“I’m so sorry, I’ve killed our baby,” Luna sobbed in his arms.
“Oh, my darling,” Cayetano sighed, unable to stop his own tears. “Don’t say that. Never say that again.”
“It was what you wanted. I lost what you wanted.”
“Luna, I wished for you to survive.”
“But I’ve lost the baby, our Christmas baby.”
Cayetano kept his eyes closed as he rested his face against Luna’s soft helmet. “I guess it’s not our time.”
“When will it be? Why do things keep going wrong?”
“Do you want to go home?”
“No, I don’t. What if I have a miscarriage at home? I don’t want the boys to see me, screaming in pain, bleeding out a dead child. I can’t imagine anything more awful. Some people might like the choice, but that’s not an option, not for me, not for my boys.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to be a parent. Go home and take care of the boys. I want the surgical miscarriage.”
Cayetano leaned away just enough to look Luna in the eye. She looked red and blotchy from her grief. “Sweetheart, we found out the baby is gone just minutes ago. Are you sure you can make the decision now?”
“I just want it out. I want my body back; I’ve already lost so much of myself. I don’t want to be conscious when they take the baby from me.”
“There is no way I’m going home and leaving you here alone.”
“But the boys…”
“Luna, stop fighting everyone. We’re all here to help you.”
Luna nodded, and Cayetano guided her across the room to the leather couch that sat in the sun. She seemed fragile as she sat against Cayetano. All he wanted was to burst into tears again, but the confusion of the whole scenario stopped the grief for someone he had never met.
“Are you sure, Luna? You don’t have to decide anything now.”
“Why prolong the pain? It’s bad enough that today is supposed to be our wedding day.”
“I’ll call Sofía and tell her that she and Darren need to watch the kids all day.”
“That will make her very happy.”
“What should I tell Sofía?”
“The truth. She has lost a child, she will understand. But tell her not to tell the boys. That’s my own personal tragedy to play out.”
45
Valencia, España ~ Julio de 2010
It’s a credit to her strength.
Doctor Aziza’s words echoed in Cayetano’s mind as he stood outside the masía at Escondrijo. It’s a credit to her strength. Some women can take weeks to be ready to end their pregnancy. Some women don’t have the courage to have surgery. Many women are too emotional to cope with the situation. If the doctor thought Luna was coping with her miscarriage, then he wasn’t a very capable doctor.
Luna stayed overnight at the hospital after requiring a general anesthetic to have the baby removed. A boy, they said. Malformed limbs, they said. Baby never had a chance. Chances were that the accident had saved the couple from Luna giving birth to a child who would die within days. Sofía had bawled on the phone when Cayetano told her to care for the boys. But she didn’t cry half as much as Cayetano did, alone in a cold hospital hallway. Luna got wheeled away, unconscious, to have her pregnancy removed from her damaged body. Cayetano couldn’t be sure who he grieved for; a person he would never meet, or the man he would have been if the baby had lived.
“Are you okay, Papá?”
Cayetano turned to see Enzo behind him, with his bright smile. His ice-blue eyes were so big they were befitting of a Disney character. Cayetano wished he could smile like that. Luna did, a facade for her boys. Cayetano needed to learn that trick. “I’m fine,” he lied. Cayetano dug the sharp edges of the shovel he held into the hard ground and leaned on it. “Where is your brother?”
“Here I am!” Giacomo cried as he ran over from the car, parked around the back of the house. He carried a basket full of petals. “What do you want?”
“Nothing, my boy, just making sure you’re safe.”
“I don’t like it here,” Giacomo remarked.
“Me neither,” Enzo said and folded his arms over his white shirt. Cayetano had tried to iron a decent shirt for them each, but they managed to wrinkle them just by taking them off the coat hanger. “This place tried to kill my Mummy.”
“And now the baby is dead,” Giacomo said. “That’s very unfair.”
Cayetano wished he had the safety of youth. The boys sat and listened to Luna tell them the doctor found a baby in her tummy, but he had died when she fell off the mountain. The enormity of the situation seemed lost on Giacomo and Enzo, despite how bright they were. It was a protection that the adults around them didn’t have.
“Where’s Mummy? Is she safe by herself?” Enzo asked.
Cayetano turned in the direction the front door to the old house, but Luna wasn’t there. She had gone inside for a moment, and Cayetano knew it was to cry by herself, away from the boys. While Cayetano carried a pain for their lost baby, Luna carried that too, plus the immense weight of guilt. There wasn’t a thing Cayetano could do or say to change that.
Luna appeared in the doorway of the house and hoped her face didn’t look too red. She had done something she knew she shouldn’t have; she had looked in the box. After the surgery, her baby, no longer an embryo but a fully formed person, was removed intact and checked for clues about the whole sorry situation. Her son, just seven centimetres in length, was a sight she didn’t feel she wanted to face. In the room where Alejandro died at Escondrijo, Luna took her last chance to open the box, and peeked in to see her baby. There he lay, pink, with opaque, invisible skin and little dark dots for eyes. She took the monumental step of touching what would have been a hand, and burst into tears. That poor little boy, one of nature’s true marvels, had slipped away, and Luna hadn’t even noticed. That was the worst part. The baby died inside her, and she hadn’t even noticed.
Luna looked up from the wooden box as she stood in the doorway. With the view of the Turia plans behind them, Cayetano, Giacomo and Enzo waited for her. Now they had to bury their son and brother.
Luna smiled as Enzo turned to see his mother, and he smiled back. From the moment Luna got back from the hospital, she had smiled and talked of a baby taken by angels, so the boys wouldn’t be confused or upset. She wanted to punch something, but with an arm out of her cast for only a day, that wasn’t an option. Her arm looked like a skinny sick version of itself. The anger had to be channelled into something useful.
Cayetano also turned to see Luna. She knew the pain was different for him. Luna took solace in the fact that she had two beautiful healthy boys, and Cayetano didn’t. This could have been their only chance to have a child, and it was over before it began.
“Shall we bury our baby?” she asked, and stepped down off the concrete floor of the house onto the dirt.
Cayetano dashed over and took Luna’s hand; the wheelchair couldn’t handle the uneven surface of Escondrijo, and Luna refused to wear her helmet and neck brace for her baby’s funeral. Every time she moved away from him, Cayetano worried she would fall and hurt herself.
“Where do you want to bury him?” he asked.
“He’s your baby, too.”
“Yeah, you’re on our team, aren’t you?” Giacomo asked.
“Team?” Cayetano replied.
“Yeah, we were a team of three,” Enzo said. “Baby can be on our team, too. If you join our team, that will make five.”
“Team Montgomery,” Luna said with a smile.
“I would like to be on your team if you’ll have me,” Cayetano replied.
Enzo took his hand. “If you join the team, you can’t leave.”
“I have no intention of leaving ever again.”
“Is burying the baby like burying Daddy?” Giacomo asked.
Cayetano felt a pain in his chest; no child should have to ask that question.
Luna nodded, and Cayetano watched
her swallow hard while she tried not to cry.
“Why do people keep dying?” Enzo asked.
Luna just shrugged. “I don’t know. All we can do is live a little bit extra, enjoy everything a little more, for all the people who missed out.”
“Baby should be able to see the beautiful view here,” Enzo said.
“That’s a good point,” Luna told her son. “He needs to be by the almond trees, so he has a little bit of shade.”
The foursome headed over to the almond trees, which seemed rather healthy despite their neglect since Alejandro passed away in the winter. Before his death, Alejandro had pointed out the exact spots where both Cayetano Ortega and Sofía Pérez were buried, a short distance from one another. That left a good spot for Alejandro to be buried with his wife, when Paco was ready. Baby Beltrán could rest there, too. Luna pointed out a spot for Cayetano and stood back with the children while he dug. Cayetano seemed as if he wanted to bury the box so deep that Luna needed to stop him before he dug a hole all the way to New Zealand. The hole was so deep, only Cayetano could put the box into the earth; Luna couldn’t even reach.
“Would you like to read your poem, boys?” Luna asked.
Enzo pulled his piece of paper from his little pocket and rolled it open. “Now?”
“Right now.”
Enzo paused while his brother pulled his paper out and then looked at the box in the hole. “The world may never notice if a flower doesn’t bloom, even pause to wonder if the petals fall too soon.”
“But every life that ever forms, or ever comes to be, touches the world in some small way for all eternity,” Giacomo added.
“When did you prepare this?” Cayetano asked.
“We found it online this morning, while you were asleep,” Enzo replied. “Is it okay?”
“Perfect,” Luna replied.
“No tengo nada que decir,” Cayetano mumbled.
“I have nothing to say, either. There is nothing to be said.”
“I don’t know how to grieve for someone I never met. I feel like I shouldn’t grieve, as if I’m doing something wrong for being this upset.”
“Would you like to put the flowers in now, boys?” Luna asked.
Cayetano watched the boys sprinkle the petals in the hole and put his arm around Luna. “Is it wrong to grieve for who we would have been, if we had a baby?”
“Not in the least. We have lost a future for the baby, and all of us, too.”
“Tal vez mi tiempo pareció muy breve, no alargarla ahora con dolor innecesario. Alza tu corazón y compartirlo conmigo, Dios quería que yo ahora, él me ha hecho libre,” Cayetano recited.
“What does that mean?” Enzo asked.
“It’s a hymn. Perhaps my time seemed very brief, do not lengthen it now with unnecessary grief. Lift up your heart and share it with me, God wanted me now, he has set me free,” Luna repeated.
“That’s nice,” Giacomo said, his eyes still on the pint-sized coffin.
“I have something to say,” Luna said and looked up at Cayetano. “Will you marry me?”
“I think we have established that.”
“No, marry me now, accident or no accident. Wheelchair or no wheelchair. We should be on our honeymoon right now. Let’s not waste any more time. Let’s not let this accident stop this team from becoming official.”
“We still get to be a family,” Enzo said.
“Yes, absolutely,” Cayetano replied. “As soon as you’re ready, preciosa.”
“Does the baby have a name?” Giacomo asked.
“Would you like to pick one?” Luna asked and leaned against Cayetano. Exhaustion had already set into her.
“Gorka,” Giacomo and Enzo said in unison.
Luna and Cayetano both laughed in spite of the situation. “Great, that is going to stick,” Luna said.
“A solid Basque name,” Cayetano added. “Gorka Beltrán Montgomery.”
“Poor child,” Luna said as she wiped her eyes.
“Do we get Beltrán added to our name after the wedding?” Giacomo asked.
“I will be Luna Montgomery de Beltrán, if I choose to add my married name.”
“Cool, can we have that too?” Enzo asked.
“You can have anything you want,” Cayetano replied.
“A new baby?”
“Maybe a baby,” Luna said.
“It rhymes, so it must come true.”
Cayetano smiled again, and let Luna go, to bury his son. He already knew there would be no more children in Luna’s future. And it didn’t bother him at all.
46
Madrid, España ~ Julio de 2010
“Are you sure Luna is all right?”
Cayetano glanced at his mother and sighed. He stood at the counter in Rebelión’s sprawling kitchen and tapped his knuckles against the white marble counter-top. “No, Mamá, she’s not all right.”
Inés gestured through the wide bi-fold doors that opened out onto the balcony, where Luna sat in her wheelchair, alone, under a large umbrella. “She should come inside; it’s too hot out there.”
“Luna likes the heat. She likes the peace.”
“But she is just sitting there, looking so glum.”
“She lost a baby, Mamá. Sitting in the living room, listening to you and Mamí gossip about Gloria at the country club won’t make Luna feel any better.”
“You lost a baby too, my boy.”
Cayetano shrugged, and Inés squeezed his shoulder. “Mamá, I’m okay.”
“Are you?”
“Yes, it’s been two weeks. Two long weeks. I’ve had plenty of time to think about what happened. Too long, in fact. There is no quick solution to the situation.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“For the 1000th time, no, Mamá.”
“We worry about you, out there in Valencia. After Sofía called and told me that Luna suffered a miscarriage… and you hadn’t even told us Luna was pregnant…”
“I wanted to wait, for reasons just like this one. The odds were against us. Luna needed time to process the fact she was pregnant after the accident. You know how delicate she is right now. Luna is still so disoriented and exhausted. She didn’t need the Beltrán Morales circus bearing down on her stomach.”
“We want to help.”
“And you do. The accident was only seven weeks ago. You need to let Luna take her time.”
“She looks so sweet with that short hairstyle. It makes her look young.”
“Go and tell her that and she will love you forever!”
Inés laughed and let go of her son. “Where are Giacomo and Enzo?”
“Playing a board game in the library, I checked on them five minutes ago. They are happy and calm, plus Papá is sitting at the desk in there.”
“Your father is looking forward to moving here to Rebelión.”
“I’m glad you don’t mind me kicking you all out of La Moraleja so Luna and I can move to Madrid!”
“Not at all! It was always the plan for us to move out here with my parents. La Moraleja is beautiful, and the boys will love it there. Luna needs to recover, and you need to work on that ambitious business plan you sent your father.”
“I had to do something while in Valencia. The boys are so smart they entertain themselves, and Luna still sleeps most of the day.”
“That poor girl. It will take time for Luna to recover her dignity.”
“Dignity?”
“Yes. She is proud and strong. But the fight got knocked from her. Her ability to care for herself got taken away. There cannot be many things worse than that. Pockets of time are missing from her mind, and her body got ravaged inside and out. After the trauma of the brain injury, Luna suffered a painful and violating miscarriage. Recovery from that will be slow. Remember that.”
“I hear you, Mamá.”
“Once she can walk without the wheelchair, Luna will feel better.”
“Luna did ask me to do something for her.”
“What?”
>
“See if I can return to my bullfighting schedule. But I can’t leave her. And with the boys at home all day over the holidays, there is no chance of fighting.”
“Luna wants you to be happy, Caya.”
“I’m as happy as I could be. I prayed that Luna would come back to us, and she did. That’s all I asked.”
“I spoke to María yesterday…”
“I hate that my ex-wife still calls my mother. Can María not take a hint, or a hard word, or a divorce settlement?”
“María knows about the accident. Sofía told her everything, and she wants to know if you’re okay, and Luna, too. She doesn’t want things to go badly for you.”
“Mamá, all María has ever done is give me grief. Besides, she had a baby, which she claimed was mine, which broke me and Luna. Then, María took it all back and said Paulo was the father, so he would take her back. María gets a baby, and I don’t. I always wanted kids, and María never did. The last thing I need is to hear my ex-wife’s voice.”
“María wondered if you wanted to be a guest on her show, when her maternity leave finishes in a few weeks.”
“No.”
“Caya…”
“No! All I want to do is move Luna and the boys to Madrid and take the summer off everything. If it ends my career, so be it.”
“That won’t make Luna happy.”
“The future is very unclear. Let’s not worry about anything but right now.”
“You are sure María’s baby isn’t yours, right?”
“Don’t go there, Mamá, please. It would kill Luna to hear those words.”
~~~
Luna turned in her wheelchair and pretended she wasn’t listening to Cayetano and Inés speak. She put her ear bud back in, to carry on listening to Paco’s radio. The live reports of the Tour de France hurt, but she couldn’t help but listen. She should have been there, in France. She should have fought her way through the crowds with the bikes and seen Ciclo Valenciana off each morning. Today was a momentous day; a hill-top finish on Alpe d’Huez, the jewel in the crown of the French Alps. Darren was in the lead up the mountain, struggling against heat, exhaustion and screaming fans. One of his lead-out riders, Valencian Victor Basco, pedalled alongside, pulling the Australian up the hill to victory. Darren would take the stage win and the yellow jersey, and Luna wasn’t there. But Luna couldn’t help but wonder if Darren pushed her off Escondrijo. He had been there that day and threatened her. He hadn’t come to see her once since she woke up in the hospital. It was horrible to accuse people of anything.
Secrets of Spain Trilogy Page 84