All of Me (36 page)

“Officer?” 
Another masked employee looked up at Nathan.  “Is everything okay?”

“Is that…”  Nathan
swallowed hard as he stared at the bloody instruments being shoved in and out
of a hole in her chest.  “…Stella?  Ciaramitaro?”

   Her brows rose
up over the shield goggles. “Yes.  Do you know her?”

Nathan nodded
stiffly.  “She’s my…girlfriend.”  The word came nowhere close to describing
what she was to him, but that’s the only thing he could come up with at the
moment.

“Oh…I’m so sorry,”
she said in a pitiful tone that made Nathan want to put his fist through
something.

“Is she going to
be alright?”  Nathan took a step closer to Stella, but the nurse placed her
hand on his arm and stopped him. 

“We’re doing everything
we can.”  She patted his arm.  “Why don’t you wait outside so the doctors can
concentrate on getting Stella all patched up, okay?”

“The baby?” 
Nathan’s vision blurred when the surgeon called out for a clamp, saying
something about the bullet nicking an artery. 

“We are going to
take excellent care of both of them,” the nurse said, shoving Nathan more
forcefully toward the door.  “We’ll come give you an update when she’s stable.”

Nathan stumbled
backwards until he was out of the room; still watching everything through the
small, square window in the door. 

“What’s going on
in there?”  Danny’s voice came from somewhere over Nathan’s left shoulder. 
“How’s Stella?  She’s gonna be okay, right?”

But Nathan
couldn’t answer.  He couldn’t move or answer or do anything but watch the
horrific nightmare unfolding in front of his eyes.

Danny said,
“They’ve got the guy in custody.”

Suddenly snapped
out of his stupor, Nathan whipped around.  “Where is he?”

“He’s gone.  They
took him.  Some schizophrenic homeless dude.  I guess everything was cool until
the nurses tried to tie him down so he didn’t hurt himself.  He pulled a pistol
out of nowhere and started shooting.  He got Stella and a couple other
employees.  One nurse got an arm wound and a security guy got hit in the
thigh.  A few more people got banged up pretty bad from tackling the guy.” 

It was horrible
and it was wrong, but Nathan couldn’t have cared less about any of that.  He
only cared about Stella. 

“Her sisters are
all here.  Nina’s talking to the responding officers and the other three are
out in the main ER area,” Danny said.  “They’re all asking for you.”

Nathan turned back
towards the operating room.  He watched as the surgeon bit-by-bit, very
carefully pulled a bullet out of Stella and dropped it into a metal pan. 

He nodded slowly. 
“Tell them I’ll be right there.”

Nathan didn’t want
to leave Stella, but he wasn’t sure he could watch much more of this.  He
didn’t understand what they were doing or if Stella was responding well or not. 
He wasn’t about to bust in there and distract them and he couldn’t bear to
stand here doing nothing. 

So after an
intense, excruciating inner struggle, Nathan turned and walked away. 

Chapter
Thirty

“Oh, my God,
Nathan, is she okay?”  Gigi raced toward him as Nathan walked back into the
triage area.  She grabbed onto his arms and shook him; her hazel eyes wide and
full of fear.  “They wouldn’t let us back there, Nathan!  Please tell me she is
okay!  Please!”

“She’s…”  Nathan’s
voice faltered as he tried to relay what he’d witnessed.

Stella fighting
for her life.  The surgeons cutting and digging and sewing and screaming as
they raced against time to fix her.  Stella lying there lifeless…their baby
possibly dead inside of her. 

“
Everything I
love is on that table
,” he whispered. 

To Gigi, but
mostly to himself. 

“Oh, honey, I
know,” Gigi whispered back, pulling him into a hug.

Fi grabbed onto
his uniform sleeve.  “Please say she is alive, Nathan,
please
…”

She and Kat were
clinging to each other; Kat’s expression a frozen mask of dread and shock.

“She’s alive,”
Nathan said and all three sisters cried out in relief.  “But she is in bad
shape.  The surgeon said the bullet might have nicked an artery.  There was…” 
He flashbacked on the gauze and the blood splatter and the TV screen.  “…there
was a lot of blood.  And…the…baby…” 

When Nathan’s
teetered slightly, Stella’s sisters guided him to a waiting room chair.  He
buried his face in his hands, trying to regain some of his composure.  But the
tears came on fast and they came on furiously and Nathan could do nothing but
ride them out.   

“
Breathe
,”
Gigi whispered, rubbing circles into his back while, she herself, cried into a
ball of Kleenex. 

Kat and Fi sat
side by side in two chairs, still holding onto one another and trying to piece
together what had happened to their sister.  Some facts they got right and
others wrong, but Nathan was physically incapable of confirming or denying
anything at the moment.

At some point Nina
came over with her Collinwood partner looking as heartsick and terrified as the
rest of them.  “They’re still working on her,” she said.  Her face had drained
of blood and the tear stain tracks on her cheeks stood out starkly.  She wiped
away newly fallen tears with her palms. 

Kat asked the
question Nathan was dying to ask, but didn’t want answered.  “Did you hear
anything about the baby?”

Nina shook her
head.  “I think they’re still trying to get Stella situated.  If the baby’s…” 
She blew out a hard breath and tried composing herself.  “…whatever happened,
it’s happened.  She’s not far enough along to take the baby out, so we just
need to hope and pray the baby is okay.”

Nathan had been
praying to any and all gods he could think of since he’d gotten the call.  He’d
been bargaining and promising and flat-out begging…anything to ensure Stella
and the baby’s well-being.  He wasn’t sure it was working, but there was
nothing else to do. 

Nathan knew his
fellow officers were taken aback and confused by his behavior.  Many, if not
all, of them had ever seen him crack a smile or raise his voice let alone cry. 
They couldn’t possibly know his connection to the woman they only knew as GS
victim #1 and Nathan felt their unanswered questions hanging thickly in the
air.

But those
questions would have to be answered later if they were answered at all. 
Because all Nathan could manage to do now was breathe in, breathe out, pray,
and try not to fall apart completely.

And they waited.

Danny came by
occasionally to check on him or offer a few words of support that Nathan barely
comprehended, but appreciated all the same.  Danny tried to comfort Stella’s
sisters.  He brought waters and eventually coffees as the minutes dragged into
hours. 

Nathan was
surprised to notice that a lot of guys from his department stuck around to
support him.  Nobody said anything to him, but there could be no other reason
for their pacing, whispering, and occasional pats on the back.  These were guys
he’d served with for ten years, but had never had any personal relationships
with.  But police departments were families like that…when one of their own
suffered a tragedy, they pulled together.  And, in that moment, Nathan was
grateful for their solidarity because he was a man on the edge. 

He’d paced the
area from triage back to the ER so many times he was surprised he hadn’t worn a
groove into the tiled floor.  About once every 20 minutes or so, Nathan would
go back to check on Stella and each time he braced himself before looking
through that window.  The hospital staff didn’t want Stella’s sisters back
there – there were too many of them and they were too…well…
loud
.  But,
as a cop, they’d given Nathan carte blanche to go in and out.

But each time it
had been more of the same…more probing and pulling and stitching and
repairing.  The surgeons and support staff look as beleaguered and battered as
Nathan felt, but they never let up.  If anyone was going to be able to save
Stella and the baby’s lives, it was these people.  Because, as so many of her
coworkers had told him, they loved her too.  And they weren’t gonna let her go
without a fight.

But on his current
trip down there, a sudden commotion broke out.  An alarm’s wail pierced through
the quiet and one of the surgeons shouted, “Her BP just plummeted!  Grab the
paddles!”

Nathan watched in
stricken horror as one of the nurses grabbed the crash cart, pressed a few
buttons, and lifted the paddles. 

She handed them to
the doctor who yelled, “Clear!”  He applied the paddles to Stella’s now bared
chest and detonated.  Her back arched and her chest popped up as the current
flowed into her.  “Clear!” the surgeon yelled again and, again, he applied the
paddles to Stella’s chest.  He looked over his shoulder at the still wailing
monitor.  “Nothing!  Again!  Clear!”

Nathan’s knees
gave out and he dropped to them hard, palms falling to his thighs.  He began
rocking back and forth, praying and cursing and crying as the only things he’d
ever loved lay dying a few feet away. 

And he was
powerless to do anything about it.

“
Oh, god,
Stella
…
please don’t leave me…please, god, no
…” he whispered, eyes
squeezed tight, his throat on fire, and his chest so constricted he could do
little more than pant in deep, shallow breaths.  “
Please, please, please,
please…”

In those seconds,
all Nathan could think about was her warmth and her love.  The sound of her
voice and the unrestrained joyfulness of her laugh.  All of the touches and
kisses and words of love flooded his memory; mingling with feelings of despair
about all of the shit he’d put her through.  All of it seemed so pointless and
childish now and he’d give anything to have one more chance to be everything
Stella deserved.  And, if he couldn’t, to spend every day trying and praying
that she might love and want him anyway.

Nathan was so
mired in his prayers, memories, and regrets that it took him a while to realize
the operating room had gone quiet.   There was no more yelling or clanking or
beeping.  An eerie silence had descended on the area and Nathan could think of
only one reason why…

He forced himself
to his feet and looked in the window. 

But instead of the
defeated, awful scene he’d anticipated, he saw tears of joy and hugging and
patting on backs. 

Because Stella had
survived. 

The heart monitor
hanging near the front of the bed showed a strong and steady heartbeat.  The
surgeon had closed her up and the techs were tiredly, but happily, cleaning up
the disaster zone. 

The nurse who had
talked to him earlier saw him standing there and gestured for him to come in. 
She pulled down her mask and peeled off her gloves.  “Dr. Hansbrough?”  She
tilted her head toward Nathan.  “This is Stella’s boyfriend.  Can you talk to
him real quick?”

A tall, lanky
blonde man wearing silver rimmed glasses dragged ass over to Nathan.  He pulled
down his mask and cleared his throat.  “We think she’s out of the danger zone. 
We’ve repaired the damage done by the bullet, which punctured her right lung
and resulted in a
hemopneumothorax
, or blood and air collecting in the
lung.  The bullet also nicked the left bronchial artery, which caused massive
blood loss and a dropping of her blood pressure.”  The doctor ran a hand over
his head and stretched his neck.  “We repaired the damaged to her artery,
inserted a drainage tube, and closed her up.”  He clapped a hand on Nathan’s
shoulder.  “I think she’s going to pull through just fine.  Stella is a fighter
– god knows she’s broken my balls enough over the years,” he add with a tired
smile.

“And the baby?”

Nathan hadn’t
wanted to ask.  But he needed to know…to face the facts and adjust and get
himself right so he could be there for Stella when she woke up.

The doctor removed
his hand and backed up a few steps.  He pointed at a small, bedside monitor. 
“See those blips?”  At Nathan’s nod, he said, “That’s your baby’s heartbeat. 
And it looks really good. Strong and steady, just like we want to see.”

Nathan gulped down
the giant knot in his throat.  “So the baby is alive?  She’s okay?”

The doctor
nodded.  “The bullet went in just above where Stella’s amniotic sac is, so the
baby wasn’t hurt at all.  The trauma to Stella’s body and the loss of blood
could have been disastrous, but luckily she was already ten feet from a Level I
trauma center when she was shot.  We have no reason to believe the baby
sustained any damage.”

Nathan yanked the
doctor into an embrace, relief and gratitude momentarily putting on hold all of
his aversions to public displays and affection.  “
Thank you, thank you,
thank you
,” he repeated like a mantra.

“Officer, you’re
welcome.  But…”  He tried pulling back from Nathan.  “You’re going to cause
me
some respiratory damage if you don’t loosen that bear hug a little.”

“Oh, sorry.” 
Nathan released the doctor and stepped back.  

The doctor pulled
off his gown and tossed it into a bin.  “Is Stella’s clan here?”

Nathan couldn’t
take his eyes off Stella…or the baby monitor.  But he managed to answer, “Yes,
they’re out in the triage area.”

“I’ll go speak
with them.  You can stay in here with Stella for a few more minutes before they
move her upstairs,” he said.

Nathan stood
there, staring at Stella.  He wanted to go over to her, but she looked
so…fragile.  And foreign.  A breathing tube was taped to her face, another tube
was coming out of her chest, and her eyes were taped shut.  He’d never her so
still, quiet, or vulnerable. 

“You can go stand
by her,” the blonde nurse said.  She grabbed Nathan’s uniform sleeve and tugged
him over to Stella’s bedside.  “Don’t touch her anywhere below the neck,
because we don’t want to disturb any of the equipment, but you can touch her
face.  Or her hand.”