Passegiatta Pt. 08

The old woman looked up at him, her silver eyes almost mesmerizing. "Yes. Sounds wonderful. What time would you like me to come?"

"Probably be best to plan on leaving the harbor about O-seven thirty or so. Is that too early?"

"Oh my, heavens no. I'll have been up hours by then. Can I bring anything?"

"Probably best to bring a hat, maybe a jacket, and some kind of tennis shoes."

"Fine. Nothing else?"

"No," he said as he looked into her eyes. "Well, I'll see you then, unless you'd like to join us for dinner?"

"Ah, no, perhaps I'd better get some rest. But thank you."

Goodwin smiled. "Alright, perhaps another time. See you in the morning." He headed over to Vico's and found the old man had already set aside a large table for him.

"Margherita has called. She had to go over to her mother's. She'll be over as soon as she can." Vico began reciting the day's freshest items, but Goodwin held up his hand and stopped him.

"Ludvico? Do me a huge favor. Just bring whatever you think best, alright? Whenever I come in here, don't even ask me. I trust you completely."

The old man smiled. "You are very much your father's son, you know that, Tom?" He walked away, leaving a thousand questions hanging in airs transparent.

He could see the harbor from his chair, Springer and Diogenes off across the water. Lights on down below, sudden warmth deep within Diogenes, forms and shadows drifting across the water, Elsie sitting on the foredeck, looking across the water at him looking at her, a dorsal fin slipping lazily through the water below.

'Vico? How did he know father so well? How could he know I am so much like my father? How does he know so much about us?' Goodwin had yet to make connections to his own hazy memories. Too much time stood between this present and his past.

Margherita and Paulo came into the dining room; Goodwin looked around as he heard them enter and noticed he was the only one dining in the ristorante tonight. Vico waved at them as they came in, then walked their way when he saw their faces.

Goodwin saw it too.

"Tom, Mama feels poorly, she says it's getting hard to breathe."

"Isn't there a doctor in the village?" Goodwin said. He saw Margherita's face fall with her expectations, the illusions she had built up about him crumbled away to dust.

"No, just eh-a, what you call it, a medic," Paulo said haltingly. "Tom, please, just come see it we need to calls for ambulance, eh?"

"I'll go get my car," Vico said, and his voice carried the weight of great authority now. "Thomas, you go now with - Paulo. If we need to take her to the hospital we can all go together."

Goodwin pushed back from the table, thinking how little he wanted to get involved in a medical dilemma here. He simply wasn't licensed to practice medicine in Italy, and in some countries samaritanism was considered criminal. He wondered as he ambled out of the ristorante into the night if his malpractice insurance would cover anything that might arise . . .

He followed Paulo up the hill and around a corner; Margherita had apparently gone with Vico, and this surprised him. It might have surprised him further to know that Vico was saying even then how much like the father was this son, even if the old man said this under his breath. He fought off memories of distant nights, memories that swept through the village like a cold wind.

Paulo opened a door that opened onto a narrow stairway, and Goodwin wanted to cover himself from the wounded stares of a thousand ghosts that seemed huddled by the doorway. He shook his head, walked up the stairs behind Paulo, this stranger he had pulled accidentally into the sea, and as he walked into the apartment, he walked into another world.

It was a warm world, color and smell collided with memory in this room and had created something completely foreign to Goodwin. It hit him instantly. Love and family. The feeling was everywhere, it was all around this place, it bathed the air inside the apartment with the softness of gently formed memory, of easy laughter within these walls and the safety of a warm embrace. It was all here now, the warmth of those who loved honestly, and had done so all their lives. It left Goodwin feeling empty, somehow hollow.

She was sitting by a window in a chair that wore her memories with an easy grace. She was gasping for air, not panicked, not afraid, but simply waiting for death to come like a promised friend.

He rushed to her side, his fingers seeking her pulse first in her wrist, then her ankles and neck. He pressed her fingernails and shook his head.

"Ma'am? Mrs Morretti? Can you hear me?"

"Paul? Is that you? Have you come back to me?" Her accent was thick but the words unmistakable. Goodwin shook as implications beat the air like the wings of waiting angels.

"Mama!" Paulo said in Italian. "This is doctore Goodwin. Tom. He is Paul's son. Mama, how are you feeling."

"I am ready to sleep, my precious boys."

"No, Mama. Tom is here, we will take you to the hospital!"

She turned her eyes to the water and smiled. "I am coming," she said.

"Paulo, let's get her downstairs. Do you have any oxygen here? A bottle of oxygen?"

"No."

"What about this medic? Is there an ambulance here in town?"

"Oh, si, not far from here . . ."

They stopped at the little medic's station and borrowed a bottle of oxygen, the offended medic placated only when Vico pulled him aside and explained who Goodwin was. Paulo drove expertly though blindingly fast through the hills toward Genoa -- "There are no heart people in Rapallo worth shit!" Vico spat, apparently from experience -- and they made it to the hospital in less than an hour. Paulo ran to fetch a wheelchair.

Tom kept by Maria Theresa's side while Vico and Paulo talked to nurses and physicians in the emergency room; he kept asking for this and that and getting in the nurses way, angering them, until . . .

"Tom Goodwin! You lazy no-good bum! What the devil are you doing here!"

Goodwin spun around, saw the tumbling girth of Jon Santoni rumbling down the corridor his way. "Jon! Sonofabitch! What the devil are YOU doing here?"

"Me? I work here. The better question is, what are you doing in MY hospital!" He roared as he laughed, and appeared genuinely happy to see Goodwin.

"Trying to keep your skinny ass out of trouble, as always!" Santoni looked something like Pavarotti, except he was bigger. Much bigger. He came over and gave Goodwin a hug and kissed his cheeks, then turned serious.

"What's this about, Tom?" he asked, pointing at Maria Theresa.

"Friend of the family. I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd drop in, and, well, here we are." They huddled away from Vico and Paulo and Margherita and began talking, and a few minutes later Santoni walked over to the nurses station and got on a telephone. Soon he was yelling, then spoke in quieter tones for a while, then turned and nodded to Goodwin.

"Let's go Tom. Tell the family to go to the waiting room outside the surgery on the fifth floor." Nurses now looked at Goodwin like he was the Pope's brother; they smiled at him deferentially as he walked over to Margherita and Paulo and Vico.

"Pretty much what I expected," he said to Vico as he explained what the first chemistries had found. "We'll take some pictures and confirm, then go in and fix it."

"Tom? Who is that man, the big one?"

"Jon? Great cutter, uh, surgeon. He did a cardiovascular fellowship in Houston under me about ten years ago. He's probably the best heart man in Italy. Lucky he was here."

"And you trained him?" Vico said, thunderstruck. "It seems fortuitous breezes are dancing all around Portofino these days, don't you think?"

Goodwin nodded. "I suppose so. Anyway, fifth floor waiting room. Probably several hours before we know much. Take those two out for coffee or something. Ciao."

Vico held out his hand, took Goodwin's hand in his and seemed to search for the right words. They looked at one another for a long time, then Goodwin turned and walked away.

Vico looked at Maria Theresa's children and at the fortunes of her lifetime; how odd, he thought, that in the blink of an eye all this becomes as dust, ready to lift on an errant gust and settle on new currents for another journey. "Come. Let us find some food and talk for a while. It will be a long night, and we have much to be thankful for. Miracles are alive in this night!"

Margherita walked in stunned silence. The night had become a waterfall of conflicting emotions, all feeling obscured in white mist as hope and expectation dashed on rocks blackened by clouds of anger-borne confusion. Now everything seemed upside down, she was tumbling on vaulted airs, nothing made sense as everything seemed to have grown like gray ivy within a tapestry of lies. One thread had been pulled and now all her feelings were unraveling.

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Elsie lay quietly on the swim platform, a Springer on the Springer. She looked into the black eye lying so still now; she could sense loneliness and fear in the dolphin, and she wanted to comfort him. She eased forward and slipped her paw into the water; the dolphin blinked slowly and came to her, rubbed his nose against billowing fur and the smells of black earth, and he drifted in the nether currents of distant suns.

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In a distant room an anesthesiologist slipped a needle into Maria Theresa's wrist and she watched as darkness fell all around her.

She smiled as darkness wrapped her in soft embrace, she smiled when she heard his voice, when she saw his face. She was surrounded by vast clouds, and she could see him clearly now.

He was coming for her, and he was smiling too, even as the darkness fell.

End Part VIII