I’ll do the best I can,” he answered, leaving himself a technical loophole. Alicia, however, was too smart for that. She moved her piece and blocked his exit.
Her beautiful brown eyes closed as she frowned. “The best you can do is a lie, isn’t it? I want the truth.” Check and mate.
“What’s your question?”
“My mother, my father—” her voice caught as her eyes opened and filled with tears. “-My sister Dolores, are they dead?”
Judgment calls, Erico swore to himself. God, do I hate judgment calls. She was full of pain killers. She ought to be out cold. But she had to be awake. Wide awake. Erico knew those huge eyes could tell if he lied. He didn’t want to disappoint her. Also, he didn’t want to hurt her any more than she had already been hurt. “Tell me,” she insisted.
Erico took her hand in his and nodded. “Yes. They died in the accident.”
There was a long pause while Alicia cried. When she calmed a bit, she asked, “Was anyone else hurt?”
“No.”
“Are you just guessing?”
“No. No one else was hurt. We would’ve heard about it if someone else had been brought in. Do you remember the crash?”
“I don’t remember it. I was reading a book.”
“The paramedics said it was a miracle they got you out alive. They said there’s nothing left of the car. I’m really sorry.”
Her moist, angry eyes looked up at the ceiling. She had known the answer to her question before she asked it. No one had given her credit for that. The only reason she’d asked the question was to kill that nagging hope that seemed so much more important to adults than it was to children. Before she could get on with whatever remained of her life, certain childish fantasies needed to be put to rest. “I have another question, Erico.”
Here it comes, he said to himself. The big one. “Go ahead.”
“Am I dying?”
Erico moistened his lips, squeezed her hand, and nodded, surprised as the tears came to his own eyes. He could’ve fed her the party line: not for a long time yet; why would you say such a thing; a few transplants and you’ll be as good as new; that’s right, stupid, life’s a god damned sitcom. All you need to do is wait for the obligatory third act miracle closer followed by all the new things they’ve figured out to do with corn flakes.
“You’re dying, Alicia. God, I wish I could tell you different, but that’d be a lie.”
She looked at him, her eyes concerned. “Will you get into trouble for telling me?”
“No, honey,” he whispered. “That’s my job.”
To himself he thought, that’s my job. That’s my god damned job. Especially when everyone else is ignoring the subject, avoiding it, hoping that the patient doesn’t notice his family’s just been wiped out or that he’s dying. Perhaps the patient really doesn’t want to know.
The big black dragon sitting in the middle of the bed. Everyone knows it’s there, but if we ignore it, work around it, and pretend it isn’t there, maybe it will just go away. A great comfortable theory, except that patients really do want to know if they’re going to die. There is a lot of old business to take care of, even for a little girl. Faces you want to remember, to apologize to, to forgive, to say I love you, even if it’s only in one’s thoughts.
A lot of times the patient won’t ask if he or she thinks answering will make the medical staff uncomfortable. What a pathetic place from which to draw pity, he cursed to himself. But Alicia wanted to know more than she pitied the staff.
Her tears were dribbling down the sides of her head. No crying. Just the tears; her eyes sad brown oceans. She lifted Erico’s hand up to her mouth, kissed it, and held it to her cheek. He could feel the wetness of her tears against the back of his hand. “Thank you, Erico. Thank you for telling me.” Her eyes darted back and forth in her head and she squeezed Erico’s hand. “I’m so scared.”
“I know, honey.”
She closed those enormous moist eyes and asked, “One more favor? Please?”
“Sure, honey. Anything.”
“I can’t reach the telephone. Please call down to the morgue. Extension 446. Ask for someone called Rene and tell him I want to see him. I want to see him right away. Do that for me?”
“How do you know Rene?”
She shook her head. “I — I just know. Please call down.”
Erico realized his mouth was hanging open and he closed it. “Yeah. Sure.” He released her hand, walked around the foot of the bed to the night stand, and picked up the phone. He dialed for the morgue and one of the orderlies answered. “Could you send Rene up to ICU, Room 307?”
“He’s on his way,” answered the orderly.
“Thanks.” Erico hung up and looked down at the girl. “He’ll be here in a minute.”
She was crying. She was scared. Erico Ramos closed his eyes and choked off his own tears. He was scared, too, but for a different reason.
Rene Boniface didn’t do anything but sit in a chair next to the girl’s bed and hold her hand. That much Erico witnessed. He was called away, however, to bring up a new admission from emergency. The interstate had nailed another one. This time it was an off duty police officer, Dana Storey, who must’ve decided his occupation exempted him from the laws of chemistry, biology, and physics. When he had taken his Olds for that flight off the overpass and dived into six lanes of rush hour traffic, he had a blood alcohol level that looked more like his IQ. As the wheel of justice turned this time, the off duty officer would live once his stomach and bladder woke up and went back to functioning. Then he could begin detox, rehab, and that long climb back to reality, if he chose. Two of the persons riding in one of the cars he slammed into, however, had no choices. They were dead on arrival.
By the time Erico was finished with Dana Storey, Room 307 was already vacant, the bed stripped, and housekeeping dusting up the floor. The only sign that Alicia Fuentes had ever been there was a crumpled tissue on the floor. There ought to have been a toy, a picture, a paper cutout, a book, a piece of ribbon, something besides a used piece of Kleenex. Soon that was gone, as well.
“Excuse me, Erico.” He turned his head and saw Alberta carrying fresh linen for the bed. He stood out of the way and asked, “What happened?”
“She flat-lined a little after nine,” came her answer. She unfolded and snapped out the bottom sheet and began cornering and tucking it in. Erico could see Alberta’s face. Her eyes were red, but already she was forcing herself to occupy safe mental corners. After all the girl hadn’t been there but a few hours. Hardly enough time to get attached. That’s why she’s reduced in memory to “she” and “the girl” rather than Alicia. In another hour she’ll lose that, too. No longer “the girl,” she’ll become “the patient” or simply “Tuesday’s 307.” That’s why she “flat-lined” instead of “died.” Alberta needed to insulate herself from death, too. Find those safe places. Erico, too, looked for those safe places.
Well, she’d been expected to die. That’s what Erico had told the girl.
Her.
The girl.
Alicia.
Alicia of the ocean eyes. It was a clean croak, too. The girl had been all alone in the world. There hadn’t been any wailing relatives or loved ones freaking out on the floor. She was even light.
“What’d her face look like?” asked Erico.
Alberta frowned as she looked back at him. “Are you all right, Erico? You’re as pale as a sheet.”
“The geek. What’d he do?”