Reunion in October (The Calendar Girls Book 2) by Gina Ardito

Author:Gina Ardito
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Victoria Ardito
Published: 2014-07-29T23:00:00+00:00

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Francesca

The E.R. came alive shortly after midnight with calls for a full trauma team. I raced down the hall with Gerald on my heels. “What’s up?”

“Don’t know yet,” I replied. “Guess we’ll find out together.”

“House fire,” Dr. Reeves said as we approached the ambulance bay. “Bad one. Fourteen people in the residence at the time, ranging in age from thirty-three years to two months.”

“Fourteen people?” Gerald asked. “What was it, a party?”

“Don’t know.”

I did. Real estate in Snug Harbor sold for diamond prices, which meant that most of the people who worked here couldn’t actually afford to live here. Many of those in domestic employment—chambermaids, wait staff, and janitors—took up residence in rental properties which they could only afford when crowds of them lived together. These types of living arrangements were illegal, for health and safety reasons, but the residents themselves lived on the fringe, often in the country illegally, few of them able to speak English.

My stomach plummeted. “Burns?”

“Mostly smoke inhalation,” Dr. Reeves replied. “We’ve got half a dozen ambulances on the way in.”

“Let’s get to it,” I said as the doors to the ambulance area whooshed open.

Three hours later, I collapsed in an empty exam room and fought back tears. Four years old. Lucia Espinosa was only four years old when she died tonight. We’d done all we could for her. The ambulance crew had administered CPR and brought her back from death once before they even arrived here. But in the end, we couldn’t save her. According to the EMTs, the fire had begun in the hallway outside the bedroom she shared with her mother, two brothers, and cousin. Unfortunately, at the time, Lucia was asleep alone, and no one could get past the heat and flames to rescue her. A firefighter finally reached her through the window, but by then, she was unconscious and wheezing with every breath.

As long as I lived, I would never forget the horror, the absolute defeat, on Zuleika Espinosa’s face when I told her that her only daughter hadn’t survived. She’d turned as white as the sheet, crossed herself, and begun wailing in rapid Spanish. Two gentlemen with her had to grab her arms as she flailed in her hospital bed, nearly ripping out her I.V. lines in her distraught state. She and her sons would survive. Their lungs would heal. But their lives had been altered irrevocably, and a huge gaping wound would always remain in their hearts.

I wanted to throw myself onto the exam table and pound my fists. I wanted to scream out my own anger at the unfairness of life that a precious, innocent child, with so much to live for, had died tonight. No. I glanced at the glowing red numbers on the digital clock near the door. This morning. Lucia had died at exactly 1:53 a.m.

The door flew open and another night nurse peeked in. “Dr. Florentino? You’ve got a patient in Exam Room One.”

On a deep sigh, I gathered my emotions and continued my night’s rounds of drunken hallucinations, babies who’d spiked fevers, and minor injuries.

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