by Willow Rose
Emilia nodded. There was no point in staying awake because they had nothing to do. Emilia was exhausted anyway from waking up so many times the night before when her mother was crying. She really hoped she could just doze off now and not wake up till it was light out again, and the day had begun. She needed to drift off into the world of her dreams, where she’d forget about how miserable her life was.
They used a toilet on the port to brush their teeth and go to the bathroom before bedtime, then got back inside the car and locked the doors.
Her mother leaned over and kissed her in the darkness before she grabbed her pill bottle and took a couple. They were sleeping pills, which her mother often took before bedtime because she needed to sleep heavily. She couldn’t afford to take them often, so it only happened on some days.
“Good night, sweetie. See you tomorrow.”
“Good night, Mommy,” Emilia sighed while secretly praying for sleep to come quickly. “I love you.”
“Love you too.”
Chapter 3
Emilia was sleeping soundly when it happened. She was dreaming about her father, about the time before he and her mom split up, and those were the best dreams she could have. He was holding her in his arms, swinging her around like he always used to do when she was younger. And he was laughing. Emilia barely remembered him laughing anymore since, in the end, before her parents split up, no one ever laughed in her house anymore. And her mother had barely laughed since.
They were in the middle of a deep hug, her father and her, when she felt movement. In her dream, it resulted in an earthquake, and she felt herself getting stirred up with fear. Her dad didn’t seem to feel it. He just kept hugging her and laughing, and she had to yell at him to let him know there was an earthquake. Still, he didn’t let her go, and she felt so safe in his arms, even though the entire earth shook beneath them.
“Dad?” she said in the dream. “I think something is wrong.”
“No, sweetie; we’re fine. We’re safe here,” he said, smiling. The sight of his smile calmed her. But then another thought struck her, one she couldn’t escape.
Mom? Where is Mom?
Her heart began to race in her chest as she realized her mother was nowhere to be seen.
“Mom?” she called out as the earth shook even stronger beneath her. “Mom?”
Now it felt like it wasn’t just the ground beneath them that shook; it was the entire universe.
“What’s happening? Dad? What’s going on?”
As she turned to look in her dream, she spotted her dad suddenly far away as the ground opened up and swallowed him. She watched him disappear, screaming, then woke up inside the car, heart pounding in her chest, gasping for air.
“Dad? Mom? Mom?”
She opened her eyes just in time to feel the push. She gasped and pulled the towel aside, only to see the edge of the dock disappear behind them and someone standing on that dock looking down at her. A face she knew a little too well.
A face with deep-set steel-grey eyes.
Emilia gasped fearfully and then heard the loud sound of the car plunging into the water. Paralyzed with panic, Emilia stared into the darkness as the car sunk. It took a few seconds for her to figure out what was going on, that this was no longer a dream.
Then, she screamed.
“M-O-O-O-M!”
She reached over and shook her mother, but she wouldn’t wake up. The sleeping pills had knocked her out completely, and when that happened, Emilia knew there was no way she could wake her.
“Mom, please,” she moaned as the car sunk deeper and deeper into the water, and some of it started to spurt in through the cracks. It was creaking and making all kinds of scary noises outside the car while Emilia panicked inside.
“Please, Mommy; please, wake up! I think we’re drowning, Mommy. I think we’re…please, wake up.”
But her mother didn’t wake up. Emilia whimpered and held her tightly as the water slowly filled the cabin of the car. She cried and tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Emilia kicked and screamed as her clothes were soaked, and soon, she could barely keep her head above water.
THREE WEEKS LATER
Chapter 4
“Girl fourteen, acute cardiac arrest.”
I was running behind the stretcher as I heard the paramedic give the message to the nurse in the ER. I don’t know if it was hearing him say the words that made me finally break down and cry, or if it was the sight of them rushing my daughter down the hallway, asking me to stay back, that did it to me.
I leaned forward, hands resting on my knees, still panting, when Jean came out to the waiting room and saw me. We hadn’t seen each other for weeks, and as her eyes fell on me, I started crying even harder.
“Harry!”
She rushed to me, grabbed me in her arms, and helped me sit down. It wasn’t an easy thing to do with a big guy who’s six-foot-eight and weighs more than two hundred and thirty pounds. Especially not for a small woman like Jean. But Jean was a lot stronger than you’d think. She spoke with a shivering voice.
“What happened? I saw them rush someone down to surgery. It looked like… Was that Josie?”
I nodded, gasping for air. I could hardly get the words across my lips and struggled to tell her.
“Sh-she fell. They have an important volleyball game next week. She had just been out running, then came back into the yard where I was sitting, then she just fell. It was like she deflated. I…I don’t understand. I…I…she wasn’t breathing; she was completely gone. There was no pulse or anything, Jean; she was just lifeless. I frantically performed CPR. I was so scared; you have no idea. But I got her heart beating again while my dad called for help. The paramedics came and rushed her into the ambulance…her heart kept shutting down, they said, and they barely managed to keep her alive.” I looked into Jean’s eyes. They were filled with worry and fear. She was breathing heavily. Jean cared for my daughter almost as much as I did. I continued, my voice cracking:
“What’s happening to her? She was fine this morning, and then she said she’d…go for a run…and now this? What’s happening to my baby?”
Jean grabbed my hands in hers, and I leaned my head on her shoulder. I could tell she was moved too. Jean was a nurse at the ER, but she was also my neighbor, and we had been very close until recently. Until my wife, Camille, woke up from her brain-injury coma due to an overdose three years ago, Jean had been the one taking care of us all. But now that my wife was better and was awake, Jean had pulled away. Maybe because we had kissed, maybe because we had decided to start dating the moment before Camille awoke.
Sitting here, I suddenly missed Jean more than ever.
“What’s happening to her?” I asked. “Will she be all right?”
Jean took a deep breath. It was obvious that she was shaken. “She’s in good hands. That much, I know. They took her into surgery right away.”
“Tell me she’s going to be all right, Jean. I won’t be able to live without her. She’s my everything.”
“I know, hon,” she said. “I know. They’re doing all they can.”
The doors to the ER slid open, and my dad stepped inside, looking distressed. My dad, the retired pastor, who was always there for me…who was always there with an encouraging word or ready to step in when I needed someone to look after Camille or my daughter, Josie. He was, in many ways, the rock I leaned on, and I wouldn’t know how to do all this without him by my side.
“I drove here as fast as I could,” he said and hugged Jean when he saw her. “Any news?”
“Not yet,” Jean said. “I’ll go check now and keep you posted, okay?”
“Thank you; you’re an angel,” my dad said, holding Jean’s hands in his. He had always been very fond of Jean, so much so that he was the one who pushed for me to start dating her, even though Camille was lying upstairs in a vegetative state.
“I told Camille,” he said when Jean was gone. “Before I left.”
“And?”
<
br /> “She seemed upset, but I’m not sure she fully understood.”
I nodded. Camille was awake, yes, and had been for about a month. It was an answer to our prayers, a miracle even, but she hadn’t been the same since she woke up. She was still unable to control her body and could only be pushed around in a wheelchair. She could barely speak and mostly just said our daughter’s name; that was all, and she struggled to understand what was going on around her and things we told her. The doctor told us it would require lots of rehabilitation, and that we shouldn’t expect her ever to be completely herself again. He also said that her reaction would be different to things, and we couldn’t always count on it. She could be smiling yet be sad without us knowing it because she couldn’t control her reactions the way other people could.
“She might have understood it,” I said. “But she just couldn’t react the way you thought she would.”
My dad sighed and put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure you’re right, son. I’m sure you’re right.”
I knew how he felt about Camille. He still believed I should put her in a nursing home, where they’d know how to take proper care of her. I think he still had a hard time forgiving her for doing drugs again, when she had been clean for years, and thereby ruining my life and Josie’s. I was struggling with that part as well if I was completely honest. Even though I didn’t like to admit it since she was the one with the brain injury, she was the one trapped inside of her body. I had hoped to get some answers out of her when she finally woke up, but so far, I knew nothing about what happened or why she had started to do drugs again when we were doing so well together. Our life had been perfect up until that point.
Why would she risk destroying our family?
“Here’s the doctor,” my dad said as the door opened, and someone came inside wearing a doctor’s coat. We were the only ones in the waiting room, and the man in the white coat turned to look at us, then approached us with worried eyes.
The way he looked at me made my stomach churn. It didn’t seem like it was going to be good news.
Chapter 5
“Mr. Hunter?”
“That’s me. How’s she doing, Doctor?”
“Not good, I’m afraid,” he said. His nametag said, Dr. Scott. He was about half my size and had lips that turned down at the corners, giving the impression of a permanent pout. “She suffered sudden cardiac arrest a second time after she was brought in. We were able to get her stabilized. I’m afraid she has ARVC, a type of inherited Cardiomyopathy. It can cause sudden heart failure, especially in teens and young adults. We were lucky that she was brought in so quickly. In many of these cases, which often occur in young athletes, they don’t make it to the hospital alive.”
I barely breathed or blinked.
“Heart failure…but…her heart has always been fine. She’s been running and playing volleyball for years?”
Doctor Scott sighed and smiled politely. “Unfortunately, it’s the same story that we often hear in these types of cases. Does your family have a history of heart disease?”
“Not mine, but I don’t know about my wife’s. She has no contact with her family, so we have no way of knowing.”
“You might want to ask her or have her heart checked as well.”
I stared at him, not knowing what to tell him. I couldn’t possibly ask Camille about her family history of illness. I mean, I could, but she wouldn’t be able to answer. I felt so lost.
“But what does this mean?” my dad asked. “Is Josie going to be well?”
Doctor Scott sighed again. “Not unless she gets a new heart. I’m putting her name on the transplant list, and due to the urgency, she’ll get to the top of the list, but unfortunately, it can take months to find one. I’m not sure she has that long. I’m sorry. I wish I had better news.”
“Is there nothing else you can do, Doctor?” my dad asked.
“Normally, I’d say we could try the implantation of a ventricular assist device, a mechanical pump attached directly to the heart. Though the device can provide improved circulation support until a donor heart is found, the surgery would be particularly risky, due to the condition of Josie’s heart. I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“Doctor Scott,” a nurse called when coming through the doors.
“Listen, we’ll do everything in our power to find your daughter a new heart,” Doctor Scott said, ending the conversation, “but right now, I’m needed elsewhere. You can see her as soon as she wakes up in the ICU, which shouldn’t be too long. The nurses will take you to her.”
“Thank you, Doctor; thank you for all you’ve done.” I shook the doctor’s hand, and he left. I stared after him, my heart sinking. My daughter had heart failure? How did I not know this till now?
God, please. Find a heart for Josie. Save her!
I sat down, feeling heavy, hiding my face between my hands, praying under my breath for a miracle when Jean came out to us.
“She needs a new heart,” my dad said. “You just missed the doctor.”
“I know,” Jean said. “I heard.”
She sat down next to me and placed a warm hand on my shoulder. “I am so sorry, Harry.”
“He said it could take months to find one, even though she’s so sick that they’ll put her at the top of the list. Is that really true?” my dad asked.
She nodded with a deep exhale. “I’m afraid so.”
I shook my head. “I can’t believe it. She survived, and now she might die…because they can’t find a heart?”
“Many patients die while on the transplant list, I’m afraid.” Jean swallowed. She looked around her briefly, then said. “Listen, we might have one here locally at the hospital.”
I raised my eyebrows as I lifted my head and looked at her.
“What do you mean?”
She grabbed my hand in hers. “Come with me. I’ll show you.”
Chapter 6
Jean took us down the hallway to the ICU, then opened the door to one of the rooms. Inside lay a girl, a couple of years younger than Josie, on full life-support. Her eyes were closed, her breathing orchestrated solely by machines.
“She’s been here for three weeks,” she said. “She’s been declared clinically brain dead by our doctors. She’ll never wake up, they say. There’s no brain activity, and she can’t even breathe on her own, but her heart is working fine.”
I stared at the young girl, feeling awful. I felt terrible for her; she was nothing but a child. Her parents had to be devastated.
“What happened to her?”
“She drowned,” Jean said. “I don’t know all the details, but I do know that they pulled her and her mother out of the harbor three weeks ago. I heard they were in their car. The mother was dead when they pulled them out, but the girl’s heart was still beating, so they brought her in. They don’t know what to do with her since no relatives have claimed her. They can’t shut her off till someone gives their consent.”
“So, what are you thinking?” I asked. It was strange to look at this girl when my own was fighting for her life as well here in the same hospital.
Jean gave me a look. “Well, she has a perfectly functioning heart, and Josie needs one, right? She’s the right blood type too. I checked.”
“Is she a donor?”
“Not yet.”
“But you just said that she has no relatives, and they can’t do anything without their consent,” my dad said.
Jean smiled and tilted her head.
“She wants me to find them,” I said, “then persuade them to donate her heart, and hopefully, it’ll be given to Josie, who is at the top of the transplant list.”
“You’re the detective, aren’t you?” Jean said. “I bet if anyone can find them, it’s definitely you.”
I exhaled and nodded. It was tough to have to make a decision like this, especially for me, a pastor’s son who believed in miracles and the power of prayer. But I also believed in my daughter’s survival and would do anything to make sure she
didn’t die. It was an ethical dilemma that I couldn’t afford to have.
“I say it’s worth a try, at least,” Jean said. “They can always say no.”
“I don’t know about this,” my dad said skeptically. “Haven’t the police looked for them already?”
“Probably,” Jean said. “But so far, they haven’t found them, and I have a feeling Harry can. It’s a long shot, but better than nothing, the way I see it.”
“A long shot is better than no shot at all; that’s for sure. Do you have a name?” I asked. “The name of the girl?”
“Emilia García.”
“And the mother?” I asked. “The one that died?”
Jean shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t know.”
I nodded pensively.
“I’ll find it and the relatives, if it’s the last thing I do.”
Chapter 7
I opened the door without knocking. My boss, Major Fowler, lifted his eyes and looked at me as I burst into his office, located on the third floor of the building housing the Miami Police Department on 2nd Avenue. It was Sunday, but I knew he always came in for a few hours to get ready for the coming week. He liked the quietness of the office on Sundays, he had told me.
“Hunter? What are you doing here? Isn’t this your day off?”
I stepped toward his desk. “It is. But something’s come up. I need your help.”
Fowler leaned back in his chair. We had known each other forever, and even though he had gone from dark brown to salt and pepper over the years, the way he lifted his eyebrows when looking at me was still the same.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t have time to explain everything, but to make it quick, Josie was put in the hospital today. It’s her heart.”
Fowler went pale. “Oh, dear God. I am so sorry, Hunter. Let me know if I can do anything for you.”
