or maybe I'm just concerned about why you're not eating."
"Ah, moonlighting as a shrink." He motioned toward the door with his spoon. "They make you come talk to me?"
"Nobody made me do anything. I shouldn't even be here. It's kind of a gray area, morally."
"I'm a gray area, huh?"
"Basically."
"That's good to know."
"They'll tube you again," she said, sitting down in the stiff cloth chair near the bed. "If you don't get enough nutrition, if you keep refusing to eat, they'll revert back to a feeding tube."
"And if I refuse that?"
"Then you'll be refusing medical care and there won't be much else they can do for you."
"That's also good to know."
She watched him as he ate the Jell-O. The container was nearly empty, the spoon scraping the bottom of it, when he said, "It doesn't taste right."
"The Jell-O?"
"Everything else," he said. "It all tastes like shit."
"It's not uncommon for your taste buds to have changed," she explained. "It's just temporary."
"I don't like it."
She wasn't surprised. He didn't seem to like most things. He'd been complaining since he woke up.
"Maybe someone can bring you something from outside," she suggested. "Like a family member or a friend or a girlfriend…"
He finished the rest of the Jell-O, tossing the empty container onto the small table between them but keeping the spoon to chew on. "You took care of me for weeks. Did you ever once see any of those around?"
"Your father."
"I'd rather starve."
"They said you had a visitor last night."
"I'm not asking him for anything."
"There's no one else you can call?"
"Depends. You offering to give me your phone number?"
"I, uh..." Crap, was he flirting with her? "No."
"Then no," he said. "No one."
She found that hard to believe, knowing what she did. Maybe visitors had been scarce, but somebody out there was thinking about him. Reaching over onto the table, she plucked the small card from a massive bouquet of lilies. "Do you like flowers?"
"Fucking hate them," he muttered, lying back in the bed again.
Gabriella read the card.
Pleased to hear of your survival
-Marco Valleni
Huh. Sticking it back in the bouquet, she moved on to the next one, and the next one, and the next one, finding the same general message written on each, amounting to 'good for you for not dying' from an Italian dude with a newsworthy last name. She should've minded her own business. Heck, she shouldn't even haven been in his hospital room. But curiosity got the best of her, and he didn't object to her nosiness, his gaze trailing her as she explored.
Had he been bothered, he would've complained, considering he complained about everything.
She squeezed around the other side of the bed, just enough space for her to move, plucking the card off of a vase of light blue hydrangeas. She pulled the card out of the little envelope, glancing at it. No specific name signed to it, simply, 'The Brazzi family sends their regards.'
Frowning, she stuck the card back in the envelope, returning it to the flowers. What a friggin cop-out.
"You find someone I can call?" Dante asked, so close those words grazed across the back of her neck. She shook her head, not sure what to say. "Didn't think so."
"It'll get better," she said. "Maybe ask for some pizza when they order your lunch."
"Tried it," he said. "The pizza here is shit."
She scowled. It wasn't that bad. She ate it often.
"I should go," she said, turning to him in the bed. "Take care of yourself, Dante."
She grasped his shoulder, squeezing. He didn't react. He didn't say anything. Instead, he closed his eyes, once again draping his arm across them, blocking out the world.
Gabriella left the hospital and took the subway home to her small one-bedroom apartment in Little Italy, on the fifth floor of a rustic brick walk-up with an Italian market below. Exhausted, she made the trek up the narrow staircase leading to her door. She unlocked it once she got there, stepping inside.
Straight ahead was a small kitchen, cut off from the rest of the place by a thin wall. Beyond that,