Julia turns her attention back to Mr. Garcia and begins suturing the new titanium valve into place. Hopefully, this will prevent any more cardiac arrests like the one Mr. Garcia experienced last Wednesday night, when he dropped to the floor in the middle of restaurant service of his family-owned pizzeria, and died for just over five minutes until paramedics managed to revive him with defibrators. A replacement valve combined with Mr. Garcia’s relatively young age of fifty-five means the prognosis is good. With a loving wife, five daughters, eleven grandchildren, and two great grandchildren on the way, Mr. Garcia has a lot to look forward to, and if Julia has anything to do with it, he’ll live to a grand old age to experience it all.
Julia finishes up and begins the delicate procedure of removing Mr. Garcia from the heart-lung machine. At precisely 2:05 p.m., Mr. Garcia’s heart starts beating on its own. Julia shares a high five with Billy Mathers and then goes to inform Mrs. Garcia and her five daughters about the good news.
*
Forty-five minutes later, Julia emerges from the hospital and heads for the coffee cart over in Hansen Square, a pretty park with ginkgo trees and a man-made lake not too far from the hospital. When she gets there, she sees Toni in the distance chatting with a woman with a little shih tzu–Maltese cross. Typical Toni. Engaging a stranger in conversation.
Toni throws back her head and lets out a laugh. Julia smiles. It is good to see her sister happy after everything she’s been through. It was actually astonishing that Toni had made such a fantastic recovery these past four months, especially given how close she came to losing her life. After the rescue, Toni had undergone a decompressive craniectomy, a procedure where a portion of her skull was removed to relieve pressure on the brain. Thankfully, Toni responded well and within ten days the swelling had ceased. Now, in less than two weeks, Toni was due to undergo a second surgery to reinstate the bone flap.
Toni spots Julia and waves. She gives the dog one final pat and heads Julia’s way.
“Hey, sis,” she says, brightly.
“How have you been?” says Julia. “Any headaches?”
Toni gives her a look. “Stop it. Sister. Surgeon. Two separate things, remember?”
Julia holds up her hands. “Sorry. Force of habit.”
Toni smiles. “I’m doing swell.”
“Very funny.”
“I aim to please.” Toni chins-nods toward the coffee cart. “Shall we? I’m dying here.”
They get their coffee to go, short black for Julia, tall latte with a shot of caramel and vanilla for Toni.
It’s a glorious, crisp autumn day so they decide to stroll through the park, taking the pathway bordering the lake.
Julia blows on her coffee as she walks. “Nervous about the surgery?”
Toni shakes her head. “It’ll be a piece of cake.”
“You’re still going to stay with me the week after for your recovery, right?”
“If you’re sure.”
“Of course I’m sure.”
Toni smiles. “Then I’d love to, sis. Thank you.”
They reach a wooden park bench overlooking the lake and take a seat.
“It’s nice here,” says Toni, gazing out at the water. “Did I ever tell you about the first time I saw the Mekong? I was traveling from North Thailand to Laos so I decided to take the river border crossing instead of going overland. I always knew the Mekong was brown from photos, but in real life, it’s really brown, and I mean really, really brown, like chocolate milk brown. And it has this pearly tone to it. It’s strangely beautiful. By the way, that’s when I knew the movie Apocalypse Now was a total joke because the river in that movie was not brown at all. I did some Googling and found out the entire movie was shot in the Philippines. Did you know Laurence Fishburne was in it? He was just a kid, only twelve years old, I think. Now there’s a useless piece of information for you. And apparently Marlon Brando was so fat that Francis Ford Coppola only ever wanted to film him at night, and even then, he only did close-ups of Brando’s face.” Toni laughs out loud. “That’s pretty rough, isn’t it? No wonder the guy had self-esteem issues. So the night before I’m due to go into Laos, I get to this hostel. At first, I think it isn’t so bad, it looks right over Mekong, you can see locals fishing with nets, it has a cabana with a string of colored lights.” Toni shrugs. “You get the picture. Then they show me to my room. It’s a shared room with one other person. An old lady from Australia. She was actually pretty decent. She did Tai Chi every morning and was traveling around the world on her own after her husband passed away. Anyway, that’s when I notice the smell. The room stinks of chemicals—I’m talking instant headache territory here, sis. They said it was for hygiene reasons but wouldn’t elaborate. Needless to say, I wasn’t crazy about it and asked if they could put me somewhere else, but they tell me nothing else is available—so I’ve got no choice, I’ve got to sleep in this place with this terrible smell and hope to God I don’t die of chemical poisoning. Somehow I manage to fall asleep, but in the middle of the night, I wake up in shock when I feel something run over my chest. I leap out of bed, and the old lady’s like, what’s the matter with you? ‘There’s cockroaches running over me,’ I tell her. ‘It’s just the malaria tablets,’ she says. ‘They make you hallucinate.’” Toni looks at Julia. “I’m telling you, sis, I wasn’t imagining anything. I could
