Page 53 of Stone Vows

She shakes her head sadly. “I left a message.”

“My Raul is good man. He won’t waste time on phone when at work.” She looks at the clock on the wall. “Two o’clock is his lunchtime. He will call then. He always call me then.” Then she looks around frantically. “¡Mi teléfono!”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “We don’t have your phone, but Sandra told him how to contact us.”

I pull Sandra to the side. “Call him back, have him bring their son, Julio, if he can. She doesn’t have a lot of time. Maybe a few hours at best.”

I make note of the time. It’s 1:50. I pray Raul is a man of his word.

“Doctor,” Rosita calls me back over.

“Dr. Stone,” I tell her, taking her hand in mine. “What can I do for you, Rosita. Anything.”

She must be in a huge amount of pain because of the injury to her liver. I up her morphine, hoping that will help.

“Just sit,” she says. “Back in Guadalajara, I sit with dying patients. Talking helps. You talk.”

Normally, I’d encourageherto talk. In medical school, they taught us it’s good to have terminal patients reflect on their lives. It helps them make the transition. But whenever Rosita speaks, it puts strain on her already swollen airway.

So, I put the oxygen mask back over her mouth and do what she asks. I talk. I tell her about my childhood and some of the antics my brothers and I had shared. She smiles weakly and I know she’s thinking of Julio and how she hopes he will still have a normal childhood despite the fact he’s about to lose a parent.

I tell her about my mom and dad and my nephew, Eli. I even tell her about Elizabeth. I tell her much more than what I shared with Cameron. I’m not sure why. Maybe I just needed to tell someone. Like a confession to a priest.

Rosita pulls down the mask and then grabs my hand. “Don’t wait, doctor. Life is too short for worries about such things. Love will find a way, even if you no want.”

Her breathing becomes more ragged and I check her throat. “Rosita, I may need to intubate you.”

Sandra comes back in the room. “Her husband is on his way.” She looks sadly at Rosita. “I’m sorry, but your husband can’t get in touch with your son. He said something about a field trip.”

Rosita nods. “Sí, Sí. Better this way.” She turns to me. “No tube.”

“But—”

She grabs my hand again, firmer this time. “I know you want to do everything to help. But I tell you—no tube. My Raul come. He is all I need.”

I nod at her, my own throat becoming thick with tears.

“No heroic measure,” she says, looking me square in the eyes. “Do you understand? I cannot put Raul through that.”

“I understand,” I say, making the note in her chart. “You heard that, Sandra, right?”

“Yes, Dr. Stone.”

I watch Rosita try to fix her hair with her good hand. Hair that is matted and singed and only half there. It’s surreal watching people die. Once they accept it’s going to happen, they are only worried about those around them. And Rosita, being a nurse, knew the score immediately.

She knows that even without the laceration on her liver, it won’t take long for the lactic acid building up in her body to cause major cell damage. She knows she’ll go into hypovolemic shock due to reduced blood circulation. She also knows it won’t take long for her organs to start shutting down, starting with her kidneys.

I steal a moment away from her bedside to talk with Sandra. “What’s it like out there?” I ask.

Sandra shakes her head. “It’s better now, but it got really bad for a while. Mostly because we don’t know what to do with all of the friends and family who are demanding answers. There were so many dead at the scene, a coroner went over there to pronounce them. People are scrambling to find their loved ones. And some people are still trapped in the rubble.”

“How many did we get?”

“Two dozen or so, but several of those died en route. We’ve lost a few more since. But the remainder are stable.”

“Children?” I ask. “I heard Dr. Manning say there were children there.”

She nods sadly. “A few.”

---