didn’t want to take any chances, and the doctor’s office was only a few blocks away.
She flew out the apartment door, frantic. She ran down the street as fast as she could, her heart in her throat. Men moved out of her way, women gave her a wide berth, and children clung to their mothers’ skirts.
Elisabetta realized she looked crazy, but she didn’t care. She kept running, and her breath came ragged. The doctor’s office was in a small brick house ahead, with pink geraniums in the window boxes. A bicycle veered into her path, but she jumped to the side, hurried to the doctor’s, and flung open his door. Two men in the waiting room looked up from their newspapers, startled.
The receptionist at the desk frowned. “What are you—”
“Where’s Dr. Pastore?” Elisabetta hustled to her desk. “My father needs help—”
“Sorry, Dr. Pastore is with a patient.”
“I can’t wait!” Elisabetta ran past her to the examining room at the end of the hall, where she threw open the door to find short, bald, and bespectacled Dr. Pastore with an older man who sat on the examining table, in his clothes.
“Elisabetta?” Dr. Pastore recoiled, disconcerted.
“Dr. Pastore, you have to come!”
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“My father woke up and he’s not making any sense! You need to come right away!”
“No, you must leave this instant.” Dr. Pastore threw up his hands. “Can’t you see I’m with someone? You shouldn’t be in here.”
“But there’s something really wrong, I can tell! Please, he can’t wait!” Elisabetta grabbed Dr. Pastore’s arm, but he wrenched it from her grasp, and his patient shifted away from her on the table.
“Yes, he can. Control yourself. His disease progresses slowly. He’ll have spells now and then, as ammonia may be building up in his body, altering his mental status as a result of the decompensated cirrhosis. It’s nothing to become alarmed about. Now, please leave.”
“You have to come with me! It’s an emergency!”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is!”
“Go home, and I’ll be there at lunchtime. You saw, I have patients waiting.”
“No, now!” Elisabetta could feel a nurse materialize behind her.
Dr. Pastore sighed heavily. “Okay. As soon as I’m finished with this patient, I will come. That’s the best I can do. Now, leave or I’ll have you thrown out.”
“Thank you, but hurry!” Elisabetta turned around and flew past the disapproving nurse, then raced from the office and out of the doctor’s house. She took a right when she hit the cobblestone street and ran home as fast as she could, pushing open the front door.
“Papa!” Elisabetta bolted through the kitchen and back to the living room, where her father lay on the couch, shifting onto his side. “Papa, the doctor will be here very soon. I want him to look at you.”
“I’m fine, Elisabetta.” Her father opened his eyes, but to her surprise, they were wet with tears.
“Papa, are you in pain?”
“No, no.”
“What is it? Why are you crying?”
“My darling daughter, my little one, I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Elisabetta could see that his gaze was connecting with her, though his pallor was still strangely gray. She gestured at his coffee, which sat cooling. “Do you want your coffee? Or something to eat?”
“No, I . . . don’t feel very well.” Her father closed his eyes, and Elisabetta embraced him, holding him close, as if keeping him with her, instinctively acting on an unspoken terror of the worst.
“The doctor will be here right away. You’ll be all right.”
“Elisabetta, I am so sorry for being such a terrible father. You know that, don’t you?”
Elisabetta’s throat caught with emotion. “Don’t say that. You’re a wonderful father.”
“No, I’m not, and I need you to forgive me. Tell me that you do.”
“What do you mean?” Elisabetta asked, stricken. “Why do you need to hear such a thing?”
“I do, and please tell me you forgive me, my darling. I feel so sick, and I want to go, I need to go, and I need to hear you forgive me. Do you?”
Elisabetta felt tears spring to her eyes, at a moment that she couldn’t acknowledge even to herself, in which her father seemed to be asking her permission to leave this earth. “Papa, I can’t answer you. I don’t want you to go.”
“Betta, please tell me you forgive me, and let me go.” Her father touched her arm, and Elisabetta began to cry, realizing the awful choice he was giving her and knowing that there was only one answer, even though it was the