Under One Sky

Chapter 42

42

NOVEMBER 2018, XALAPA, MEXICO

At his art desk at La Voz , Hector tries to sketch but is lost for inspiration. He’s meant to be drawing a cartoon for tomorrow’s paper but can’t think of anything funny to say about the twenty-five million pesos found in a suitcase on the governor’s private jet. He’s all out of ideas. He puts on his headphones to switch off from the background noise of fingers hammering on keyboards; telephones ringing; discussions between editors.

Play.

Depeche Mode’s ‘Poison Heart’ comes on shuffle. Hector flips to the back of his sketchbook, to the drawings of wolves baying for each other’s blood, drool hanging from their teeth. He starts to work on one while he waits for inspiration, adding detail to a snarling and sweaty canine nose.

I can’t end it and walk away.

As he shades the darkness of a wet nostril, Hector feels a finger tapping the fingertip igniting a flame on his arm and looks around suddenly. His art director Oscar is standing over him with a sympathetic face. Everyone’s been looking at Hector like this lately. Their heads slightly cocked to one side while they talk to him.

Hector slides his headphones down and around his neck. ‘How’s tomorrow coming along, Hector?’

‘Nearly there,’ he lies. ‘I’ll file it by 4p.m.’

‘I’d like to see it first,’ Oscar says with a kindly smile, his white shirt tinged cream under the armpits.

‘Sure thing, jefe . Give me two hours.’ Hector looks up and Oscar is reassured by his wide brown eyes. He smiles and walks away down the corridor. Hector’s never failed to deliver.

He replaces his headphones and scrolls through his phone to find a different song. A beep rings in his ear. A quick pulse of hope. Hector thinks of Cecilie, then pushes the image of her love heart-shaped face in a circle to the back of his mind.

Not now.

As desperate as he is to talk to her, to see her, to feel her, Hector can’t face Cecilie right now. How can he explain his anguish to her? How can he ask her to wait when he doesn’t know how long for? Until Pilar wakes up from her coma, his plan – his treacherous plan – has to be buried, and he doesn’t know how to say it. He can’t leave his wife dying in the hospital.

As much as he hopes the message is from Cecilie, he’s relieved to see it isn’t.

It’s from Abuelo, and a smile appears on the corner of Hector’s lips. He already knows how long old thumbs spent typing a simple twelve-character message.

She woke up.

Pilar’s weak smile strengthens when Hector walks into the room .

‘Hey,’ says a frail and husky voice.

‘Hey, you. How are you feeling?’ Hector walks over to the bed and sits by her knees. He rubs Pilar’s shoulder tenderly and then withdraws. He thinks of how he found her covered in vomit, shit and semen, and walks around to the low wooden chair on the other side of the bed. His chair, although Pilar doesn’t know how well Hector knows the view from it. He sits down and studies Pilar’s pale and haughty face as she tries not to make eye contact, guilt driving her to look at the plate on the little table in front of her. Propped up in a hospital gown, without a jot of make-up on, she looks like a fragile lamb. Black hair and white skin. Frail, meek and sheepish.

She nibbles on some corn from her plate. ‘Did you tell my parents?’

‘No.’

Hector doesn’t tell Pilar how close she came to dying. If she had died from choking on her own vomit that night, her parents wouldn’t have made it to Mexico in time anyway. There was a time for calling them, and it wasn’t then. They would have died with shame had they known what their respectable Catholic daughter was capable of. In the days after, as Pilar lay in a coma, Hector battled with his conscience, but knew she would rather Mari-Carmen and Leonel Cabrera didn’t know at all. It’s not like they missed Pilar’s calls; she’d been communicating less and less, since she was too ashamed to let them know she’d been fired.

‘How long have I been under? The doctor said it was, like, three weeks.’

‘Twenty-two days.’

Pilar looks shocked, as if she thought the doctors were playing a trick on her.

‘Your mother did call, once. Left a message on the apartment phone to see if you wanted to go home for Los Reyes. They said they’d pay for your flights. I didn’t call them back.’

Hector doesn’t say that Mari-Carmen hadn’t mentioned him in their family Christmas plan.

‘Well, they don’t need to know now. The doctor said I’m going to be OK.’ Pilar’s cheeks are so sunken, her olive Moorish skin so pale, that her teeth look large and yellow.

Hector circles his mouth with his thumb and forefinger while he considers his words.

‘I just spoke to Dr Fuentes outside…’ His brow furrows, and his eyes look troubled. ‘You ought to make a full recovery, but your liver is weak. You’ve had hepatitis and jaundice, as well as the overdose… You have to change your life, you understand?’

‘He already spoke to me, Hector.’ He can hear the graveness in Pilar’s gravelly voice. ‘He said I was seconds from death, that I’m lucky not to have brain damage. He said your quick thinking saved me. You saved me.’

‘You’re my wife, Pilar, what else was I going to do?’

Pilar’s eyes well up and she looks at her plate on the thin table and nods. Hector sees shame in her face for the first time.

‘I guess I’m just not as strong as you, Hector. My privileged life made me soft, my indulgence made me weak.’

‘Don’t be silly, baby…’

‘It’s true. You could see what was happening and I couldn’t. I’m weak and I’m toxic.’

‘No, you’re not. We can clean all this up. If I managed it, you can.’

‘I am toxic. You don’t know the depths of my dark thoughts. You have experienced so much more hardship than I have and you rose above every shit thing thrown your way. I am wretched, and I don’t deserve you. I’m weak.’

‘You’re strong enough, Pilar. ’

‘You think I’m strong enough to change? I want to change.’

‘I’ll help you.’

Hector rubs his frail wife’s shoulder and smiles.

‘I want to go home,’ Pilar says.

‘I’ll take you home, as soon as Dr Fuentes says you’re ready. I suspect you’ll need a few more days here, but I’ll get you out and I’ll get you any help you need to recover fully, to live clean.’

‘No, I want to go home home. To Spain. I can’t be here any more. I’m too ashamed.’

Hector looks at Pilar, tiny and remorseful, although she still can’t bring herself to say the word sorry to him.

‘Come with me, Hector. Come with me to Spain. We’ll start afresh.’