Branch Off

by Dario Solera

  Sarah looked away, focusing her eyes on a nearby table and watching the four patrons chatting and laughing.

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s fine,” she said with a dry smile.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Really, I’m fine. I had a story a while ago, but it didn’t work, and that’s it. You know me, maybe better than anyone else.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You?”

  He shrugged. “Same here.”

  “Is that why you’re travelling?”

  Bending his head slightly to one side, he said, “You also know me.”

  “Tell me about the places you’ve been.”

  His face lit. “All right. Where do you want me to start?”

  Sarah listened to Will recounting his journeys. His low, deep voice was capturing, haunting, and for an hour she was almost silent, just uttering single syllables to ask for more. As he progressed in his story, however, her smile grew dimmer, until it disappeared. In the end, she nodded every now and then, and her gaze fell downward, fixing on his hands, which he moved to give profoundness to his words. His voice became distant, muffled, and she could only listen to one thought of her own: she felt small.

  “You OK?”

  “Yes,” she answered, clearing her throat afterward.

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “I—” She paused and swallowed down a slight lump. “I envy you.” The frankness of those three words surprised her.

  Will tensed in his chair and placed his hands on the table, to the sides of his empty plate. “Are you serious?” A nod from Sarah prompted him to take a long, deep breath. “I’ve always thought that I envied you. You’ve always been the smart one. I’m a random guy doing dumb things.”

  “That’s not true, Will.”

  “Right.”

  “I mean it. Look at me. Moving abroad just to work.”

  “Moving abroad?” he said with a nervous laugh. “You fucking disappeared, Sarah.”

  Her face exploded in a flush. She failed to spot the moment when the discussion’s topic had turned to her.

  “Why?” he asked. “You could have talked to me. You left me there. Me, the person you called your best friend.” His voice was loud and attracted looks from the other people.

  After a long while, she spoke again. “I’m sorry. I just had to go. I decided it one night, and the next morning I was on a plane.” And it was true. One of the very few impulsive decisions of her life, if not the only one. She had phoned her family a week later, when Richards had already hired her, when she could not have gone back anymore.

  “What was the reason?” he asked again, but with a soft voice this time. “What were you running away from?”

  Running away from. She repeated the words under her breath, weighting them. A frown appeared on her face, and Sarah looked at Will straight in his gentle eyes. “I don’t know. I just had to go. There was nothing there for me.”

  “Nothing? You had your family. You had me.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Is it for your biological parents?”

  “Perhaps,” she said with a sigh. “Will, I’m sorry, I really am.”

  The server took their empty plates away, interrupting their conversation for a moment.

  “I’m glad I’ve found you.”

  “And I’m happy you’ve found me.”

  After more silence, which in some way reconciled them, Will spoke again. “So, what’s so exciting at the Institute? I am curious.”

  Sarah told him.

  Two

  “Deep wound,” she said. “Something’s inside.”

  The assistant handed her surgical clamps, which slipped a little on the surface of her bloody gloves.

  With the fingers of her left hand, Léa divaricated the small lesion in the leg of the sedated man. He was awake, and he babbled words she could not understand. With the tool she dived into the torn flesh, deep, until she felt a hard object inside. Working the clamps by sheer touch, she grabbed and held the piece of metal, pulling at it. As the sharp, thorny item came out, a feeble squirt of blood ran down the thigh onto the green cloth that covered the operating table.

  “Stitch him up,” she told the assistant. “No more sedatives. Wide-range antibiotics. Dismiss him tomorrow morning.”

  Léa pulled her latex gloves off with a sigh and threw them into the yellow bin outside the ER room. The man had been lucky. A few centimeters higher and he would have bled to death before making it to the hospital. She looked down at her blue plastic apron. It was clean: no need to change it. It was not the correct procedure, but supplies were running low.

  Next patient.

  “What do we have?” she asked while donning another pair of gloves and then proceeding to check the patient’s records.

  “Male, forty-something. Head injury, probable concussion. Exposed fracture of fibula and tibia. Displaced shoulder,” the assistant said. “A wreck.”

  A nurse was cleaning the wound on the man’s shin with gauze. A small pool of blood had collected beneath the leg.

  “How long has he been unconscious?”

  “Passed out and intubated on the ambulance. No sedatives administered.”

  Leaning in closer to his face, she inspected the sickening dark purple bump on his forehead. “Sir, can you hear me? This is Dr. Bosshart. If you can hear me, try to blink your eyes or move your fingers.”

  The body of the man remained immobile.

  With a pen flashlight, she checked his eyes, beaming the light inside his right eyeball and moving it away in a quick motion. She repeated the procedure on the left side. “No pupil contraction. He’s brain-dead.”

  “What do we do?” the assistant asked.

  Léa stared at him, biting her lower lip and listening to the slow beeps of the EC machine. “Fix his shoulder and leg. Keep him alive until we find out who he is and if he’s a donor.”

  She heard her colleague saying something, but she was already outside of the room and heading to the next.

  Two paramedics and a nurse appeared from around the corner down the corridor, pushing a stretcher. Léa ran over to them and began pushing it as well, the cold metal of its tubular structure pressing under her palms and fingers. “Hello,” she said to the silver-haired woman on the gurney. “What’s your name?”

  “Marie,” she whispered, her voice almost inaudible through the noise of the emergency department.

  “Hello, Marie,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat. “This is Dr. Bosshart. How old are you?”

  “Thirteen.”

  Léa exchanged a look with the nurse. “She’s seventy-two according to her ID. She’s confused.”

  “How do you feel, Marie?” Léa asked.

  “It hurts,” the woman said with large teardrops running down her temples.

  “I know. We’re going to fix that,” she said, leaning closer to her and showing her best artificial smile.

  Two nods through the incessant flow of tears. The child-woman peeked down to her left.

  “Marie, look at me. Keep your eyes on my face, OK?”

  A bulging lump of bloodied gauze enclosed the woman’s left limb.

  Pushing open the door of the next examination room, Léa and the paramedics moved the patient onto the table. The nurse held her injured arm as steady as possible, but Marie let go a raucous cry.

  Rescuers and stretcher disappeared beyond the door that the assistant was holding open—M. Weber, according to his name tag. She didn’t even recognize his face, but he could not be new. For sure she had worked with him in the past few months.

  “Where do you feel pain, Marie? Just your hand?” Léa asked.

  “Yes.”

  “All right. Morphine, ten milligrams.” She waited for Weber to inject the substance into the IV feed. “Marie, we are going to have a look at your hand. I’m afraid it will be painful.”

  The lady’s jaws clenched and she swallowed. “Where are
my parents?”

  “Try to keep your eyes on my face.”

  With slow movements Léa unwound the long bandages. The inner layers were soaked in blood.

  The woman moaned, but her eyes had ceased to produce tears.

  Léa removed the last gauzes, uncovering what remained of the hand.

  Her pinky and ring fingers were gone. Middle and index were crooked at awful angles, and the back of her hand was torn open and bleeding, bones exposed and broken.

  “Is there anyone we should contact?” Léa asked with the kindest expression she could manage to fake.

  A sorrowful look replaced the one of fright on the woman’s face. Her lips quivered as her eyes regained the light of reason.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I think my husband is dead,” she said with a thin, raspy voice.

  Léa lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She looked back at the injured limb and sighed. Another life ruined, and what for? “Marie, I am sorry, but…” Words failed her. How could she tell someone something like that? She had lost her husband, and there was more. “Your hand is in very bad shape.”

  Marie squeezed her eyes shut.

  “We will have to amputate it.”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks once more, maybe for the amputation, or most probably for her husband. She wept in silence, respectful of the graveness of the moment, as if making noise would be just that, noise, and nothing useful.

  “I’m so sorry.” Léa exchanged a look with Weber. “Bring her to surgery.” She checked the tension of the tourniquet around the woman’s wrist, and then she dressed the wounded hand with fresh bandages.

  “Thank you,” the woman mouthed as the nurse and the assistant wheeled her away.

  “What for?”

  The elder girl didn’t answer, she just stared at Léa with her scared eyes.

  Three

  The smell of fresh coffee reached her nostrils. Will was in the kitchen, pouring the steaming fluid into a mug. His hair was wet.

  “Good morning,” she croaked.

  “Hey. Coffee?”

  “Yes, please.” Sarah sat at the tiny table. It had only two chairs and was painted white like most of the furniture, except for the red sofa in the living room.

  Will sat down in front of her, providing her with an unfamiliar view. She was used to seeing the wall there, not another person.

  Outside the window snow had ceased falling, but a thick layer of grey clouds covered the sky.

  Jones swam across her legs, brushing them with his soft fur and purring.

  Sarah stood and fetched a small package of cat food from above the fridge.

  “Thank you for letting me stay,” Will said as she filled the pet’s bowl.

  “It’s OK. Could you just clean the counter? There’re drops of coffee.”

  He frowned but obeyed. “Look, I wanted to cook breakfast but didn’t find eggs or anything else.”

  “I usually have breakfast on my way to work.”

  “Right.”

  “Give me a minute.” Sarah went into the bathroom, closing the door and leaning against it with her back.

  Mornings with a stranger at home were awkward. Will was a friend, but what had happened the night before had washed away. The very fact that he had rummaged her kitchen raised a spot of bother in her.

  When was the last time she had someone staying overnight? Never, since she moved in that apartment.

  The hot water in the shower relaxed her muscles and threatened to not let her go. The white noise, the close walls, and the warmth protected her, lulled her. Perhaps it wasn’t just having another person around that upset her, it was Will in particular. He was a slice of her past reaching at her without notice, pulling at her.

  Her hand squeaked as she wiped a spot in the fogged-over mirror to see her face and comb her long, dark hair. No time for the hair dryer.

  “Your sense of a minute must have changed,” Will joked as she got out of the bathroom.

  She didn’t answer and resisted shooting him a hard look.

  After a quick stop in her bedroom to grab some clothes, they were off, walking fast on the snow-clad sidewalk.

  “I guess you work flexible hours,” he said after checking his wristwatch, glancing over at her.

  “We ran an experiment yesterday at 6:00 a.m.”

  “On a Sunday?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve never been a morning person.”

  “People change, Will.”

  Flowing, sparse crowds busied the roads, walking and driving to work and cursing the weather for the delays. The snow had already turned grey and filthy on the streets, which now seemed covered in mud.

  A car honked. Through the exhaust, a large truck coughed a cloud of black smoke into the cold air.

  “I am sorry,” she said as they walked up the low ascent toward the Institute. “It’s just that you appeared out of nowhere. I didn’t—I wasn’t prepared for something like this.”

  “I understand.”

  They entered her breakfast place. The barista nodded at her and observed her companion, keeping his eyes on him until they sat at her favorite table near the large window.

  The server approached them. “Usual morning?” she asked.

  “Yes, please,” Sarah answered with a polite smile.

  Will ordered eggs, bacon, and coffee. “What’s that?” he asked when they were alone.

  “What?”

  “That ‘usual morning’ thing.”

  “Oh,” she snickered. “On normal mornings I have a cappuccino and a croissant.”

  “Right. And on other mornings?”

  “Black coffee and a slice of apple pie.”

  “You haven’t changed so much.”

  Sarah sent a frown at him.

  “I mean, you still have your… habits?”

  “Most of them.”

  Will watched people and cars moving outside, pretending to ignore Sarah’s gaze. He turned and exhaled, looking her in the eyes. “Are you happy?”

  Once more he had taken her by surprise, but she should have seen that kind of question coming after yesterday’s discussion. “What do you mean?”

  He bent his head to the side. “Come on,” he said softly.

  “I suppose.”

  “That’s a no.”

  “It’s not a no.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “That’s not happy.”

  “This conversation is absurd.”

  Will’s eyebrows raised a little.

  The world outside grabbed Sarah’s attention for a moment, and she watched a car maneuvering out of a parking spot and merging into traffic. “I like my job,” she said after a long while.

  “That’s a start.”

  They ate their breakfast in silence, watching the street and listening to the low, cozy buzz of the café.

  Questioning and curious about others, that was almost another Will. Perhaps the one who had changed was him. Was it bad? Was it wrong, asking questions? She was certain that his intentions were sincere. Like her, he seemed to be coming to terms with his own existence.

  Sarah turned and looked at him, waiting until he met her gaze. “I don’t think I’m happy. I don’t even know what it means.”

  Her friend stopped chewing and swallowed. He placed his fork down with a deliberate motion.

  “I gave up searching for my real parents a long time ago, but perhaps I shouldn’t have.”

  “What would you do if you found them?”

  She waited for him to continue.

  “What would it change? What would it mean for you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  It was in crisp detail in her memory, the moment her parents had told her that they had adopted her. She was fourteen, and it was a rainy Sunday morning in March. They had asked her to sit down on the armchair in front of them, in the living room, and she had started panicking, trying to recall what she had d
one wrong, what kind of mistake she could have made in the previous days.

  “Sarah,” her mom began, “it’s very hard to tell you this.”

  And then the suspicion of something wrong dug its way in her mind. She expected them to announce that one of them was sick. Cancer came to mind. She could have even expected a breakup, but no, nothing like that.

  Leaning closer to them, in a whisper she asked, “Is there something wrong?”

  Her parents exchanged a look.

  “No,” her mother said. “First of all, we want you to know that we love you. You are the dearest thing in the world to us.”

  “I know, Mom. I love you too.”

  The woman produced a soft smile. “What do you remember about your infancy?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know,” Sarah answered, a frown appearing on her young face.

  She could hear her father rubbing his hands together slowly.

  “What’s your first memory of us?”

  It took a while for her to collect her thoughts and answer. “A picnic in a wide meadow, under a tree.”

  Another look exchanged between her parents, and her heart missed a beat. She saw it. It had always been there, inside her, buried below a thick pour of concrete, never making it to the surface.

  Her mother must have noticed Sarah’s expression change. “You were four. It was your first weekend with us.” She exhaled a deep breath and then smiled. “Three months later, we took you with us to this home.”

  “OK,” she said. Those two letters were not appropriate, but they were all she could manage to utter.

  “We adopted you.”

  Sarah began weeping. She wasn’t sad or angry. Crying just seemed right. It was more a bodily urge than a feeling. Her mom and dad didn’t do or say anything for a couple of minutes, observing her face getting wet with tears.

  “It’s OK,” she said before hugging them.

  Even now, fifteen years later, a few teardrops appeared in Sarah’s eyes.

  “Everything OK?” Will asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, wiping her eyes with her fingers. “I’m fine.”

  For having lived a normal life without even knowing that her parents existed, she was sorry. It was wrong, unfair to them. Calling someone else Mom and Dad seemed like an injustice. Now she understood why she had cried back at home that distant day, and why she wept here in this café.