Her voice was controlled. “Turn right up ahead. Follow the road to Grassina. You know where Grassina is?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll take the first right turn at the roundabout. Please drive fast.”

Ross pressed further on the accelerator as she turned her attention back to her son. The cabin light was on and she could see that his lips were beginning to turn blue. She was losing him and she knew it. She was staring into her son’s eyes. “Come on, Alessio. Stay with me.”

Ross slowed where the dirt road met the asphalt of the main drive; then he pulled up onto the road. On the narrow but deserted country roads, he pushed the speedometer past a hundred kilometers per hour. Ross converted it in his mind: sixty-two miles per hour and change. Eliana was suddenly quiet, and on a straight-away he stole a glance in the mirror. Her eyes were closed. She’s praying, he thought.

They passed through two townships, where he slowed only slightly for the vacant intersections, then ran the red lights. At the Grassina roundabout he veered right and came around a slight bend. The hospital, a great, gray concrete structure, suddenly loomed ahead. A road sign read, “Ospedale Santa Maria.” Saint Mary’s Hospital.

“The emergency room is up front. The first turn-off.” She pointed. “Right there.” Her voice was now trembling.

He raced the car up to where an orange-and-white ambulance was idling; then he screeched to a stop. Eliana flung her door open and began lifting her son out. Ross ran around the car, taking the child in his own arms. “I’ve got him. Just show me where to go.”

Eliana ran to the emergency doors with Ross after her. She yelled to the women in the lobby, “Mio figlio ha un attacco d’asma, non respira.”

A nurse came running out and waved them forward. Just then Alessio went limp.

“He’s passed out,” Ross shouted. “È svenuto!”

A doctor wearing hospital greens appeared at Ross’s side. He asked Ross in Italian, “Are you his father?”

“No.”

“I’m his mother,” Eliana said.

“How have you been treating him?”

“I’ve given him two doses of albuterol in the last fifteen minutes.”

“Get him into ICU. Nurse, get me an oxygen mask and a nebulizer. I need an IV of SoluMedrol. Get an oximeter on him, subito.”

A nurse placed an oxygen mask over Alessio’s face as they wheeled him into the ICU. Only Ross waited behind, standing outside the door as they all went inside. He stood for a moment wondering what to do before he walked out to the car and moved it from the emergency lane, parking it across the street in a lot. Then he came back in to wait for news.

CHAPTER 9

“Il linguaggio dell’amore è negli occhi.” The language of love is in the eyes.

—Italian Proverb

Ross checked his watch. It was nearly a quarter of one. He sat alone on the vinyl sofa in the front lobby. He had been up since four-thirty and was fighting sleep. He had been at the hospital for nearly two hours and still hadn’t received word on the boy’s condition. It must mean good news, he thought. Hoped.