Chapter 8

Beep…beep…beep

I looked down at my pager at the same time dad did. Code Blue. Radiology.

"Fuck…" I whispered under my breath. "Dad!" He understood and without an explanation to my sister or best friend I ran from the room with my father close behind me as we ran toward Radiology. Please still be alive.

Camille

My head hurt. Auntie Ali said that the big machine would be scary but it wouldn't hurt. She said she was going to find Nonno and my daddy. But my head hurt. I could hear the nurses shouting at me, but I couldn't say anything. I felt like that butterfly Nonno is always singing to me about. Where is Nonno? I want him! Everything started to get really fuzzy, but I saw Nonno and Auntie Ali standing over me. They were both really scared. I tried to tell them that my head really hurt, but they couldn't hear me. Why couldn't they hear me?! Auntie Ali was shouting at me, but I couldn't hear her. Everything was gone.

I woke up and saw Nonno standing in the corner of the small room. Auntie Ali was standing next to me with a lot of blood on her hands.

"Nonno!" I whispered. He turned to me with a really sad face. "My head hurts, Nonno, really bad." I started to cry. He quickly came to my side and kissed my forehead.

"I know your head hurts, inamorata. You scared me!"

"I'm sorry, Nonno!" I cried.

"Shh! Shh! It's okay! You have to go to surgery so we can fix your head. Would you like me to sing to you while you wait?" I always like it when Nonno sings to me.

"Can you sing about the Butterfly?" He smiled at me and started to sing.

"Bella e Bianca, vola vola, mai si stanca, gira qua, e gira la, poi si resta sopra, un fiore, e poi si resta spora un fior, Ecco ecco, a trovata, bianca e rosa, colorata, gira qua, e gira la, poi si resta sopra un fiore, e poi si resta spora un fiore…"

Carlisle

I looked down to my pager as it went off. I heard Ali cuss. Fuck.

"Dad…" I understood and without a word to Mace or Jasper I followed Ali out of the room and across the hospital to Radiology. Running across the hospital was oddly familiar, considering both Ali and I had already been in this situation once before.

Ali and I were working the night shift. She had just started her residency and was working as much as I was. Though, I think that was due more to the fact that she enjoyed goofing off more with me than doing housework with her mother. We got a call for an incoming child who was having issues breathing and was running a fever. Ali and I prepared for the arrival, cracking jokes and laughing hysterically. Since her accident all thoughs years ago I made it a habit of looking at the face of all my patients as they come in with the paramedics. The medics came in with little Camille sitting on the gurney. Our joking stopped and we both went to work.

"Non…Nonno, I…" My sweet grandbaby tried to speak, but because she couldn't breathe it was hard for her already weak body. The fact that she had a fever scared me because her body wouldn't be able to fight an infection off. Ali got her on a nebulizer as I listened to her lungs. As she inhaled the smoke, Ali distracted her with horse talk as I gave her an IV because she was dehydrated. As part of Ali's healing process as a child, I had got her into riding. She loved it and was completely devoted to her horses. They were her therapy. When Camille had been released from the hospital after her diagnoses, Ali had introduced Camille to horses. Camille loved them almost as much as her aunt and godmother. For a while Camille, Alice and Jasper lived with Ali (and Nicholas when he was here) in the Baltimore house because that is where the horses were. Jasper, being from Texas, worked with his daughter which helped form their own special bond. The horses kept the family grounded.

We sent her to the pediatric unit with instructions to page us if something went wrong. A few moments after she left a girl came in looking for her. Ali recognized her as the girl that lived down the street from Camille and her parents, though they had never met.

"Calm down, I don't want to have to sedate you," I told her.

"I'm sorry. It's just her parents aren't in town. I'm babysitting. I freaked when she couldn't breathe! It was scary! I did the only thing I could think of, I called 911! Is she okay? Mrs. Whitlock said I was supposed to call her father or sister if something happened, but I left their numbers at the house. The medics wouldn't let me go with her so I had to drive." The girl was crying by then. She was probably only sixteen. I would have been scared if I was in her shoes.

"It's okay! You did the right thing. Camille is fine and trust me, if you had called me or her aunt we would have told you to bring her in. Don't cry…"

"Wait… you're her grandfather?"

"Yes and that's her aunt," I said pointing at Ali who was charting at the nurse's station. "I'll call my daughter." That is when my pager went off. Code Blue, Pediatric ICU. I remember looking toward Ali and seeing her look down at her pager than taking off in the direction of the stairs. We ran full speed to the ICU praying she would be okay. I did not want have to tell my daughter that her baby was dead.

Ali made it through the door to the Scanner before I did. The nurses were standing around the gurney with the crash cart open. Ali and I made our way to the lifeless body of my grandbaby. It took us thirty minutes to bring her back. Ali even had to go in and fix a new bleeder in her stomach that had contributed to her crashing, but the most likely culprit was the growing pressure in her head.

I was reviewing her scan results when I heard her meek voice call for me. I rushed to her side.

"My head hurts, Nonno, really bad…" She started to cry, which wasn't helping the pain she was in.

"I know your head hurts, inamorata. You scared me!" I lightly chastised.

"I'm sorry, Nonno." She cried harder.

"Shh! Shh! It's okay! You have to go to surgery so we can fix your head. Would you like me to sing to you while you wait?"

"Can you sing about the butterfly?" Her tears slowed. I moved her and laid down on the gurney next to her and began the song my mother used to sing to me as a child in Italy.