Rose was overjoyed that Jack was awake. She told her roommates, bouncing up and down with delight on her good foot—and inadvertently discovering a structural weakness in the floor. With a cracking sound, a piece of the floor collapsed, leaving only the sagging carpet covering the broken spot. Someone yelled from downstairs as the broken piece of floor caved in on their room.
Fortunately, no one was hurt. A maintenance worker inspected the broken spot and declared the rest of the floor sound. A piece of board was placed over the broken spot, and the three students were permitted to stay in their room, although Michelle said that she didn’t know how many more of Rose’s mood swings they could take.
Tommy and Helga picked Rose up at her dorm the following morning around 10:30 and drove to the hospital, trying to decide how to break the news of Fabrizio’s and Trudy’s deaths to Jack. Rose thought that Jack would not be unhappy to learn that Cal had been arrested, and was, according to the newspaper, being charged with a variety of crimes, including attempted murder and embezzlement, and suggested that they give him the good news first.
They were still debating the issue when they reached the hospital. Helga had fallen silent, not wanting to discuss it anymore, but Rose and Tommy continued to debate it all the way up to Jack’s floor. They quieted, however, as they went into his room.
Jack was sitting propped up in bed, a breakfast tray in his lap. He was poking half-heartedly at some partly melted red Jell-O. Two small cans of soda, one opened, also sat on the tray.
He looked up as they came in. "Hi," he greeted them, abandoning his efforts to eat the unappetizing stuff. Cautiously, he took a sip of soda as they sat down around him.
"Mmm, hospital food," Rose commented, looking at the tray, trying to avoid thinking about what they had to tell him.
"It’s awful," Jack told her, taking a spoonful of the Jell-O and staring at it. "The least they could do is let this stuff jell all the way. I’m not really hungry anyway."
"That’s because the stuff they’re pumping into you from the IV keeps your blood sugar at a level that doesn’t allow normal hunger pangs. But you still need to eat," Helga told him. "You haven’t had anything in your stomach since Sunday night, according to Rose. You need to get your stomach accustomed to food again."
"I had a sip of water last night," he protested, unwilling to sample the watery red stuff.
"Good. Now eat your breakfast—or lunch...whatever they’re calling it."
"I don’t even like Jell-O. I’ve never liked it."
"Did you tell the nurse that?"
"Yes."
"What did she say?"
"Eat it anyway." He grimaced as the stuff slid off the spoon and landed with a splat back in the dish.
"Well, then, maybe you should eat it."
Rose was looking longingly at the dish. She liked red Jell-O, even if it was only half-jelled. Jack noticed her look.
"Here, you eat it," he told her, offering her the dish.
"Uh-uh. That’s your breakfast, and Helga is right. You need to eat."
"This stuff is disgusting, and if it doesn’t get eaten, that nurse will come down on me like...like a crow on road kill."
Rose giggled at the picture. She had had several run-ins with this particular nurse in the past couple of days. The woman was brusque, scowling, and had frequently sent her scurrying from the room.
"All right," she agreed. "I’ll eat it. But you’d better drink that soda. You need something in your stomach."
"Fine," he agreed, handing her the dish. Trying to show that he was trying to eat something, he took a quick gulp of the soda, then realized that wasn’t such a good idea after so many days without eating. He choked, turning slightly pale, and gagged. Clamping his hand over his mouth, he took several deep breaths, willing the liquid to stay down. The others turned away, not wanting to watch this. But after a moment, his stomach decided to accept the soda and calmed down. He waited a few minutes, then took another sip, with better results this time.
"Maybe you should take that slow." Helga pointed to the can of soda. "You haven’t had much in your stomach in a long time, and it’s bound to take a while for you to get used to eating again."
Rose had just finished off the Jell-O when the nurse came in. Quickly, she set the empty dish on the tray, trying to look innocent.
The nurse didn’t believe for a minute that Jack had eaten the Jell-O. Looking at Rose’s red-stained mouth, she lectured both of them on the importance of Jack’s getting enough to eat. Grumbling irritably to herself, she set the cans of soda on the bedside table, took the tray, and left. Helga watched her with dismay.
"What’s wrong?" Tommy asked her.
"She’s going to be my new supervisor," Helga complained. "They had a nursing shortage here before the earthquake, and several of the nurses who were off shift died. They needed new ones right away, so when I asked about a job a couple of days ago and told them I had been working for Southland General, they immediately looked up my records and hired me on the spot. I didn’t even need to bring my résumé. They pulled it off the Internet. I start on Sunday."
Rose filed that bit of information away for future reference; the Internet could be useful in a job search.
"I’d rather have you around than her," Jack told her.
"You’ll probably be out of this unit by then. You’re already looking better," Helga commented. "But even if you aren’t, you still have to eat what you’re given."
"How long have you been awake?" Tommy asked Jack.
"Since about ten o’clock," Jack replied. "Although they also woke me up at three o’clock this morning for another blood test."
"They like to do that," Rose agreed, remembering when she had been hospitalized with the concussion.
"You’d think they’d taken enough blood out of me already," he commented, looking at the needle marks on his fingers and arms. He hadn’t seen so many needle marks on a person since he’d been in juvenile hall with a couple of heroin addicts.
"They need to keep testing you to make sure you’re okay." Helga had heard that particular complaint dozens of times.
"Well, after they went to all the trouble to pump all that blood into me, it seems like a waste to keep extracting it."
"Trust me, most phlebotomists don’t enjoy it either," Helga assured him. "Patients tend to complain mightily about being stuck with needles."
“What are phlebotomists?”
“The people who take blood samples. Sometimes they’re also referred to as vampires.”
“Oh.” He shakily picked up a soda can, then set it back down, nearly dropping it before Rose steadied it on the table. “They have to do everything for me,” he complained. “Even things like bathing and shaving. I tried, but...”
"You’ll get better," Rose told him. "Remember, you came out of a coma less than fifteen hours ago. It’s only natural that you’re still shaky."
"I couldn’t even sit up by myself this morning. They had to arrange the bed so that I was propped up. And they won’t even consider letting me get up."
"I wonder why," Tommy said sarcastically. "Your leg is in traction, you’re hooked up to half a dozen machines with tubes and wires everywhere, you can’t even sit up on your own..."
Jack gave him a quelling look, reaching for the open soda can again. Taking a sip, he looked at the group assembled around him. Rose was biting her lip worriedly, as though trying to decide something. Tommy and Helga both looked uncomfortable.
"What’s going on?" he asked, suddenly remembering Rose’s comment the night before about a lot of things having happened.
"Jack..." Rose looked at him apprehensively, suddenly wondering whether it was a good idea to tell him about the deaths of their friends now. He wasn’t very strong yet, and she was afraid that the news might be too much for him. She didn’t want him to have a relapse.
Tommy took a deep breath. "Jack, we have some good news...and some bad news."
"What is it?" He was suddenly apprehensive.
Rose took over. "The good news is, Cal has been arrested. He’s being charged with attempting to murder you, and with embezzling money from Sun Titan Industries. They haven’t set a trial date yet, but we will probably need to testify, especially you, since he tried to kill you."
"What’s the bad news?"
Rose hesitated, looking at Tommy and Helga, trying to decide how to say what needed to be said. Helga helped her out. It was only right that she tell Jack about Fabrizio’s death. After all, she was his widow.
"Jack..." Helga began. "A lot of people died in the earthquake."
Jack nodded. He had already seen one of those who had died—the guard in the jail. But he had a feeling that that wasn’t what Helga was trying to tell him.
"There was a lot of damage, and a lot of buildings were destroyed...including the Sunpeak building. Fabrizio was working there...when the earthquake struck."
Jack suddenly knew what she was trying to say. "Fabrizio. Is he...?"
"Yes." Helga’s eyes overflowed. "They found his body late Monday afternoon. There were only six survivors from the building collapse, and they didn’t even start looking for them until late Monday morning. By that time, it was too late for most people." She shook her head, remembering. She and Tommy had been waiting outside the rubble that afternoon, hoping against hope that the news would be good. But when she had seen the rescue workers carrying Fabrizio’s limp, lifeless body from the rubble, and one of his part-time co-workers had stopped to express her regrets, Helga had broken down, bursting into tears and collapsing on the ground, sobbing in grief. No one had been shocked; she was only one mourner among many. She vaguely remembered Tommy helping her to her feet, leading her back in the direction of his car. The next few hours had passed in a blur for her, until the following afternoon when she and Tommy had gone looking for Jack and Rose, giving her a purpose and a focus.
Jack was staring at her, stunned. Fabrizio, dead? It wasn’t possible. He and Fabrizio had been friends for the past two years, since Fabrizio had first slipped across the border in Arizona, and had wound up working in the same crop field as Jack. They had been friends from the start, first exchanging tentative comments in a broken combination of English and Spanish; then, as each one’s grasp of the other’s language grew, passing the long hours in the fields talking, often using the languages interchangeably. They had traveled from work site to work site together, getting in and out of more scrapes than either one could count, including arguments with the bosses over pay, confrontations with border patrol agents, long hours spent working in the heat, or the cold, or other myriad hazards facing migrant workers. When they had both decide that they had had enough of farm work, they had headed for Los Angeles, where Jack had turned a blind eye to Fabrizio’s fake green card and documentation, professing complete ignorance of his immigration status. Fabrizio, for his part, had helped to find customers for Jack’s artwork and had contacted a cousin living in a rundown part of the city, who had allowed them to stay with him for a short time, until they were able to find another place to stay. Fabrizio had been tolerant when Jack had invited his new, often down-on-her-luck girlfriend, Beatriz, to stay with them, and had mediated the pair’s frequent arguments. Jack had encouraged Fabrizio’s interest in Helga, who had been a nursing student at UCLA at the time, and, after Fabrizio and Helga had become engaged, and Jack and Beatriz had finally split up for good, they had followed Helga to Masline, where they had moved in with her and her cousin, Tommy, and both Jack and Fabrizio had taken jobs with Sunpeak and begun attending college.
It didn’t seem possible that Fabrizio could be dead. He had been doing so well, working on his citizenship, settling down with Helga, and even earning enough money to send some to his mother and siblings in Mexico. But Jack knew, looking at Helga’s grief-stricken face, that it was true. This wasn’t some nasty prank created to torment him. His best friend really was dead.
"My God..." he whispered, still stunned.
Rose hesitated, wishing that she didn’t have to tell him about Trudy, but knowing that it was best to tell him everything now, rather than waiting and prolonging the shock.
"Jack...there’s more," she told him gently, wishing she were anywhere else. Although Jack had not been as close to Trudy as he had been to Fabrizio, they had still been part of a close circle of friends, and the news was bound to be painful.
"What is it?" he asked, steeling himself for whatever Rose had to say.
"Trudy...was also killed in the earthquake. She was visiting with Sophie when it struck, and they were about to leave. Trudy was sitting in the passenger seat of Sophie’s convertible, and a pine tree fell on the car, killing her instantly, or so I’m told." Rose blinked her eyes rapidly, trying not to cry. She had been numb for several days, but now the emotions were rushing back, overwhelming her. Taking a deep breath, she looked back at him, gauging his response.
He looked a bit overwhelmed. Suddenly worried, Rose reached for his hand, concerned that the news might be too much for him.
He squeezed her hand reassuringly. "Rose...I’m sorry. I know she was your best friend. And, Helga," he looked over at Helga, "about Fabrizio..."
"I know, Jack," she whispered. "He was my husband...but he was also your best friend. We’re all going to miss him." She paused, her throat working. "We’re all going to miss both of them."
"Yeah," Jack responded. "Yeah, we will." His voice was a bit shaky.
Helga wisely decided that it was time to leave. Signaling discreetly to Tommy and Rose, she got up and left the room, Tommy following her. Rose lingered a moment.
"Jack..." She didn’t know what to say. She was as overwhelmed by the deaths of their friends as he was. She leaned forward to embrace him, moving carefully around the wires and tubes. "Everyone else is okay," she whispered. "Sophie, Tommy, Helga, me...even you’re going to be all right. And Cal is in jail; he can’t bother us, at least for a while."
Jack put his arms around her, ignoring the IV in his right arm. He, too, didn’t know quite what to say.
"Everything’s going to be all right, Rose. We’ll get through this." His voice was a bit choked.
Rose nodded, knowing that it was time to leave. "I’ll see you this afternoon, Jack. Get some rest. I love you."
She hurried away before he could respond, leaving him to his thoughts.