Breathe

By: Tilly Genato Millena

Short Story

Submitted: April 16th, 2023

2ND PLACE (Group 8) — NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge 2023 Round #2

Genre: Drama / Subject: Humble pie / Character: A millionaire

— — —

Summary: A nurse, fighting a battle with grief and anxiety, finds the strength to face everything she has been repressing thanks to a bond forged with an equally troubled inpatient.

Word Count: 1,979

— — —

I close my eyes and picture a square – breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four, hold for four.

Again.

I ground myself by pressing my back into the chair, wiggling my toes within the confines of my socks and shoes. I listen for the rattle of the HVAC above and the ticking of the clock on the wall. I find my voice, “My name is Eva Lucero. I’m thirty-three years old. I’m a registered nurse at Toronto General Hospital. I have a sister named Carmelita. I live in York.”

I repeat it again and I breathe.

My heart rate slows. The pressure in my head eases. Numbness ebbs from my sweaty palms. I blink the tears from my eyes so I can keep a close watch on the time. At nine sharp, I get up to make my rounds.

#

It’s near-impossible to find a quiet place in the city because of what a city is: endless cycling waves of noise and movement from the millions of lives and experiences and struggles–

I cut that thought off before I run away with it.

There’s an area of green space outside the Heart Research Centre that’s normally crowded, but it’s high noon, in the middle of July. The sweltering heat means it’ll be deserted. Perfect. I grab a seat on a bench and sip on my fourth cup of coffee.

From down the path, I hear a familiar shuffle of slippers. Beau takes as much time as a seventy-something-year-old man with a heart condition should take. He’s out of breath when he settles down next to me with two disposable plates of apple pie.

“Eat,” Beau orders as he hands me a plate. “God knows you forget to.”

I take it from him gratefully as my phone chimes with a text message:

Eva please call me back

I’m worried about you

“That Mister Lucero?” Beau teases.

I laugh, “God, no.”

He runs a hand through his cropped silver hair and thinks a moment before amending with, “Missus?”

The consideration warms me, “I wish, but no, just my little sister.”

Another chime:

It’s been a few weeks since Dad’s funeral

I silence my phone, digging into the pie Beau handed me instead.

“A godsend, that cafeteria,” Beau hums happily as he eats. “Do you know what kind of crap they’ve been trying to bring me as dessert? Fruit cups. Who in their right minds…”

And he’s off. Beau talks a lot, not in a bad way. It’s more of a comforting way that fills the air with a noise that’s different from the noise of the city; a welcome chatter that doesn’t make my brain buzz.

I dab at the sweat collecting on my upper lip. Beau, done ranting, glances at me with warm, hazel eyes. “C’mon, you and I have dealt with worse heat than this.”

“Do you miss it?” I ask curiously. “Louisiana?”

I don’t expect too much because Beau gets cagey when I try to talk about his past, though, to be fair, so do I. Surprisingly, after a few moments of silence, he answers, “Nah. I wanted to get out of dodge when I was old enough and, for me, that meant going as far up north as I dared to go. Made Toronto my new home and then made my riches.”

I raise an eyebrow in disbelief, “Riches?”

“That’s right, you’re looking at a bonafide self-made millionaire,” Beau states proudly.

I’ve never had more than what I needed – usually had less – but I could still relate to some of that. I tell him, “I wanted to get far away, to make something good for myself. Something good enough that eventually, I could bring my sister Lita over too. And for my sister, Lita.” I don’t mention my dad, not wanting a reason to say out loud that he chose to stay behind in the Philippines.

Or that he’s dead now.

Beau doesn’t prod, so I ask him something else, “If you’ve got all this money, why don’t you get yourself into one of those fancy hospitals?”

“I like this place. They got free pie,” Beau emphasizes by eating his last piece in one big bite. He reaches up to wipe his sweaty brow and winces, hand pressing against his chest.

I start going over procedures in my head: call a Code Blue, start chest compressions, clock the nearest entrance–

Whatever it is, it passes, Beau cutting off my thoughts with a wave and a weak smile. “I’m fine, Eva.”

#

I don’t touch my phone all day but exhaustion eats at your willpower and so does boredom on the subway ride home. My lock screen explodes with missed calls and text messages. I feel panic rise like bile from my stomach but I force it back down.

I draft a text to send to my sister when I get above ground again:

Sorry Lita. Just really busy with work. I’ll call you when I can. Love you.

I see my mom looking back at me in the reflection of the window – a short woman with narrow shoulders, a round face, and big brown eyes. I look so much like her and I know that that’s why Dad never looked up at me from his tiny CRT television screen.

I can still see him: slumped and still in his chair, the smell of beer was a heavy fog around him. He hadn’t left the house in weeks. Lita was crying, she didn’t stop after Mom left. She was only two; she couldn’t understand. I was ten, having to make money under the table washing dishes after school, and then that and more when I was old enough. I had to raise Lita and make sure I got good grades. I had to take care of us.

I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t grieve. I couldn’t give up because if I did, everything would fall apart.

I was fine then. I’m fine now.

#

There’s a Code Blue in progress. It’s in Beau’s unit. I don’t have an excuse to respond and I can’t just leave my patients. I try not to let my anxiety overwhelm me because there’s nothing I can do right now.

It could be Beau’s heart that’s failing and there’s nothing I can do.

I picture a square: breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four, hold for four. Repeat.

I control my breathing enough to do my job but the panic sits just underneath my skin for hours. I struggle not to scratch at it. By the time I clock out, I’m exhausted. I could call the nurse’s station but I need to see him myself. I make a beeline for his room.

Beau greets me with a grin around a mouthful of pecan pie. He’s fine. I sigh in relief, acutely aware of a crick in my neck from holding tension in my shoulders.

He sees my distress and asks, “What’s wrong, Eva?”

“I heard a Code Blue,” I explain, rubbing a hand over my tired face. I catch a few traitorous tears and wipe them away on my scrubs.

“Not me. Heart’s hanging in there for now, though, a cardiac arrest could move me up on the waiting list,” he jokes.

It’s horribly dark but I laugh too.

I worked a twelve-hour shift, I should go home but I sit with him instead. I let him talk about the weather, this funny thing he read in the paper, and those fruit cups again. He reminds me so much of my dad, the way he was before…

“What was your dad like?” I ask Beau.

He groans, “You don’t wanna hear about my old man.” The silence that hangs between us is thick like the smog outside but eventually Beau relents. He answers slowly, “My pop used to beat me and try to convince me that I wouldn’t amount to anything.”

“Shit,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, of course, I did the only sensible thing, I made a shit-ton of money to serve him some satisfying humble pie and then you know what? The asshole kicked the bucket before I could make him eat it. All that work and look what it got me: no satisfaction, a broken ticker, and my own kids want nothing to do with their deadbeat dad.”

“Wait, do your kids know you’re in here?”

“Didn’t tell them. They wouldn’t want to hear from me.”

“Have you tried?”

“Why try?”

Beau says it so resignedly, like he truly believes it, like he’s given up. And now he really reminds me of my dad. I can see him, laying in that bed instead of Beau, saying to me that there’s no point in trying, that we’ll never make anything good for ourselves, that we may as well roll over and die.

Picture a square…

I tell my dad to look at me. I beg him not to give up on us, to keep fighting.

Breathe in for four…

I tell him that it’s not fair. That we’re children. His children.

Hold for four…

I tell him I’ll make him regret it. I’ll get myself and Lita out of here and he’ll never see us again.

Breathe out for four…

And I tell him that when he dies, I’ll feel relieved. I’ll feel awful. I’ll miss him. I’ll wish I could show him that he was wrong.

Hold until your lungs burn… I can’t breathe… I can’t…

“Breathe, Eva.”

I pull in a gasp of air and then let it out again. I’m on the floor and my throat feels raw like I’ve just been screaming. I have been screaming. Through blurry tears, I see Beau kneeling in front of me. He squeezes my hand.

“Breathe,” he says again. “Just breathe.”

I do. I ground myself by squeezing Beau’s hand and listening for the HVAC above. I find my voice, “My name is Eva Lucero. I’m thirty-three years old. I’m a registered nurse at Toronto General Hospital. I have a sister named Carmelita. I live in York.”

I repeat and I breathe until I’m calm again.

Beau pulls me into a hug and lets me cry, whispering, “It’s okay, Eva, let it out.”

I tell myself that I’m not fine and that that’s okay.

#

It’s just as hot today and the sun feels good on my skin. The deep breaths I take in are muggy but grounding. I feel lighter than I have in a while. A pair of slippers shuffle slowly towards me.

“I hear you’re taking a leave, Eva. That’s good,” Beau announces and then hands me a box of pie. “Sometimes the satisfaction comes a little late or not at all or differently than we hoped for but sometimes we just gotta let that go. I think it’s cherry, which is fine, I suppose, it’s better than a fruit cup.”

I laugh, “Well, you won’t have to worry about those anymore, now that you’ve finally made it up the list.”

“Whole new ticker, whole new lease on life,” Beau sings. “Best part is, after I’m all stitched up, my kids are gonna come and get me out of here.”

“They got back to you?”

“Sure did. Baby steps but steps all the same.”

“I’m really happy for you, Beau,” and I mean it with all my heart.

A car pulls up to the side of the road and from the driver’s seat, my little sister Lita smiles at me. Beau gives her a wave.

“You did good by you and your sister when you shouldn’t have had to,” Beau tells me. “I know it ain’t the same thing coming from me but I heard you. I hear you.” He taps the box in my hands and then shuffles back inside.

I take one last deep breath in and then I let it go.

— — —