Page 47 of Hearts to Mend

I have to bite my lips together to keep from laughing at their one-word responses. Despite Javi’s job as a television script writer, the Rodriguez brothers have never been particularly verbose.

“Yeah,” Rico agrees, in an equally succinct reply.

“How’s work? Are they letting you take time off?” Javi finally puts his wordsmithing skills to use.

“Right now I work half days and mostly from home. My editor has me working on an in-depth article about the stroke. So I’ve been doing a lot of research into all this.”

“That’s great. Do they know what caused it? Is it like Dad’s stroke?” Manuel asks between bites of food.

“I’ve requested Dad’s medical records to see exactly what caused his. As for me: it turns out my heart is broken.”

The whole family gasps, especially Mateo, whose eyes are like saucers as he looks up at his dad in absolute terror.

Rico, really? Did you have to be so dramatic about it?

“His condition is actually extremely common,” I pipe up.

Everyone turns to me, hoping my news will be less scary than Rico’s cryptic announcement. So I dive deep into an explanation of what Rico and I learned today at his appointment. This stuff is interesting to me, but not to everyone else, so I try to keep a lightweight academic tone as I pretty much repeat verbatim what the doctor told us.

“He either has a PFO or an ASD. Both are very common and easily fixable. PFO stands for patent foramen ovale. It’s a hole with a flap over it that everyone has when we’re born. It’s between the upper chambers of the heart, and it’s how blood circulates through the body without the use of lungs when we’re in utero. Once we’re born, and we take that first breath”—I take a big breath to demonstrate—”that flap slams shut, and over time, it grows closed. Except, in about twenty-five percent of the population, it doesn’t close properly.”

“A quarter of the population?” Javi asks.

I nod.

“Wow.”

“It doesn’t always result in a stroke. Some people live their entire lives and never know they have a PFO. But if one is detected, like in the case of a stroke, it’s easy to correct.

“On the other hand, ASD, which stands for atrial septal defect, is an actual birth defect. It means the chambers of the heart didn’t fully grow closed before birth. The treatment for it is similar to a PFO. So now Rico has to go back to the doctor next week for an esophageal echocardiogram. This will help the doctor determine which type Rico has. Once that’s known, all that’s left is to close the hole.”

I stop talking and take a large bite of my enchilada. I glance around the table, where everyone is staring at me, sort of blinking. Hmm, did I lose them somewhere along the way? Maybe I was too technical in my descriptions.

Before I can try again, Rico bellows, “As I was saying, my heart is broken.”

I smirk at him and swallow my food. “And it’s easily mendable.”

CHAPTER 20

RICO

* * *

She’s humming that song again.

“Tell me about it,” I say as we walk off the enchiladas and tres leches, strolling up Lazy River Road toward the old oak tree.

“What?”

“That song. You’ve been humming it all day.”

“What song?”

“I Hate Myself for Loving You.”

She blinks at me, then her eyes go wide, realizing I’m right.

I know she’s a Joan Jett fan, but I have to wonder if her earworm choice has a deeper meaning. “Want to talk about it?”

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