Chapter 9 Claire
Claire
The hospital was thick with beeping and the smell of antiseptic, with the padded footsteps of doctors in sterile shoe covers and the fog of patients’ worry and families’ fear. Claire’s chest seized up as soon as she stepped inside.
When her parents had been hit by the big rig, they had died on impact. Claire hadn’t even gotten to see them in the hospital, because they’d never had a chance. She used to wish that she’d had the opportunity to at least say goodbye, but now that she was here in that situation, she didn’t know if it was better or worse—getting the bad news all in one blow or having it slowly trickle like water torture, not knowing how or when it would end.
Claire followed Aracely and Luis through the corridors, past signs in Spanish she couldn’t read and rooms full of the heavy burden of waiting. There were halls and halls of patient rooms, and every so often, a nurse’s station. It felt like they were walking in slow motion through Dante’s rings of hell; the journey was interminable. In actuality, it was only three floors and four wards they had to cross before reaching Matías’s.
As soon as she, Aracely, and Luis came through the double doors, the de Leóns descended on Claire. All of the extended family lived in Madrid, and every last one of them was here in the hospital. They gathered around Claire in a collective hug, talking all at once in a storm of Spanish.
“Ay, pobrecita.”
“Claire, cielo…”
“He estado muy preocupado para Matías, pero ahora, estás aquí y espero que…”
She was helpless, uncomprehending in the torrent of their emotion. Why hadn’t she made it more of a priority to learn his family’s language?
But Claire and Matías had been together for less than a year. She hadn’t had enough time—to study Spanish. To meet his family properly. To sort through her own baggage enough to decide if she really wanted to marry him. If their connection was real, or just an illusion.
A woman who looked identical to Aracely but with more wrinkles put her hands on Claire’s cheeks. It was Soledad, Matías’s mother.
“ Mi corazón ”—dear heart; that was one phrase Claire knew from Matías—“You are strong. You can do this.”
“M-may I see him?” Claire asked, her voice barely audible.
“He is resting,” one of the many cousins said in English this time.
“The nurse said no visitors,” another said.
The denial was too much. Claire’s knees gave out. She almost hit the floor, but Luis caught her arms.
“I don’t care about the nurse’s rules ,” Soledad said. “Claire is no normal ‘visitor.’ Va a ser la esposa de Matías .”
Claire had enough Spanish to understand—She is going to be Matías’s wife.
So he had told them his plans to propose, although they didn’t seem aware that Claire knew. Otherwise, Soledad wouldn’t have said that part in Spanish to keep it secret.
But now Claire didn’t know if Matías would live long enough for her to become his wife, regardless of her own feelings on the matter.
She must have let out a whimper, because Aracely came over and pulled her in for another hug.
Soledad marched over to the nurse’s station and spoke quietly to them, gesturing every so often at Claire.
A minute later, Claire was standing outside Matías’s closed door.
Afraid to open it.
“ Ve . Go,” Soledad said gently. “Matías needs you.”
—
Claire didn’t know someone could have so many IVs and tubes and casts and bandages on him. After the accident, emergency surgery had been performed to stop internal bleeding, and now Matías was hooked up to nine different monitors—one to measure his breathing, another machine keeping track of his heart rate, a bank of panels administering half a dozen medications. There was a feeding tube and a catheter. What little of his skin that was visible was swollen and covered in bruises so deeply purple they were nearly black. They’d shaved part of his head to get access to his skull.
“Oh, Matías.” Any armor Claire might have still had on now tumbled to the hospital room floor, and she collapsed by the side of his bed and wept. “Please don’t die. Please hold on. I’m here…Can you hear me? I’m here.”
She couldn’t even hold his hand, because it was covered with tape and wires and an IV. There was no part of him she could touch—not his hair under the head brace or his battered cheek crisscrossed with scrapes or that muscled part of his neck that she liked to tuck herself into when she was scared or stressed.
What if he never woke up?
What if he did, but he was permanently broken? If he couldn’t paint, if he couldn’t play in his weekend volleyball league or go scuba diving with his friends? If he couldn’t take part in all his hobbies—and the life —that he loved…how would he survive?
And what if he did recover, but he held it against Claire for not coming to Spain with him in the first place? She knew it was irrational, that he couldn’t really blame her for the boat accident or the timing of the merger.
But she also couldn’t help thinking it was always somehow her fault. Like with her parents…What if she had gone out for a movie with them that night? Then they would have been in the theater with her and not where the eighteen-wheeler truck jackknifed…
If Claire had come to Spain with Matías, he would not have gone off on risky adventures with his friends. He would not have ended up on a boat at all, because waves made Claire seasick. And then Matías and Facu and Leo would be okay right now, and Diego and Carlos would still be alive, and, and, and…
The tears flowed faster now.
“I don’t want to do this without you, Matías. Come back to me, okay? Please?”
The oxygen cannula hissed. The panel of monitors beeped. Nothing changed.
“I love you, Matías. Come back. I’ll be waiting.”