7. Sofia
7
SOFIA
L etting Diego stay at my home was a work in progress. He progressed, slowly but steadily. He rested on the couch and let his body heal. I tried my best to adjust to both the newness and weirdness of having a man in my house.
He wasn’t just a man, not in any sense that I’d asked him over. Diego hadn’t been invited.
No. I’d dragged him there. I carried him, grunting and waddling backward with him unconscious in my arms until he was in my house.
And I wasn’t warming up to his staying there for good.
As I clocked in at the clinic again, yawning because I just couldn’t sleep well last night, I rubbed my stomach and grimaced at the pangs there. It wasn’t hunger. I’d forced down a hurried breakfast like usual. This deep, gnawing sensation was uneasiness. Not quite anxiety, but something funky that kept me tense.
Diego had yet to recall any memories, and I knew it would take time. How much time, though? That was what kept me up late, worrying and wondering.
The longer that he rested on my couch, it was that much more time that someone could find out I was hiding him in my home. Every day and night that passed with his being there was another round of risking it all.
If someone found him there, I would have a lot of questions to answer, but most of all, I feared that the Cartel would come for him there.
What if they come to finish the job?
I went about my routine at the clinic, ignoring Pamela and Selena as I kept my hands busy. My mind worked in overdrive as well because I couldn’t stop thinking about what Diego had asked me last night when I brought him soup. Chewing too much aggravated his head, it seemed, and soup was easier to make for me, anyway, easy to make a lot of it and store for leftovers.
Last night, he tried to puzzle out something I couldn’t answer.
“Who could have done this?” he’d wondered aloud.
When he looked at me and I realized he was asking me, not merely musing about it, I replied honestly. “I don’t know, but I do know the Cartel is the usual culprit for most violence around here.” And I know that firsthand.
He didn’t react one way or the other. He just shrugged. “True. But I don’t know…” A deep sigh left his lips. “I don’t know anything.”
It was my first guess, though, that if anyone had attacked a doctor near the hospital, it would be someone from the notorious crime family that ruled here.
Having a target of the Cartel in my home, near Ramon, bothered me, but I felt like I’d gotten myself into this situation out of goodness. I wouldn’t have been proud of myself if I’d left Diego to die in that alley, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if someone found out Diego was there and came to handle their unfinished business.
Ramon was adapting as well as I imagined he could. While he was naturally quiet, preferring to observe before acting or speaking up, he had to be confused. He’d heard me tell Diego the same story over and over and over again. I wasn’t lying when I explained how I’d found him. I had no reason to lie. I couldn’t speak up about my fears of the Cartel and give him the story about how I had been traumatized by them. I had yet to find the courage to tell anyone about that horrendous time of my life.
I’d noticed that Diego wasn’t bothered when Ramon was near, and he seemed to respect my son for helping out. He gave him water and food. I smiled in the background when I witnessed him leaving his little magazines for the man.
When I was at work, Ramon was at school or with Se?ora Vasquez, like usual. I couldn’t let the older woman wonder why Ramon was home “alone”, and I couldn’t trust her enough to tell her about Diego. Regardless, Diego was still a risk.
I trusted him when he was weak and dizzy and sleeping most of the time. Yet, I hadn’t deluded myself into thinking he couldn’t be a threat. I felt his taut skin. I noticed all those muscles. He was a big man, taller and stronger than me, and if he wanted to turn on me and Ramon when he was back to his full strength, I would be screwed.
Still can’t trust him.
It wasn’t just because he was a stranger. It wasn’t only because he was clueless about his identity and therefore unstable in some way. It was because I couldn’t trust any man. And that was the biggest reason I hadn’t given Ramon permission to get any closer to a man who might be gone the next minute.
Because he will be, right? It felt like a massive ticking bomb, a waiting game for when his memories would return. Once—and if—they did, he’d be out of my home and going back to whatever life he had before he was struck unconscious near the hospital.
If he never regained his memory…
Well, I’m sure he’ll still want to leave.
“Sofia.”
I jumped a bit at Pamela looking at me. Rubbing the back of my neck at the embarrassment of her catching me distracted, I raised my brows. “Yeah?”
She smiled and huffed a laugh. “You’ve sure got your head in the clouds, huh?”
I shrugged, flipping through the paperwork I was dealing with. Never mind the fact that I’d reread that line five times now and still hadn’t processed what it said.
“You’ve been distracted all day. I stood here trying to get your attention and saying your name for like a whole minute.”
“Sorry,” I replied, closing the papers to that chart. “Just busy… With Christmas coming and all.” I smiled to make myself sound and look believable. “I’ve been trying to think up what games Ramon and I will do for Aguinaldos.”
She smiled and nodded, also a fan of the nine nights of games and activities most families celebrated in the lead-up to Christmas Eve.
“And tonight is Noche de las Velitas!”
I smiled back, glad she was distracted from nagging me about why I was so distracted.
“You’ll put your candles out tonight?”
“Of course.” If I’m home on time… Ramon loved seeing all the candles and lanterns we put out to celebrate the coming of Christmas on this traditional night.
“Did you need something?” I asked, certain she hadn’t been desperate to talk about the holiday festivities all Colombians enjoyed.
“Yeah. I’m going to run to the hospital for more donations,” she said, arching a brow, likely remembering how much of a fuss I put up at having to go a week and a half ago. “I want one of those fancy coffees from the café there.” She giggled as she handed me papers. “Can you wrap up these discharge docs while I’m out?”
I nodded, taking the papers and exhaling with relief. I didn’t have to go back to the hospital. I dreaded the chance that I would ever have to, but more so now because of what had happened on my last trip there, finding Diego.
I carried on with work, but still, my mind was full of thoughts, questions, and opinions about Diego.
It hadn’t been long, but I was already proud of his recovery. He seemed to improve every day, and it alleviated my worries about a brain bleed or anything more serious.
More serious? I grimaced. As if selective amnesia isn’t serious enough.
I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d lower his guard a little more so I could try to ask him about what he thought happened to him. Like I told Ramon, I believed it was best not to stress Diego out. Asking him about the night that he’d lost his memory could trigger panic and make him more frustrated. Of course, I would be gentle and not interrogate him, but so far, I lacked the bravery to initiate a conversation about that night.
The last thing I wanted to do was overwhelm him in any way.
Would talking about the little he remembers of his past trigger a memory to spark?
I Googled it over my lunch break, and then later, in between my tasks, I browsed some more about how to handle the recovery period of a patient with amnesia.
“Sofia!”
I once again jolted at the sound of Pamela saying my name. Cringing and embarrassed to be caught off-guard again, I gave her a sheepish look.
“You are so distracted. What is with you, girl?” She walked up close to me, taking a paper out of the stack I had been carrying to the front desk.
“Nothing.”
That was the worst thing I could’ve said. She grinned, nodding at me like she was on to my secret. “Ah… I know what that means. I know why you’re so distracted.”
Nope. She couldn’t. In a million years, she wouldn’t be able to guess that on Alboradas, I’d been too soft and na?ve and brought home an unconscious and beaten doctor I’d encountered lying in the alley.
“You’ve found a man, huh?” She waggled her brows, laughing and teasing.
I shook my head and walked away, knowing better than to engage in this conversation and answer her at all. It’d only feed her insistence that she was on to me, that she had to be right.
Technically, she was right. I had found a man. I really, truly had stumbled upon Diego.
But she also couldn’t have been further from the truth. I hadn’t found him in the sense that I was searching for a boyfriend or lover.
Because there was no way in hell I’d be able to get to that specific and dangerous stage of trusting a man again. Not with my heart, body, or soul.