"The nursing home just called...It's your mom. She's had a stroke."

Rosetti's face went white. "Oh, God," she said, burying her face in her hands. "I knew I should have stopped at the nursing home last night to see her before I came here. It was so late, though...I didn't want to wake her." Regret filled her voice. "Is she...?"

"No...they sent her to CityHospital by ambulance. If we hurry, we can get there while she's in triage."

Rosetti and I dressed quickly, still not a word passing between us. Rosetti stepped into her jeans without wearing underwear. I gave her one of my T-shirts to wear as she had come over directly from work the previous night and didn't have a change of clothes. I insisted on driving to the hospital because I wanted to get there in one piece. Surprisingly, she didn't resist.

Thick anxiety hung in the air as we headed toward CityHospital. I looked over at Rosetti, who was gnawing on her cuticles until they were almost bloody.

"How you doin'?" I asked, stopping for a red light.

"Fine," Rosetti snapped. "Go through the light."

"What?"

"Don't just sit here, there's no one coming...go through the light."

I stepped on the gas and blew through the red light feeling like a felon.

My mind reeled with all the possible conditions Teresa would be afflicted with.

I pulled into the physician's parking lot and barely got the motor shut off before Rosetti was out of the car. I hurried to catch up with her. I grabbed her arm and led her through the physician's private entrance, which led us into the back of the ER unit. We found Teresa Rosetti in exam room one, lying on a metal gurney. A plastic oxygen mask covered her nose and mouth, and wires and tubing were going in and out of each extremity. I was glad to see the glass bottle of the miracle clot-busting drug TPA hung overhead and flowing through the plastic tubing into Teresa's fragile veins. The drug would at least minimize the damage the clot in her brain had done. Teresa didn't move. Her skin was pale and cool, and if I didn't hear the rhythmic beeps of her heart monitor, I'd have thought she was already gone.

Tears streamed down Rosetti's cheeks as she cautiously walked over to her mother.

"You can talk to her," I said. "She can hear you."

"Ma..." Rosetti said. "Ma, it's me Rosemary..." Rosetti stroked her mother's hand.

Page appeared in the doorway of exam room one. "Mina, what are you doing here on your day off?" Page asked. Then she saw Rosetti.

Relief filled my heart. "Oh, Page. I'm so glad you're here."

"Hi, Rosetti. I thought maybe Teresa was a relative," Page said.

Rosetti smiled a weak smile "She's my mother. How is she doing?"

Page flipped open Teresa's chart. "Well, she was unresponsive when she came in. Her blood pressure was pretty high. We sent her straight up to CT scan to see what was going on with her. Her CT scan showed she has a big clot in the right side of her brain. We got the TPA started immediately. We have a call into the neurosurgeon on call. He'll probably take her to surgery this afternoon to remove the clot."

"What are her chances?" Rosetti asked Page.

"It's hard to say. It's too soon to tell how much damage has been done. The neurosurgeon needs to get in there and see what he can do before we can come to any conclusions."

Rosetti nodded, then turned back to Teresa. She took her mother's hand in hers, careful not to dislodge the IV needle that was inserted into the back of her hand.

"Dr. Burkland, Dr. Goodman is on line one" came over the intercom.

"That's the neurosurgeon. I'll be right back," Page said and headed down the hall to take the call.

I walked back over to Rosetti and her mom. I stood behind Rosetti and put my hand on her shoulder. My heart swelled as she reached up and covered my hand with hers.

"I'm sorry I was short with you in the car earlier," Rosetti said. "The last time I was called to the hospital like this, it was for my dad. He died before I made it to the hospital. I didn't want to be late this time."

"There's no need to apologize. I understand. You must be scared to death...I know I would be." I smiled what I had hoped was an encouraging smile. "She's in good hands. Dr. Goodman is one of the best neurosurgeons in the area. And your mom's a pretty tough little lady."

Rosetti nodded. "I just feel so guilty," she said, tears brimming again in her eyes.

"Guilty? Why do you feel guilty?"

"Because I wasn't there when she needed me."

"Rosetti, you've got to be kidding. You've always been there for her. You took care of her at home until it wasn't safe for you or her to do it any longer. You took care of her when her leukemia was so out of control, she was getting blood transfusions every couple of days. You got her to St. Mike's where she was safe and well taken care of, and do I have to remind you that they threw her out of the hospice program because she outlived it?"

"I know...I know," Rosetti said. "But it never feels like what I've done was enough."

"That's the Italian Catholic in you," I said. "You've done more than enough. You've taken excellent care of Teresa. I know it, you know it, and Teresa knows it. You know if your mom heard you talking like this, she'd kick your butt."

For the first time since we got to the hospital, Rosetti smiled.

"I'm back," Page said, stepping through the curtain. "Dr. Goodman wants to take her to surgery within the hour. Amy will be here in a few minutes to get her prepped. Do you have any questions?"

I looked over at Rosetti. She shook her head.

"Okay," Page said and left the exam room.

"Now what?" Rosetti asked after Page left.

"We wait. We can wait upstairs in the OR waiting area. After the surgery, Dr. Goodman will come out to talk to you-"

"And you too," Rosetti interrupted.

"Yes, and me too."

"I don't want to go through this alone, Mina," Rosetti said, sounding more fragile than I'd ever heard her.

"I'd never let you go through this alone." I wrapped my arms around her neck.

Amy appeared at the doorway with a bath basin, towels, and a disposable razor in her hand. "I'm here to get Teresa ready for surgery."

Rosetti and I broke our embrace. "Okay," I said. "Teresa, we'll see you after surgery." I bent down and kissed her on the forehead. "You hang in there and get better. Your daughter is very worried about you, so you have to pull through this."

I looked up at Rosetti. A lump in my throat formed as I watched her struggle with her emotions. She bent down and kissed her mother on the lips. She stroked her mother's salt and pepper hair as she gazed down at her sleeping face. "I love you, Mom," she said, her voice wracked with sadness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

Lunch and dinner time came and went, but neither of us was hungry. Teresa had been in surgery for close to six hours and no word yet on her condition. Unfortunately, the burden of our conversation that morning didn't make the waiting any easier.

"What could be taking so long?" Rosetti asked as she paced back and forth on the already worn carpet in the cramped surgical waiting area. "Oprah" was on the TV that was bolted to the wall overhead. The show was about protecting your children from child predators.

"It's a delicate surgery," I said. "The fact that it's taking a long time doesn't necessarily mean that it's not going well."

"I know, but you'd think they would at least let us know how she's doing." Rosetti plopped down next to me on the cracked leather couch.

"What are they doing exactly?" Rosetti asked.

"Teresa's stroke is caused by a blood clot that formed in her brain. Dr. Goodman has to go in and take out the clot." I tried not to get too technical. Not that Rosetti wouldn't understand what I was saying. I just didn't want to scare her with the details.

"So what's the surgery called that they are doing?"

"It's called a craniotomy."

"That doesn't sound good. What is it?"

"A craniotomy is a cut made into the skull, also known as the cranium. The doctor cuts a hole that allows him to get near the blood clot. This hole reduces the pressure inside the brain that would otherwise build up as the pool of blood got bigger. It also allows doctors to drain the blood from the brain."

Rosetti held her head in her hands. I'm sure it wasn't easy for her to hear that her mom was having her head opened up, even if it was in an attempt to save her life.

"So how successful is this surgery?" Rosetti asked.

"It all depends on how much damage the clot has done already. They started your mom on TPA pretty fast. That will greatly increase her chances of pulling through the surgery."

Rosetti nodded.

What I didn't tell her was that although Teresa might make it through the surgery, a full recovery was pretty slim in someone Teresa's age. But I needed to be positive for Rosetti. Telling her that wouldn't do her or Teresa any good.

I stood and stretched my legs and raised my arms over my head to stretch the kinks out of my stiff back.

"I'm going to go down to the cafeteria to get some coffee, you want some?"

"Yeah, that might be good, but get me decaf...I don't need anything else that will make my heart pound any harder."

"You got it."

I walked over to the elevator bank and pushed the call button. The elevator doors yawned opened and I stepped on. A few moments later, I was deposited at the cafeteria entrance on the ground floor. I walked over to the coffee kiosk and poured two large cups of decaf coffee. I dumped four Splendas into my cup of coffee and three creams into Rosetti's. I handed the cashier three bucks and headed back toward the elevator.

When I returned to the surgical waiting area, Rosetti was nowhere to be found. Teresa's surgery must have been over and Dr. Goodman must have come to talk to us about the outcome.

Panicked, I hurried down the hall looking into each conference room, searching for Rosetti. I stopped at the nurse's station of the surgical step-down unit and asked the receptionist if she saw Dr. Goodman or Rosetti. She said no one had been by.

Angry that I'd screwed up again when Rosetti needed me most, I headed back to the waiting area.

"Jesus, I thought you were never coming back," Rosetti said as I rounded the corner to the waiting room.

"What do you mean? Where have you been? I came back here with the coffee and you were gone."

"I went to the bathroom," Rosetti said, whispering so no one but me could hear her.

We both laughed.

"Oh, my God...I was afraid I'd missed being here when Dr. Goodman came out of surgery. I was so afraid I'd let you down."

"Mina, it's okay," Rosetti said. She smiled as she peeled the plastic lid off her cup of coffee and took a sip. "I just had to pee."

"Ro, I a...I'm sorry about this morning." I was unable to leave alone the six hundred-pound gorilla in the room anymore.

"I'm sorry, too." She reached out and touched my knee. "We'll have to work it out."

I nodded, blinking back the tears welling up in my eyes.

We sat on the leather sofa and drank our coffee and watched the remainder of "Oprah" in silence. The local six o'clock news came on the TV.

"Local police ambushed. Drug dealer shot and killed." That was the lead story.

"That's your bust."

Rosetti nodded and watched intently as the sophisticated news anchor with the perfectly coiffed hair reported on the details of the shootout.

I watched her as she listened to the news report.

"You okay?" I asked, laying my hand on her leg.

She nodded. "Not much I can do about it, anyway. What's done is done."

"Yes, that's true, but how would you feel if you knew it was your bullet that killed him?"

Rosetti looked down. "I don't know...sad, I guess...guilty that I killed someone. I mean, even though he did some pretty bad things, taking someone's life...it just isn't right."

"But what if by taking his life you spared someone else's?"

She shrugged and took another sip of her coffee.

"Rosetti, if that's the case, think of all the people you saved from this guy. He's off the streets, not selling drugs anymore. Heaven knows the people this guy hurt or even killed."

A scrub nurse dressed in surgical greens and a blue surgical mask dangling from around her neck entered the waiting area. "Rosetti family," she said.

Rosetti and I sprang up.

"Dr. Goodman will meet with you in conference room B in fifteen minutes," the nurse said. "Let me show you the way."

Rosetti and I followed her down the hall toward surgery. She opened the door to conference room B and flicked on the light. "You can wait here. The doctor will be with you shortly," she said, then disappeared down the hall and through the automatic doors leading to the surgery suites.

Rosetti and I sat in two chairs in front of a small oak desk situated in the center of the cramped room. The room was furnished sparsely and lit dimly by a single banker's lamp on the corner of the desk. On top of the desk were a telephone, a black leather-bound Bible, and a box of Kleenex, all well within reach of the chairs Rosetti and I sat in.