Chapter 35 Claire
Claire
When Claire woke, the sun was high in the sky. Her skin ached like she’d been roasted, and a peacock was staring her in the face.
“Ack!” Claire jerked back.
The peacock squawked back in equal surprise.
Claire scuttled backward, in case startled peacocks got aggressive like the geese in New York.
The peacock, though, just shook its head at her, like it was judging her an idiot before it stalked away.
Claire expected Matías to start laughing. But when she looked around the grass, he wasn’t there.
“Dammit!” she muttered. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but jet lag and sleep deprivation seemed to be ganging up on her this week.
Claire pressed her left palm to her mouth.
Of course, nothing happened.
Why did he show up sometimes and not others?
She tried a couple more times, but it clearly wasn’t working.
Her stomach growled. Her clothes were rumpled and grass-stained, and she was sure her breath smelled exactly like the thick, white, pasty bacterial colony that had grown in her mouth overnight.
And then she looked at the clock on her phone.
“Fuck!”
She had promised Soledad and Aracely that she would be at Matías’s bedside all morning while the family attended Carlos and Diego’s evento conmemorativo. She had sworn Matías would not be alone, that she would be in that chair.
And now it was well past noon, and they would be arriving at the hospital soon, if they weren’t already there.
Claire leaped up and ran.
—
When she reached the hospital ward, Claire exhaled in relief. The waiting room was empty of the de Leóns. They must still be at the evento conmemorativo.
Claire began to walk toward Matías’s room, past the nursing station.
“Disculpe,” a nurse behind the desk said.
“?Sí?” Claire didn’t recognize her.
“?A quién está buscando?”
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that more slowly?”
The nurse wrinkled her forehead, not understanding.
“Lo siento,” Claire said. “No entiendo. Más lento?” I’m sorry. I don’t understand. More slowly? That had been part of the “useful phrases” primer in the lessons she’d been studying this week in Matías’s room. Not that it would help if the response was still words Claire didn’t know.
“?A quién está visitando?” the nurse said, obligingly at half speed.
Ah, Claire could decipher that. It was a pretty basic grammatical construction.
Quién = who. Está = is/are. And then the action verb.
Who are you visiting?
“Matías de León,” Claire said.
“?Cómo se llama?”
“Mi nombre es Claire Walker.”
“?Y su relación con el paciente?”
“My relationship with Matías? I’m his girlfriend. Soy su novia.”
The nurse arched a brow at Claire, then shook her head. “No. Su novia ya está aquí.”
Su novia = his girlfriend. Ya = already. Está aquí = is here.
“What?” Claire said. “No, that’s— es imposible .” She pointed at herself. “ Yo soy su novia.” I am his girlfriend.
The nurse pointed at her visitor log.
On the first line for today, as soon as visiting hours began, the handwritten entry read:
08:00 Vega Castillo
As luck would have it, no sooner had she read the name than the doors to the ward opened behind Claire. Aracely walked in, followed by Soledad and the rest of the de León clan, all wearing black.
Seeing Claire at the nurses’ station, Soledad asked, “What’s going on? Is Matías okay?”
No no no no no. This was not happening.
She watched helplessly as Soledad, taking Claire’s disheveled state as an indicator of her son’s, rushed past everyone to Matías’s room.
Soledad flung open the door, took a step inside, then froze.
When she turned around, it was in furious slow-motion.
“What. Is. She. Doing. In. There?”
Implied but not spoken aloud was the other half of the question: And what are you doing out here?
Claire swallowed hard.
“What is my mom talking about?” Aracely said.
“Er…Vega…” Claire whispered.
Fire flashed in Aracely’s eyes. Behind her, Luis shook his head. Armando crossed himself.
Aracely grabbed Claire by the arm and dragged her across the ward to Matías’s doorway.
Vega sat huddled up next to Matías, stroking his matted hair. She blinked up at Claire, Aracely, and Soledad with red, swollen eyes.
“Estaba solo,” Vega said meekly. He was alone.
Guilt squeezed Claire’s insides. “I’m sorry.”
“Where were you?” Aracely spat. “You knew we were going to be gone this morning. You knew Matías would need someone by his side.”
“I messed up.”
“Again. You messed up again. Don’t you understand how important it is that you’re here for him? His friends, Leo and Facu—the ones who were in comas in the hospital in Valencia—guess what happened just half an hour ago? They woke up.”
Claire gasped. “They did?”
“Yes,” Aracely said. “At the exact same moment. Because they’re in love and they were in the same hospital room, and even when they were deeply unconscious, they were still together. I spoke to Leo’s sister; she said that just before the two of them woke, their heartbeats started to pulse in sync…”
Soledad wiped at her welling eyes.
“But,” Aracely said, “Matías doesn’t have that. The woman he actually wants, you, not her ”—she jabbed her finger in Vega’s direction—“seems unable to be here by his side. I can’t believe Matías told us you were reliable,” Aracely said, “that if we ever couldn’t reach him in New York or if there was an emergency or anything at all, we could call you and count on you. We were all so relieved back then, because I love my brother, but god knows he can lose himself from reality if he’s too into his work or whatever new hobby he’s discovered. We thought that he had finally found someone who could be his counterweight, to keep the balloon of his whimsy tied to the ground. But instead, it’s Vega who is here when he needs someone. And you’re not doing anything for him at all—”
“I am!” Claire shouted.
“Shh!” Soledad glared at her.
“I am!” Claire said more quietly. Tears spilled down her face. “I tried to explain…”
“Not that ghost bullshit again.”
“I’m telling the truth!”
Abuela Gloria pushed her way into the room. “?Qué está pasando?” What’s happening?
Soledad said something to her in rapid-fire Spanish.
“Get out, Claire,” Aracely said.
Claire gasped. “No. Please.”
“I mean it,” Aracely said. “And don’t come back until you get your shit together. We’re all suffering, Claire, but the rest of us still show up here. We’ve taken leave from our jobs. We sacrifice sleep. We don’t make excuses.”
Claire turned to plead with Soledad. “You have to understand…”
Soledad crossed her arms and turned away, facing the wall.
Abuela Gloria frowned, her eyes vanishing beneath her wrinkles.
“Go, Claire,” Aracely said.
Claire started to cry harder. She took a step toward Matías to say goodbye, but Aracely moved in her way.
The tears were so thick Claire couldn’t even see by the time she ran past the nursing station and hurled herself into the elevator.