by Tina Beckett
A house they would now be spending a lot of time in...largely alone.
She almost groaned aloud. If something like this happened when they accidentally bumped into each other, what would happen when it wasn’t an accident?
Ha! She wasn’t about to find out. She would have to keep their daughter between them as much as possible. Surely he wouldn’t kiss her while she was holding Anna.
If she was embarrassed now, what would she be like if there were no clothes, no way to hide what was happening?
It was a natural process. Nothing to be ashamed of. She used her breasts to nourish her baby.
But they were also sexual. And right now it was hard to separate one from the other. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to. She’d just assumed she wouldn’t have sex again until after Anna was weaned, since there were no prospects hovering on the horizon. Not even a blip on the radar.
The breakup between her and Luca had been too traumatic. And with the shared reality of a baby, it was still too raw. Anna connected Luca to her in a very tangible way. That connection was now permanent, like it or not.
He was looking at her, waiting for some kind of response to his apology.
“It was both of us, not just you. I think our emotions—you finding out you have a child and me finding out that you want to be a part of her life—got the better of us.”
Did she really believe that? Not for one second. It had been the past coming back to haunt her that had caused it.
“Yes, that must be it.” The words were half muttered as if he hadn’t really meant her to hear them.
He was staring at her chest, and she realized her arms were still tightly crossed over it. Now that the tingling had stopped she could let the pressure off. She unfolded them and allowed them drop to her sides. There was no way she was going to tell him why she’d been doing that, but hopefully he hadn’t seen it as a self-protective gesture. It had been, but not in the way he might think.
She smiled. “Florence is a very romantic city. I’ll have to watch my step from here on out.”
“No. No, you won’t.”
The way he said it gave her pause. Was he saying he wasn’t going to have a problem staying away from her? Well, that was good. Wasn’t it?
Yes, it was. “Well, now that we’ve settled that, shall we actually go see the patient? Preferably before they prep her for surgery? I’d like to see how she is.”
“Of course. The surgical unit is on the first floor, so it’s back down the stairs for us. Or would you rather—?”
“The stairs are fine.” She needed to keep moving. At least for now. The hope was that it would keep her from thinking too much.
A few minutes later, they were in Mrs. Landers’s room, and she chatted with Elyse in English. The woman seemed relieved to have another native speaker, although she had her husband, and most of the staff spoke English. Maybe it was just knowing that Elyse was in the medical profession that made her feel more at ease. “The procedure should help you feel a lot better.”
“Will it clear up my double vision?”
“That’s the hope. As well as the seizures and your other problems.” She glanced back at Luca for confirmation.
He inclined his head. “You might not notice a huge difference right away, but once the inflammation from the malformation is gone, things should settle down.”
“I hope so. Todd wanted me to go back to the States to have the procedure, but I just wanted to get it over with. And we read that this center is one of the best in Europe.” She reached for her husband’s hand.
“We do quite a few procedures on blood vessel problems. Cavernomas are fairly rare but, even so, they’re well studied.”
A nurse came in. “It is almost time. Are you ready?” Her English wasn’t quite as fluent as some of the others’, but it was enough to elicit a smile from their patient.
“More than ready.” She squeezed her husband’s hand and he leaned down to kiss her on the forehead.
“Love you.”
“You’ll be here when I get out?”
“I’m not going anywhere, sweetheart. Ever.”
The words brought a lump to Elyse’s throat. She resisted the urge to look over her shoulder to see what Luca’s expression was—or if there was even any reaction at all.
Would he have been like this in the delivery room as she’d had Anna?
It was too late now. She’d never know. The lump turned to an ache that wouldn’t go away.
Mary was wheeled from the room and Todd followed her, giving them a nod of his head.
She forced herself to speak. “Do we need to help him find the waiting room?”
“One of the nurses will show him where to go. He can walk with Mary as far as the doors of the surgical suite. It’s kind of a ritual. Most loved ones accompany their family members.”
“I don’t blame them. I would too.” She’d had no one but her mom and dad when they’d had to do the C-section for Annalisa. Luca had been long gone.
Not a helpful thought.
She was curious, though. “Did you come to Florence as soon as you left the States?”
She wasn’t sure why she asked that, but once the words were out, there was no way to retract them.
“No, I spent some time in Rome with my folks first.” He motioned for her to walk down a corridor. “By the way, I would like them to meet Annalisa, if you’d be willing.”
That caught her up short for a second or two. She hadn’t even thought about that.
“Yes. Of course. I can’t imagine there not being time, even if I’m only here for a month.”
They came to a set of double doors with red lettering that she took to mean authorized personnel only beyond that point. “Do I need a visitor’s pass or anything?”
“As long as you’re with me, you’ll be fine.”
Would she? She could remember a time when that hadn’t been the case, when being with him had been anything but fine. That had been right before he’d left for parts unknown, and she’d never seen him again.
Until now.
She swallowed. He wanted his parents to meet Annalisa. Of course he did. She was their granddaughter. “How far is Rome?”
“It’s about an hour and a half by train. Double that by car.”
She remembered his patient load. “You’ll be able to get time off work?”
“I should be able to move things around.”
Luca led the way to a set of doors each with a number and the words “Sala Operatoria.” Operating Suite, maybe? It was amazing how she could kind of decipher certain terms. But that was only if she was standing there studying them. Hearing someone speak was an entirely different matter. Even the word for Florence sounded nothing like the English word. It looked like the word for fire or something.
“In here.”
He motioned to a room marked “Sala di Osservazione.”
She went through and saw a tiered bank of about fifteen seats. There were already three people in there on the far side of the room chatting in low voices. Judging by their white lab coats, she assumed they were either still in medical school or were first-year residents. It didn’t look like an entire class, since none of them had that “professor” look to them.
There was also a microphone hanging front and center, just as Enzo had told her there would be.
Luca found them seats in the front row toward the middle, and she sat, looking at the room below with interest. “Will they pipe sound in here? I know Enzo said we could make comments.”
“Yes, Enzo did.”
Why had he emphasized his colleague’s name like that?
Before she could attempt to figure it out, he went on, “There’s a microphone hanging above the operating table, just like in the States, and everything in the room is recorded. Surgeons are encouraged to relay what they a
re doing. All of it will go on record, unless there’s an emergency, then everyone focuses on the patient’s welfare above all else.”
She had turned her head toward him to focus on what he was saying, only she kept finding her gaze dropping to the movement of his lips. Lips that had been on hers a few moments earlier. Not good. That kiss had done a number on her. She needed to forget it. Chalk it up to the rekindling of old emotions.
Only she’d thought those were all dead.
She jerked her attention back to the front, hoping he hadn’t noticed. Maybe it was the lack of closure that was messing with her equilibrium. There’d been no time for closure. She’d received word that his job as well as several others were being done away with. She’d announced the news. They’d had frantic sex. And he’d left. Just like that. It had been a whirlwind breakup.
Nothing clean about it.
Her thoughts were interrupted when they wheeled the patient into the room. Enzo entered already scrubbed and ready and was bent over the patient.
“He’s talking to her about what’s going to happen. He likes to look his patients in the eye before beginning and asking if they have any questions.”
“That’s a little different than how I do it, but I like it.” Elyse normally didn’t come in until the patient was already sedated and surgery was ready to begin. But she did stay with them until they came out from under anesthesia and also visited them in Recovery—when they were more likely to remember her.
The surgeon then moved away, and his team gathered around him, except for one of the nurses and the anesthesiologist, who began administering the sedation drugs.
“It looks kind of like a football huddle.”
“That is basically what it is. They’re getting any last-minute information, and Lorenzo is making sure they know which instruments he plans to use and the order he’ll need them.” He glanced at her. “They’re surgical nurses so they tend to be intuitive, and most of them know what to expect, but it still helps to be reminded.”
Yes, it did. Just like she’d reminded herself a few minutes ago that their relationship wasn’t just under general anesthesia. It had flatlined and was gone, not surviving what life had thrown at it. She shouldn’t go looking for it to wake up and recover, like Mrs. Landers would hopefully do.
Soon the patient was sedated, and the area of her head where the surgery would take place was clipped, shaved and had a sterile drape placed over it.
“He’ll do the trepanning first.” It’s what they had talked about. It would result in the burr hole being drilled to a larger diameter, but the smaller hole gave the endoscope a solid surface on which to rest as it was guided through the delicate tissue.
“Yes. He’ll want a precise location and size before actually going in to remove it,” Luca replied.
Even though there would be a record of those things on the MRI scans, nothing replaced having a physical look at it.
“I’m surprised you’re not down there in the mix.” She looked over at the monitor and saw a man to the left of the patient, checking the tracings. A neurophysiologist. Just like Luca. He would be monitoring the patient’s brain function during surgery.
“It was a last-minute change in plans, remember? The surgery was supposed to be tomorrow. I told him I’d be available for a second opinion, if needed.”
“You were supposed to be in the operating room tomorrow? What happened? Why aren’t you in there now?”
He looked at her, eyes meeting hers. “You happened. Anna happened. I need to free up my time. I’ll be doing more of that in the coming weeks.”
She swallowed then laid her hand on his arm, squeezing lightly. “I’m so sorry, Luca. Our coming here has totally disrupted your life.”
Anna had disrupted hers as well, but she wouldn’t trade it for the world.
“Not disrupted. I would call it more...deviare.”
Her head cocked to the side, trying to figure out what the word meant. Devi...something. Deviate, maybe? From what?
“I think the word in English is to re-road?”
“Ah, reroute?” Okay, that was much better than deviated. Because to deviate from one’s planned path was...
Exactly what she’d done. But it wasn’t horrible. She’d adapted, and she was happy. Happier than she’d ever been, in fact. The only part that made her truly sad was knowing she couldn’t have any more children like her daughter.
“Yes, reroute. But I am glad you came. Glad you told me the truth.”
Even though she was more than four months late. More than that, if you counted the pregnancy itself. And she hadn’t told him the entire truth, but the rest of her story didn’t matter. It didn’t affect him. Just her.
She glanced down when the sound of the cranial drill engaged. She remembered practicing how to stop precisely when the skull wall was breached so as not to damage the grey matter below. Newer technology was arriving and there were now drills that came with measured stops that took some of the thinking out of it.
Within seconds, they’d reached their goal, the hole swabbed, and the endoscope fed through. A screen on the far wall went live—she was pretty sure that was for the benefit of those in the observation room. Enzo looked through the overhead surgical microscope as the tube made its way toward the ventricle in question. With each step, he relayed to the listening device what he was doing and what he saw, with Luca translating close to her ear so as not to disturb the others in the room.
The tickle of his warm breath hitting her skin was intimate. Almost unbearably so. But she didn’t want him to stop. In fact, she propped her chin on the back of her hand and let herself enjoy listening to the sound of his voice.
“Approaching lateral ventricle. Entering space.” There was a pause while Enzo readjusted his instruments and probably took stock of what was appearing on the screen. “Malformation is approximately three centimeters in diameter, causing a slight deformity of the left side.”
The voice in her ear stopped when the voice on the loudspeaker halted, but the reactions happening inside her head kept right on going, setting up a weird tingle that made her shiver. She’d told herself to enjoy it, but she was starting to like it a little too much.
There was a period of silence that went on for about thirty seconds. It was almost as if the room had gone into a state of suspended animation, with everyone waiting for Dr. Giorgino’s verdict.
As much as she wanted Luca to continue, maybe she’d be better off wishing the surgery ended quickly. Before she did something stupid. Like she had during that kiss.
Enzo lifted his head and spoke. And so did Luca.
“We should be able to dissect it with minimal damage.”
The words made her swallow, but it engendered a very different reaction from others in the room. Muscles that were tense went slack with relief.
The surgeon then called out orders as the burr hole was enlarged enough for the instruments he would use. She understood none of it.
“Do you want me to keep translating?”
“If something important happens, I’d like to know, but I’m familiar enough with the surgery to understand what’s happening on the screen. Thank you, though. I did want to know what his verdict was.”
She forced a smile, telling herself she was relieved that his lips were no longer at her ear. But there was also a sense of loss that she was no longer allowed those kinds of privileges.
He sat back in his chair, and Elyse thought she saw a hint of relief in his own eyes. Maybe she wasn’t the only one affected by their proximity.
They’d been very good together in bed. He had taken her places she’d never been before. Her relationship with Kyle had paled beside him. She somehow doubted anyone else would move her the way Luca had, even though their time together hadn’t been all that long. Just four months.
She’d never met his parents, although he’d m
et hers. Then again, her parents lived within an hour’s drive of the hospital, while his lived on a different continent.
And yet he wanted them to meet Annalisa. He’d never said whether or not he’d told them about living with her in the States. She’d never asked, because she’d thought they had plenty of time for all of that.
Only they hadn’t.
Elyse forced herself to settle in to watch the rest of the procedure, noting the similarities and differences between what was done in this center compared to what she would have done back home. She made a mental note to herself to research a couple of items to see if anyone was using the techniques she was seeing here. Maybe she could learn a thing or two.
Had Luca carried any techniques back from the States with him? She was curious.
“Did you change the way you do things at all after you came back? Or is neurophysiology basically the same here as it is in Atlanta?”
“Why do you ask?” The look on his face was of genuine puzzlement.
“I don’t know. I’m just curious. I’ve seen a couple of things that I’m going to look into. The order in which Enzo clamped off those blood vessels is a little different. Not in a bad way. I liked what I saw on the screen.”
“Ahh, I see. Yes, I think there are things that I probably changed. Things I learned or saw during my time at your hospital that I have applied here.”
Your hospital. A sting of pain went through her.
It had been his at one time too. Until she’d severed his connection to it.
Actually, she hadn’t severed it. The administration had, and there’d been nothing she could do about it.
You could have quit too. It might have saved your relationship with Luca.
Doubtful. He’d asked her if she had put his name on the list of people to be fired. She hadn’t. But at the time she’d been glad it was there, thinking that if she was no longer his boss, maybe some of her conflicted emotions about dating someone she worked so closely with would dissipate. Her reaction had probably been a knee-jerk one, and not entirely rational, but it had been very real. To her, anyway.
He was extremely talented, she’d thought. He could have worked anywhere in Atlanta.