On Rotation(96)

Our fingers brushed as the drink exchanged hands.

“Thanks,” I said.

Ricky gave me a long, blank look. Then he nodded and pivoted away.

“I’m going to get some work done down in the café,” he said. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Okay, mijo,” Abuela said placidly.

I watched him leave, racked by guilt. As much as I loved spending time with Abuela, she was Ricky’s grandmother, not mine. I knew I was intruding. Even though Ricky accepted my presence, he seemed uncomfortable with it, leaving the room any time we might be left alone together, keeping our conversations strictly clinical, careful to always place an Abuela-sized buffer between us. And that was fine. I was the one who had walked away from us, and now that I had unceremoniously turned back up again, it was Ricky’s choice if and when he wanted to accept me back into his fold. No expectations, I reminded myself.

I stood.

“I should go too,” I said.

Abuela gave me a small, secret smile.

“You love my grandson, don’t you?” she said coyly.

Okay, hadn’t seen that coming. I knew I’d probably been staring after Ricky longingly, maybe letting out some long, lovelorn sighs, but had I really been that obvious?

“U-um,” I stammered, unsure of how to respond, and she cackled, pleased with herself.

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” she said. “You don’t have to be shy.” She patted my arm and gave me a conspiratorial wink. “He’s a kind boy. This is hard for him.” She looked toward her son, now flipped onto his back. “My son,” she swallowed, an ancient, hardened sorrow peeking through, “was never a father to him. He made choices that he shouldn’t have, and no matter how hard I have tried, how many times I cried, I couldn’t stop him. I have to admit, I gave up long ago on him changing. I have known that I would outlive my son since he was young.”

Slowly, I sat back down, not looking away. Abuela’s jaw was set, and she looked upon her son’s heaving body without flinching. I imagined Abuela twenty years younger, her back a bit straighter, her face less lined, screaming at a man who looked like the one on the vent, who looked like the one I loved.

“Ricky believed, though.” She wrung her hands together. “He always thought that his father was capable of changing his own destiny but was just refusing to do so. It’s frustrated him his whole life. He could get so angry with me! Every time I give his father money, he would say, Abuelita, you are enabling him. He’s just going to spend it on more drugs. As if I didn’t know.” She shook her head, smiled. “I think he was still hoping something would change. But now . . . here we are.”

I swallowed against the lump in my throat, for the first time feeling Abuela’s resignation. During rounds, when the team talked about Gabriel’s case, I could read between the lines. They hadn’t said it outright yet, still waiting on a miracle, but we all knew the truth—Gabriel was in a bad way. His chances of making it through this were next to none. He would most likely die here, and . . . Abuela knew this. I suspected she’d known from the beginning, and the sobs that had racked her body when I met her at the elevators the second time had been from grief. She had simply been keeping vigil ever since.

“I used to have regrets,” Abuela said. “Maybe if we had sent him to the expensive Catholic school. Maybe if we had not pushed him so hard. Not anymore. My son has brought me many tears, but so much joy as well. And he gave me a grandson who has the most beautiful soul.” She turned to me then, reached for the hand in my lap. “You too, Angela. You have a beautiful soul too.”

I looked down at Abuela, feeling my vision blur with emotion. I opened my mouth to speak but found myself too choked to find the words.

Abuela squeezed my hand, finding them for me.

“Give him some time. He’ll come around,” she said, giving me a wink. Then she patted my hand. “Go home and sleep, Doctor.”

I swallowed, regaining my voice.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I said.

“I know,” Abuela said, and then she closed her eyes.





Twenty-Seven




On the fourth day, everything went to shit.

I arrived in the ICU to find Bethany, Gabriel’s resident, typing in orders bedside. There was a new machine present, this one unfamiliar, with several huge bags filled with clear fluid. I followed the blood-filled line from the machine into a large catheter in his neck—Dialysis, then. I stared at the new setup for a long time, then made eye contact with Abuela over Gabriel’s hospital bed. Her eyes were shining, but her lips were thin with resolve. Next to her, Mr. Gutiérrez snored, clearly wiped from an active night.

“Angie! Good morning,” Bethany said. She glanced at Abuela, then toward the door. Understanding, I gave Abuela a solemn nod and followed Bethany out. She slid the door shut, then rounded on me.

“It’s been a rough night,” she admitted.

“Sure looks like it,” I said, my stomach sinking. I wasn’t overly familiar with critical care, but during our last lesson, Dr. Milner had explained to me what pressors* were. I knew enough to know that one was okay, two bad news, three almost always fatal. Gabriel was on six. The max, I remembered, feeling sick.

“He went into cardiogenic shock overnight,” Bethany said. She had her red hair tied up in a knot on the top of her head, and some errant strands had escaped and hung into her tired eyes. She held out her phone, scrolling to a video of the cardiac ultrasound that she’d taken earlier in the night.