Page 28 of The Doctor's Promise
“Well, if you’re offering…”
She jumped, startled, and saw Kit Vaughan smiling at her. He sat down beside her and looped an arm around her, his smile fading, his eyes serious. “Hey, kiddo. I’m so sorry about your nephew.”
“Everyone knows?”
“Yeah. Word got around. Your sister is still here with your mom and dad. We all tried to get them to go home and get some sleep, but they wouldn’t leave Jack.”
“Are they taking care of him?”
“Of course, babe. Look, there will be an M&M, you know the drill, but Finn’s going to be handling it.”
“Are they doing an autopsy?”
Kit nodded, and Noemi groaned. “I know they need to, but God, Kit. He was just a kid. Six years old. Six.”
“Which is why we need to know how he stroked out on us.” He cleared his throat, and Noemi realized he had more to say.
“What?”
“Noe… Children’s Services got involved.”
Noemi was aghast. “Why?”
“They say that there may be a case for neglect.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Noemi was on her feet now. “Leo was the best fucking mother on the planet… how fucking dare they?” She was screaming now, her temper overwhelming her. “There were no symptoms until there were symptoms! If anyone was negligent, it’s that fucking medical center that sent him home… Jesus, if it hadn’t been for Leo…”
“Jack would still be dead.”
Noemi whirled around to see her sister, her eyes hooded and ringed with black circles, leaning on the door jamb. Leo looked at Kit, who nodded and slipped from the room, squeezing Leo’s shoulder on the way out. Leo looked at Noemi. “I’m sorry I hit you, Noe. I’m really sorry. None of this is your fault… I lost it.”
Noemi went to her sister, and they embraced. “You can hit me all you want, Leo, if it makes you feel better.”
Leo gave a half-laugh, half-sob. “I keep thinking I’ll wake up, and none of this will be true. That I’ll get up and Jack will already be in the kitchen, mixing his cereals up in that way that used to make me crazy and grinning at me. How is it that will never happen again? How is that possible?”
“I wish I knew, Leo. I can barely believe it myself. I see things like this all the time, and yet—the unfairness of it, the brutality, the shock of it. God.”
She hugged her sister tightly then let her go, both women wiping their tears away. “Are Mom and Dad still here?”
Leo shook her head. “I made them go home.” She sighed and rubbed her hand over her face. “I was worried about you, about where you’d gone.”
Noemi looked away. “I was with a friend.” She could feel Leo’s scrutiny and she sighed. “It’s Rafael Genova, okay? We’ve been seeing each other.”
Leonora’s face went still. “Oh.”
“Yeah. It’s still very new. Look, this is hardly the time to talk about my sex life, Leo. Come on, let’s go grab something to eat, and then you really need to lie down.”
To her relief, Leo let Noemi steer her to the cafeteria and make her eat some breakfast and drink coffee. Noemi found a room she could sleep in for a few hours.
“I don’t want Jack to be alone,” Leo fretted but Noemi reassured her.
“I’ll go be with him, Leo. I promise.”
In the morgue,the attendant gave her a sympathetic look and directed her to where Jack lay under a sheet. “I’m so sorry, Dr. Castor.”
Noemi found herself trembling as she lifted the sheet and looked at the too-still face of her beloved nephew. Memories came flooding back of family holidays, birthdays, Christmases… she had been with Leo in the delivery room when she gave birth to Jack.
Noemi had no tears left. The pain of his death was so overwhelming she wondered if any of them would ever be happy again. This morning, seeing Bepi, a knife had twisted in her gut, and she’d almost ran away out of the house.
