Chapter 17: Both Halves

Serena's POV

Nico would not sit anywhere but on my lap.

He had come down the corridor at seven with the housekeeper, in his red jumper, and he had walked straight past her and climbed up beside me.

Behind the swing doors, two surgeons were opening Alessio and my mother.

"Is Papà going to die?" he asked.

"No."

"Zia Serena, you don't know."

It was the first time he had called me aunt.

I put my arm around him and held on.

"You're right, I don't know. But I know they're very good, and I know he's too stubborn."

Nico considered that.

"Mama is in her room with two men at the door," he said. "She wouldn't tell me why."

"Because she did something wrong."

"Is she coming back?"

I could not lie to him, and I could not tell him the rest.

"I don't know that either," I said. "But I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere."

He leaned his head against my collarbone.

He found the iron ring on my thumb, and he took my hand and turned it over.

"Papà said if he went to sleep," he said into my sweater, "you would keep me."

My throat closed.

"He told you that?"

"Last night. When I couldn't sleep." He turned the ring over. "I said yes."

I laid my cheek on his curls and cried without making a sound.

The doors swung open at noon.

The surgeon came out with his cap in his hand, and his face was tired and clear.

"Both livers took," he said. "Your mother is already breathing on her own. Signor Alessio is asleep, and it went better than I dared hope."

I had never been so glad to hear a man say a sentence.

My mother woke at four.

I sat by her bed with Nico asleep on the next pillow and the sun going orange in the garden.

"You hit a man with a hospital pole," Mama said, in a croak.

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