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Palmero Tremarchi ran through the lobby of the hospital. He
had been here plenty of times for ‘work reasons’, but this was much
different.
He almost collapsed, sweating and gasping, on the admissions
desk.
“Sophia Tremarchi?” he asked with such a tremble in his
voice that the admissions nurse had to ask him to repeat what he said, before at
last directing him to a ward down the corridor to his left. He staggered off,
not sure if he had heard her properly, but kept going until he saw Benny sitting
in a chair outside the ward. Benny stood and immediately took Palmero in a
strong embrace.
“She’s gonna be okay.”
“Are you sure?” Palmero asked, breaking away. He
couldn’t see for the sweat dripping down his face, and he thought his heart
would beat out of his chest.
“She’s gonna be fine. The doctor has been waiting for
you. Go talk to him.”
Palmero nodded, and took off into the ward, looking in each
room for his injured daughter. A tall man with a wearied expression saw him
coming and approached him.
“Mr Tremarchi?”
“Yeah,” Palmero answered distractedly, looking in the
next room for Sophia.
“I’m Dr Blackburn. I’ve been attending to your
daughter.”
Palmero’s head snapped to look at him. “She’s alright;
she’s going to be okay?”
“Yes, Mr Tremarchi. Please, come with me so we can talk.”
Palmero followed Dr Blackburn further down the ward to a
small, cluttered office behind the nurses station. He stared blindly at the
chair that the doctor offered him for a moment, then gladly took it.
“Your daughter suffered a gunshot wound to her upper arm,
Mr Tremarchi. Now, the gentleman in the hall who brought her in explained the
circumstances of the mugging to me, but also asked that no police be brought
into it. I am inclined to think you should …”
“No, no police,” Palmero said a little too desperately.
“Okay, fine,” Dr Blackburn regarded him slowly, “that
is your choice of course.”
“I don’t care about that. I want to know how she is. Can
I see her?”
“Yes, in a moment. She will be fine, Mr Tremarchi. She did
lose a lot of blood, but we have managed to remove the bullet and close the
wound. We have given her a transfusion to replace the lost blood, and she is on
pain killers, although they aren’t as strong as they could be because of her
condition, so she is still in a fair amount of pain. We’d like to keep her in
for a week at least to keep an eye on her. There is still a chance that she
could go into shock and lose the baby …”
Suddenly everything the doctor said to Palmero was in slow
motion, and he wasn’t sure he was hearing right.
“What … what did you say?”
“I said we’ve managed to save the baby at this point, but
there is still a chance of miscarriage if your daughter goes into shock.”
“Baby? There’s a baby?”
“Your daughter is ten weeks pregnant, Mr Tremarchi. I’m sorry; you didn’t know?”
“No,” Palmero said slowly, trying to take this new
information in.
Having his daughter lying in hospital from a gunshot wound
that he was going to have trouble explaining to her mother was one thing. But a
baby …
“I’m going to go and see my daughter now,” Palmero
stated, not caring if the doctor was finished or not. He was going to see her
now and that was it.
“Uh, certainly. She’s in room five. Would you like me to
show you …”
“I’ll find it,” Palmero said, already halfway out the
door.
It wasn’t hard to find. Benny had moved in from the
corridor and was now standing in the door of Sophia’s room, waiting for
Palmero. He knew that Palmero would know the truth now, and he had to be near
Sophia for fear of what might happen to her. Fear for himself was also in the
back of his mind, should Palmero even guess that Benny knew about the baby
before he did. He probably would guess it in a second; he knew Benny that well.
But at that moment, Benny’s first thought was for Sophia, unconscious and in
pain in hospital, not knowing that the inevitable was going to happen before she
was ready for it.
Palmero stormed up to Benny, looked him in the face and knew
immediately of Benny’s knowledge.
“How long have you known about this?”
“Palmero, you’ve got to take it easy on her. She’s
…” Benny started backing away.
“Is it you?!” Palmero grabbed him by the collar, pulling
Benny in to an inch away from his face.
“What? No! Hell no! Come on, man, you’ve got to be
kidding …”
“Well then who?”
“Shh, keep it down. Look, I don’t know. She never told
me.”
“I’m gonna kill the bastard.”
“You’ve already done that, Dad,” came a whisper
from the hospital bed.
© Cynthia M. Piromalli
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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