Free The Wave by Walter Mosley Page A

could.
    “Who’s in charge of the operation?” I asked.
    “I don’t know anything else, Errol,” Lon said. “They just put me off whenever I go up to the desk.”
    I went up. They put me off, too.
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Porter,” a young Latina in a white uniform told me. “Your sister is very sick, and Dr. Valeria is operating on her now. We won’t know anything until she comes out of surgery. We might not know anything certain for a few days.”
    “What about the baby?” I asked.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “You’ll have to excuse me.”
    Lon and I waited until six-thirty. After the doctor had a brief conference with us, I called Nella.
    I told her what happened and then asked, “Could you go by my house and pick up a few of my boxes? I’m stuck at the hospital, waiting to see what’s happening. The key is in the iron lamp up over the left side of the door.”
    “Is she going to be all right?” Nella asked.
    “They say she has a pretty good chance, but they’re not sure about the baby. They removed her from Angie’s womb. She’s only two and a quarter pounds. They put her in an incubator.”
    “I’ll pick up your boxes, Errol. But after this, I t’ink you better t’ink about goin’ to church.”
    “I promise,” I said.
    I really meant it, too. My life up to the age of twenty-seven had gone off without a hitch, except for the death of my father. I’d gotten good grades at school and college. I’d married my high school sweetheart, fallen into a great job . . . Then all of a sudden things started going wrong.
    Maybe it was time to get into a fold.
    At 8:05, Dr. Valeria came out to meet with us for the second time.
    “She’s very sick,” the olive-skinned European said. “But she’s stable now. The bleeding has stopped, and the baby is breathing on life support. All we can do now is to give their bodies the chance to work their magic.”
    “Isn’t there some medicine?” Lon asked. “Something you can do?”
    The doctor shook his head. His wiry copper-colored hair shimmered as he moved.
    “No,” he said. “They are both very weak. We will keep them warm, keep them quiet and clean. Wait twenty-four hours and then we will see how to proceed.”
    Valeria told us that we wouldn’t be able to see Angie or the baby for at least forty-eight hours, so Lon went back to the waiting room, and I left for the street fair.
    I had shared the cost of the booth with Nella. It was a big one, costing four hundred and fifty dollars for the two days. Nella had all the materials. It looked pretty cool. Like a big tent with shelves and freestanding displays.
    Nella’s work was large. Handmade mythical animals designed with complex pastel patterns. She also made oversize stoneware platters that had been thrown and then reworked into large ovals and other, more complex shapes like whales and undulating rivers.
    Nella’s work took up most of the space, so she paid for most of it. My mugs were on a few shelves along the side.
    “How is your sister?” she asked me when I arrived.
    “Alive,” I said. “The doctors don’t know what will happen. They have her in the ICU for the next forty-eight hours, at least.”
    “And her baby?”
    “On life support, too.”
    Nella put her arms around me. I think she expected me to cry, but I couldn’t. I was just taking steps one after another. I couldn’t imagine anything happening to Angie. That just wasn’t a possibility.
    “She’s going to be fine,” I said. “Don’t you worry.”
    The words were dead on my tongue, but I don’t think Nella realized that.
    “Let’s get to work,” she said, putting away the pain she felt for me. “I already sold four of your ugly mugs.”
    “Really? Damn.”
    The day went along quite well. By two I’d sold over 130 mugs, and Nella had moved five platters. We’d made about the same amount of money, because Nella’s plates cost three hundred dollars each.
    Every hour I called the hospital, but Angelique’s