“He said something about an anticoagulant.”
“Uh-huh. Well, streptokinase isn’t the newest drug on the market, but it’s okay if used properly. Which it wasn’t.
“Your mom was already hemorrhaging. There was no place for all that blood to go, and that’s why she died, Yuki. I’m so, so sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
Yuki felt the news like a gut-punch.
My God, Keiko had been bleeding into her brain for hours—and no one even noticed?
What the hell was going on in that hospital?
Why had her mother had the stroke at all?
“Yuki? Yuki? Are you still there?”
“I’m okay. . . .”
Yuki finished up with Claire; then she dropped the phone into its cradle. She went into the bathroom and threw up in the toilet. She took off her clothes and got into her mother’s pink-and-green shower stall, stood for a long time sobbing, pressing her head against the wall as the hot water streamed down her body. She decided what she needed to do next.
A half hour later, wearing one of her mother’s outfits—black pants with a stretch waistband and a red velour top—Yuki drove to the 800 block of Bryant Street. She parked in front of a bail bondsman’s office across from the Hall of Justice.
Yuki entered the gray granite building, stopping at the security desk to give her name. She was on a mission now; she’d made up her mind; there was no turning back.
She took the elevator to the third floor and the Southern Division of the SFPD.
Lindsay was waiting when she got there. She put her arm around Yuki’s shoulders and walked her back to her small glass-enclosed office.
Yuki took the desk chair across from Lindsay. Her face felt stiff, and her throat was tight. Lindsay was peering at her with concern. What a good friend she was, Yuki thought. I shouldn’t do this to her. But I have to.
“I want to file charges against Municipal,” Yuki said. “Someone at that damn hospital murdered my mother.”
Chapter 41
COLMA, CALIFORNIA, IS CALLED the City of the Dead; located five miles south of San Francisco, it’s our city’s graveyard. With more than a million people buried in its neatly manicured cemeteries, it’s the only place in America where the dead outnumber the living, upward of twelve to one.
My mom was here at Cypress Lawn Cemetery, and now Yuki’s mom would be here, too.
That Saturday, about seventy of us were grouped under a tent at Keiko’s graveside, a breeze riffling the white canvas panels, twisting the thin plume of smoke coming from the incense pot next to the portrait of Yuki’s parents, Bruno and Keiko Castellano.
Yuki stood with her arm around a small Japanese man in a dusty black suit. This was Keiko’s twin brother, Jack. He choked out a few words in halting, broken English: “My sister was precious woman. Thank you for . . . bringing honor to my family.”
Yuki hugged her uncle. A smile crossed her tired face as she began to speak about her mother.
“My mom liked to say that when she came to San Francisco she picked out the important landmarks right away. The Golden Gate Bridge, Saks, I. Magnin, Gump’s, and Nordstrom. Not necessarily in that order.”
Warm laughter rose up as Yuki brought images of Keiko to life.
“I used to go shopping with her after school and race around the clothing racks. She would say, ‘Yuki-eh, you must learn to be a lady.’
“I don’t think I ever quite learned to do that.” Yuki laughed. “I liked my music loud. My skirts short—I know, Mommy, even this one is too short! She wanted me to marry a lawyer—instead I became one.
“My life isn’t what she dreamed for me, but she always gave me her love, her support . . . her everything.
“We were a team, Mom and me. Best friends, always. As I stand here with my uncle, I cannot imagine my world without her. Mommy, I will love you and miss you forever.”
Yuki lowered her head, her lips trembling. Then she and her uncle turned so that they faced Keiko’s coffin.
Pressing a bracelet of stone beads between her palms, Yuki held her hands in front of her face. She and her uncle Jack chanted a Japanese prayer that swelled as the voices of Keiko’s friends and family joined in.