“I know, sis,” he said, his voice gruff. “I know. Just be safe and get up here, okay?”
“Okay,” I whispered.
As soon as I hung up, the airplane doors opened. I said a small prayer of thanks that I had opted to use the household credit card to book my flight—in other words, Thomas’s credit card. First class meant I could disembark first. And I didn’t want to waste a single second.
Chapter Twenty-two
They had brought my mother to a big regional hospital about twenty minutes from home. That in and of itself scared me, that her condition was so serious that they would travel farther to get her to a better facility.
It just means she’s getting the best care, I reminded myself as I bolted into the lobby. Sam had texted where I would be able to find them, but I hadn’t been counting on how big the hospital was, how many people would be milling around, how confusing and scary it all would be. I took deep breaths and ordered myself to calm down and figure out how to get to my family.
I finally found the elevator bank and headed to the third floor. The elevators opened into a hallway, with people darting back and forth. It was enough to overwhelm me all over again before I finally realized there was a waiting room right there and my family was in it.
“Lizzie,” Laura cried, her face tear-stained. I ran to her and fell into her arms. She sobbed and hugged me. “I’m so glad you’re home.”
“Is there—”
“No news. She’s still in surgery.”
Laura released me, and Sam took her place, holding me tight. Then I was passed from sibling to sibling to sibling, and then to Sofie, her sister Carla, and my aunt and uncle, everyone crying, even Carlos.
“Where’s Dad?”
“There’s another waiting room in the ICU. He’s there.”
I sank into a chair. “I can’t believe this. She was fine the last time I talked to her.”
My siblings sat around me, everyone pale and clearly terrified. “She’s been tired lately,” Maria said. “She’s complained of it a few times. But nothing else.”
I shook my head. “Like she would tell us if she was sick anyhow. That woman refuses ever to take a break.”
Laura nodded. “She never rests.”
I closed my eyes, still not believing that any of this could be real. “So they think it was a stroke?”
“An aneurism,” Carlos said. “They think it burst, or partially burst. There was…hemorrhaging.”
“Is that…” My voice faltered. “Is that something you recover from?”
Everyone was silent. No one knew.
There was movement by the door, and we looked up as one to see my father standing in the doorway. The sight of him took my breath away. White-faced and visibly shaking, he looked at least ten years older than I’ve ever seen him.
“She’s out of surgery,” he said, his voice heavy. “They said she did well. Now we can just wait.”
It was like someone let the air out of the room, the way we all deflated. She made it through surgery. That had to be a good sign.
Laura jumped from her seat to hug him, Carlos following her. My father’s eyes met mine over my brother’s shoulder and suddenly I was on my feet and running the few yards to him. He let go of Carlos and pulled me in closely.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, and I knew he was crying. My dad never cried. “I’m so sorry, Lizzie.”
“I’m sorry, too, Daddy. I love you so much.” I sobbed.
“I’m so glad you’re home. I love you, Lizita.”
“We should pray,” Maria said, her voice shaky behind us. “We should thank God for Mama’s successful surgery.”
So we huddled together, my family and I, arms around each other there in the waiting room, while Maria said our prayers of thanks and begged God for continued blessings.
***
I didn’t check my phone again for several hours. After a doctor came down to let us know that my mother was resting comfortably, my aunt, uncle, and Carla went home to rest for a few hours. Sofie elected to stay with me, a fact for which I was exceedingly grateful. The rest of us moved down to the ICU waiting room to be closer to Mom. My father refused to let go of my hand for at least an hour. He didn’t apologize again or bring up any of the issues that had divided us for so long. Instead, he simply squeezed my hand endlessly, until it actually started to ache a little.
“I need some coffee,” Sam said eventually.
“You should go eat something,” Maria told me. “You probably haven’t had a thing to eat since Los Angeles.”
“I’m not very hungry,” I said. The idea of food right then made me physically ill.
“Go, please, Lizzie,” my dad said. “I need you healthy.” His voice cracked. “I need all of you to take care of yourselves.”
Unable to argue with such a request, I followed Sam down to the cafeteria, Sofie and Laura joining us. We sat by glass windows and picked at sandwiches, no one eating very much.
“Can you believe this?” Sam asked, his voice quiet. “I never in a million years would have expected this to happen. Not to Mama.”
“When Maria called I assumed it was Dad,” I said. “The way he works so hard, and all of those fried foods.”
“Well, that’s stopping now,” Laura said firmly. “This family is going to start taking much better care of each other.”
We all nodded, knowing it wouldn’t do my mother one bit of good now. We’d missed our chance to take better care of her. And now she was fighting for her life.
“They have to be okay,” Laura said suddenly, her voice shaking. “They both have to be okay. My baby will need grandparents.”
“Laura,” I whispered, staring at her. Tears slipped down her cheeks, and she nodded.
“I wanted to wait until the second trimester. We’ve had a few…we’ve had losses. I didn’t want to jinx anything. But…I can’t…” She was crying heavily now and I put my arm around her shoulders. “Lizzie, I can’t have a baby without Mama.”
“I know,” I said, rubbing her arms. “She’s going to be okay, Laura. You have to believe that. She’s going to be okay.”
“You should tell her,” Sam said, patting Laura’s leg. “As soon as they let us in to see her, whether she’s awake or not. You whisper it in her ear.”
I laughed quietly. “He’s right. I can’t think of anything better to encourage her to wake up.”
Sofie smiled. “Absolutely. No way she’s going to miss the chance to obsess over every tiny little detail of this pregnancy.”
Laura’s face was still white, but she looked a bit consoled.
“I can’t eat anymore of this,” Sam said, pushing his plate away. “Should we go back up?”
“Let me check my messages first,” I said, pulling out my phone. I’d turned it off upstairs, heeding the signs that warned against keeping cell phones on in the ICU. Once the screen powered up, I breathed out a sigh of relief. Four missed calls from Thomas.
He had only left one voicemail, and it was barely five seconds long. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said, his voice steady and calm. “I love you.”
Chapter Twenty-three
We were allowed in to see my mother very briefly. The sight terrified me. She was hooked up to countless machines with tubes and pieces of equipment all over her. Underneath it all, she looked fragile. Pale. Like a piece of glass that could break at any moment.
But the doctor assured us that the surgery had gone well. They’d managed to isolate the blockage, and the bleeding had stopped quickly. There was every reason to be hopeful. But blood could have entered the fluid around her brain, an event that could cause brain damage, and they weren’t able to tell at that point how much, if any, damage had occurred. Basically, we wouldn’t know anything until she woke up. There was also danger of other conditions developing; I heard him say the words hydrocephalus and related stroke, and my body went numb all over again. We were far from out of the woods.
Before we left the room
, I saw Laura bend over and whisper something in her ear. I wanted to weep for her. This was not how she should be telling her mother such joyful news. Laura had tried to get pregnant for years. For it to finally happen, and then this. It wasn’t fair.
It also wasn’t safe, I realized, as we somberly walked back to the waiting room. Laura shouldn’t be under this kind of stress. She shouldn’t be worrying like this, not eating, sleeping on a plastic chair. It couldn’t be good for her.
So when my father suggested we all go home to get some rest, I agreed. When Sam looked like he wanted to argue, I gave him a meaningful look, nodding toward Laura. “You’re right,” he said. “Let’s go try to sleep for a bit.”
My dad’s brother, Uncle Rick, had arrived while we were in with her, and he offered to stay at the hospital so we would all feel better about leaving Dad.
“I have my van here,” Maria said as we trooped toward the elevators. “I’ll drive.”
I was surprised when I realized we were all going back to the house—I had thought Maria and Laura would want to go home to be with their husbands. But no one seemed to want to separate tonight, and in the end we all slept in the beds of our childhood. With the exception of replacing Maria and Laura’s bunkbeds with a double for guests, my parents had never really changed our rooms, never converted them to exercise spaces or dens. They wanted us to always have a place to come home to. I had never been more grateful for it. I felt safer, somehow, more calm, knowing that my brothers and sisters were just down the hall, exactly where they had always been. I even managed to sleep for a few hours.
We were all up early the next morning, eager to get back to the hospital. I made coffee, smiling to myself slightly when I heard Maria and Laura fighting over the shower. I made a bunch of toast for everyone, wanting to make sure Laura had something to eat, and took my plate to the kitchen table.
Out of habit, I checked my phone, though I had only looked at it a few minutes ago. Still nothing from Thomas. Though I had texted him when we got back to the house to update him on my mom, I hadn’t heard a word since his message. Had he managed to get a flight? Was he on his way now? I shot off another quick text, asking when I could expect him.
At the hospital, we were greeted with good news. Mom was doing quite a bit better. She still hadn’t woken up, and from what I gathered they were purposefully keeping her under so her body could concentrate on healing. But all of her vitals were better, and the next time we got to see her, there seemed to be a lot less machinery.
“You should go home now, Dad,” Carlos said. “We’ll be here. You need your rest.”
“Absolutely not,” my father said, his voice firm and decided despite his evident exhaustion. “I’m not leaving her.”
So we started the long and grueling process of waiting. The nurses updated us regularly, much of their information far beyond my ability to comprehend. But they seemed to be positive when they conveyed it, and I took that for a good sign.
Just after ten o’clock there was a slight commotion in the hallway. I looked up from the magazine I had been drifting off over and realized with a jolt that Thomas was in the doorway.
“Lizzie,” he said, sounding relieved. “I had trouble finding you guys.”
I was out of my seat and in his arms before he even finished the sentence. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “How is she?”
“I don’t know.” I thought I’d cried all the tears I possibly could in the last twenty-four hours, but the feel of Thomas’s arms around me set me off all over again. “I’m so scared.”
“I know, darling. I know you are.”
He held me for a long time, the two of us standing just inside the doorway while I cried in his arms. I finally realized that my entire family was sitting just feet away from us, some of whom had never been very excited about the idea of our relationship. I pulled back and looked up into his familiar green eyes, calm and steady on mine. I felt the relief of his presence in every cell of my body.
“Thomas,” Sam said, coming up next to me. “Thank you for coming.” He held out a hand to Thomas, who shook it then pulled my brother into a one-armed hug.
Laura joined us as well, hugging Thomas tightly while he kissed her cheek. My tears intensified all over again at the sight of these members of my family accepting him like this. My breath caught in my chest as Maria took Laura’s place, accepting Thomas’s hug and kiss and thanking him for being there.
My dad still hadn’t moved from his seat against the back wall, but Thomas was undeterred. Holding my hand, he walked straight to my father and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Medina. I can’t imagine the kind of night you’ve had.”
The men in my family had never been shy with affection. They were quick with a hug when it came to family and friends, quick with a pat on the back or a kiss on their female relatives’ cheeks. But it still shocked me when my dad stood and gave Thomas a brief hug, slapping his back. Even more shocking, he pulled back and looked directly into Thomas’s eyes as he shook his hand.
“Thank you for coming. I know it will make things easier on Lizzie.”
Just like that, an enormous weight lifted from my chest. The worry and fear about my mom was still there, of course, but I knew, in that instant, that there would never be a division between my family and me again. Not over Thomas. Not over anything.
Chapter Twenty-four
Over the next few days, Thomas proved himself to be invaluable to the family. Over those longs days of waiting in the hospital it was Thomas who arrived every morning with coffee for everyone, Thomas who made sure we were all eating, Thomas who went back to the house to do laundry so my dad had clean clothes. More than that, he was there with us, holding my hand, talking soccer with my dad and brothers, telling Laura funny stories about movie stars to make her relax. He even watched Maria’s rambunctious kids for a few hours one day so she and her husband Jose could take a break—an experience he later told me, privately, had somewhat changed his mind about the disappointment he had felt when my pregnancy test turned out negative.
He was there, two days after her surgery, when my mom finally woke up for the first time. The doctors had been keeping her under, wanting to make sure the pressure in her brain was controlled, but once they slowed the medicine that was keeping her asleep, she opened her eyes and seemed responsive—a good sign, they told us.
The improvements came slowly, but each day we had reason to be hopeful. Some of the scariest things the doctors had warned us about, particularly the danger of a related stroke, had so far not come to pass. Instead she seemed stronger and stronger, moving her hands and feet, tracking movement with her eyes. I felt much better when they decided she could breathe on her own. She finally looked like herself without all the tubes and machinery. And without the ventilator, she was able to talk.
I never knew how good it could feel to hear someone’s voice until my mother whispered my dad’s name. It was soft and halting, but it was her voice, as familiar to me as any sound in the world.
We had no idea how long her recovery would be. The doctors explained that the bleeding in her brain when the aneurysm ruptured had most likely caused some damage, though they couldn’t be sure how much. She would need rehabilitation, eventually. The idea that she might not be able to walk, or that she could have permanent trouble taking care of herself, terrified me. I tried to imagine a life in which my mother couldn’t be found in her kitchen, cooking and baking ad talking to her family, taking care of everyone around her—I couldn’t picture it.
But at least she was talking. At least she was there. I tried to hold onto those small, vital improvements when the fear got too bad. A goal that became exponentially harder when Thomas had to go back to Los Angeles.
He’d been away from the movie for an entire week. They were trying to work around him by rearranging the shooting schedule and focusing on scenes he wasn’t featured in, but you didn’t have to be an expert to guess that they were losing tons of money every
day by not having their star on set.
“I wish I didn’t have to go, Lizzie,” he said the night before his flight. We had gone back to the house so he could pack up his things. Thomas had spent the week in Carlos’s room. After that first night, the older siblings had gone back to their own houses at night, leaving just me, the twins, and Thomas at home.
“I wish you didn’t have to go either.” I sat on the edge of the bed, watching him fold shirts. “You’ve been amazing this whole time, Thomas. I don’t know how we can thank you.”
He made a face. “I hardly call it amazing that I’m taking off this soon. I feel like the world’s worst boyfriend.”
“You took a week off from a fifty-million-dollar movie. Of course you have to get back to work. Even Maria is going back to work tomorrow.”
He sighed and sat next to me. “I know. But I hate leaving you. It feels completely wrong to me.”
“I’m just grateful you were able to come. I feel a little guilty, actually. The movie people are probably resenting the hell out of me right now.”
“Don’t be silly. Things have been going a bit better. Before I left we were just about back on schedule. This didn’t throw us off all that much.”
I rested my head on his shoulder. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back.”
“I know.”
“So this might be it for a while, huh? Doing the long distance thing all over again?”
“Lizzie, it will be nothing like last time. Nothing. I’ll only be on the coast, not the other side of the ocean. Besides, we only have a few weeks left of principal shooting. Three tops.”
“And what happens after that?” I lifted my head so I could look up into his face. “We never talked about it, you know. The new movie.”
“I’m not doing it. I already decided.”
“What? Thomas—”
“No, I don’t want to argue about this, Lizzie. I made up my mind. You’re miserable in L.A. I haven’t been very happy there myself.”
Lovestruck in Los Angeles Page 21
