“Parenting,” she said under her breath. “It ain’t for sissies.”
When the call came late this morning, she and Alex were naked in bed and slightly hungover. They tied a huge one on at Lark’s Winebar last night, celebrating their seventeenth anniversary. They demolished six tapas courses and two bottles of Cono Sur, then wrote out their annual pledge to desire: I’d like to be faithful to you another year.
After a marathon of raucous, home-alone sex, they slept in late. They took coffee back to bed and lay around, reading and talking and dozing.
Life lived for such moments. It fucking loved to find you relaxed and blissful and hit you like a car bomb disguised as a phone call.
Hit me, Val thought, throwing cups and containers into the dishwasher. I can handle your bullshit. Don’t you dare do anything to my baby. She is my only child. She is the sole bud on our tiny family tree. Don’t you even think about…
She turned from the sink and Alex caught her gaze. His hand slid around the back of her neck and his next sentences were slow and deliberate, for her as well as his audience:
“Mi hermano Javier biene de Argentina esta tarde. Si, mi hermano.”
Val nodded, taking a long, deep breath and understanding.
My brother Javier is coming. Yes, my brother.
Alex touched his chest. “Hasta que lluege”—now his finger pointed to an invisible presence—“mi hermano actuára como mi apoderado, en mi lugar. Si. Puedes decirle cualquier cosa”—the finger jabbed his chest again—“que dirías a mí. Cachai?”
“Cachai,” Val whispered. She got it: until Alex arrived, Uncle Javier was in charge. You can tell him anything you would tell me.
On the way to JFK, Alex’s phone started lighting up with texts.
Just landed, grabbing a cab.
Twenty minutes later: I’m here. I’m right next to her.
The Lark-Pendas exhaled.
Everything focused on head injury right now. Brain bleed is minimal but 1st 24 hours R critical. She stays in the ICU.
Another half-hour: X-rays say no broken vertebrae. Only tiny hairline fracture in the L2. She can move all limbs, turn head, wiggle fingers & toes.
Broken collarbone and 4 broken ribs right side, 1 punctured her lung. 2nd hairline fracture right femur. Minor, should heal on own. No other broken bones.
It wasn’t anything they hadn’t already been told by the doctors. But somehow, texted from Jav, it made more sense.
She’s sedated and intubated right now. SHE CAN BREATHE ON HER OWN. Doc wants 2 make it as easy for 6-8 hours. Give her brain & body as little 2 do as possible.
“She can breathe,” Val said. “It’s like when she was born. Fingers. Toes. Breathing. We’re good.”
Alex nodded, drawing a deep breath of his own but not talking. He’d pulled all his loose ends tight, reducing himself to a brick.
As they were boarding, Jav sent one more text: Hey, just found out Doc’s name is Eduardo. Your father’s name, no? THIS IS A SIGN. We got people on the other side helping.
Alex pushed the heel of his hand hard into his eyes after reading that one.
Thankfully no one showed up to claim the third seat in their row so they were able to spread out a little more. Val thought she might even be able to sleep on the flight. At the very least, she could open a book and attempt to get lost in someone else’s story, something she wouldn’t allow if Deane were alone and injured on the other side of the world. Without Jav, Val would sit upright and motionless, staring at nothing in a communion of misery.
Alex knocked back a Xanax during the flight safety talk. “I’m not fucking around,” he said. “The only way I’m getting through this is unconscious.”
“Take two,” Val said. “No points for style.”
Alex detested flying. It was best he slept, or put himself to sleep. Deane would need him. Alex was always her go-to guy in a crisis. He was a pro at soothing both frightened animals and little girls.
Val sighed.
Little girl.
A big little girl now, who didn’t seem to need her mother much.
Val had been fully prepared for the teenage years being a nightmare. She was a nightmare in those years, just ask Alex. But what threw her off guard (and what she’d conveniently forgotten) was how sudden the years were upon you. Your daughter went to bed on the eve of her thirteenth birthday as a sweetheart, and woke up the next morning a bitch. You never stopped loving her, but goddamn, you had a lot of days when you didn’t like her.
At all.
Eighth grade to sophomore year, Alex often referred to Deane as “the exchange student.” For a time, they literally didn’t speak her name. She. Her. It. The spawn. Val’s head ached from perpetually butting against the alien living in her house. Riding out the unpredictable mood swings. Running interference on the senseless drama. Val couldn’t say good morning without rolling eyes or an exasperated sigh in return. A simple request for household chores was treated as an order to cut one’s arm off and eat it. Nothing was simple. Everything turned into a negotiation with life-or-death terms.
Val read once that teen years were harder on a marriage than the newborn months.
She believed it.
Still…
She raised up the window shade, looking out at darkness and her own reflection.
Oh Deane, I’m sorry.
She didn’t know for what, but the thought released something in her heart. She rubbed her temples, her eyes welling up.
Did I do enough? Did I try hard enough? Was I too hard on her?
She sniffed, drawing ragged breaths as her hands clenched in fists.
Little girl. Our one little bud on a tree.
Did I tell her I loved her before she left?
Of course she did. After losing her parents and grandmother in that accident, Val never didn’t hug and kiss goodbye. Never didn’t say I love you.
“I love you,” she whispered. “It’s all right, Deane. We’re coming. Daddy’s coming. Just hold on.”
She jumped in her seat when Alex took her hand and squeezed it. His other hand held out his handkerchief.
“Jav’s there,” he said.
Val nodded, wiping her eyes. “And the doctor’s name is Eduardo.”
“You wouldn’t believe how much better it makes me feel. It’s a sign.” He pushed up the armrest. “Come here. Put your head on me.”
Val stretched across two seats and laid her cheek on Alex’s chest. His expression was serene and his hand moved slowly along her hair, but beneath her ear his heart thudded hard.
“You’re going home,” she said.
“After thirty-three years.”
“Are you nervous?”
“I’m scared for Deane, not me.” A corner of his mouth twisted and a shoulder shrugged. “Yeah, maybe a little nervous.”
She ran the backs of her fingers along his cheek. “You never wanted to go back, did you?”
“Someday maybe,” he said. “But not like this.”
“Jav’s there.”
“Thank God,” he said. “It’s crazy. I mean, how we met…and then met again. What he’s come to be for us.” He yawned. “It helps so much.” He yawned again. “So does the Xanax.”
“Close your eyes,” Val said. “It’s not the place you fled from. The soldiers are gone and nobody’s getting left behind this time.” She touched her fingertip to his nose. “Cachai?”
He nodded. “Cachai.”
“Jav’s there now. He won’t let her disappear.”
When they landed in Santiago, Alex’s phone exploded with backlogged texts from Jav.
She’s sleeping. Tube’s out. Breathing fine, just lot of pain.
U must B on the plane now. I’ll just keep sending updates as I get them.
Not doing so well with morphine, it’s making her sick. They switched drugs & now she’s sleeping.
Still sleeping. Her coach had to get back to Portillo, he’ll call u tonight.
She opened her eyes. Lo
oked right at me, knew who I was & where she was. She’s awake & with us.
Lot of pain. She’s sleeping again.
Io lovr yoiu don worry.
^That was Deane typing. Her vision’s doubled but she did it herself.
She’s running a fever, pain is pretty bad.
OK, she’s on antibiotics & a stronger sedative. She’s out like a light. I need 2 grab something 2 eat. CU soon.
Traffic was slow. Their nerves were shot. When they staggered into Deane’s room in the ICU of Clínica Las Condes, Val was so tired and shredded, she felt she was having an out-of-body experience.
Their daughter was sound asleep, her bruised face flushed and hot. Alex and Val pulled chairs to either side of her bed, kissing and touching her. She turned her head from one side to the other, hummed in her throat when Alex laid his hand on her brow. Then went still again, breathing slow and deep.
Val kissed her daughter’s limp fingers and held them to her cheek. Alex held Deane’s other hand, softly singing “Caballito blanco.”
“You’re here,” Jav said. He stood in the doorway, unshaven and rumpled, dark circles under his eyes.
All three of them stared a moment. Val’s vision bubbled up hot and wet. Her heart surged with an intense memory of her bedroom in New York and her last date with Jav. All those fragile words in the dark.
The people who should’ve known and loved you best threw you away. I don’t understand how, because you’re so good.
“Jav,” she whispered. A sob ripped out of her throat and all the tears she’d held in check spilled down. Jav opened his arms and she ran to him.
“It’s all right,” he said, picking her up off her feet, his arms strong around her shaking body. “Everything’s all right.”
“Thank you,” she cried.
You good, dear, fine man, I will never throw you away.
“Shh… Don’t cry.”
“I love you,” she said against his neck. “I will always love you for this.”
“I love you too. It’s all right.”
He shifted her into one arm and then he had Alex gathered up against his other shoulder.
“Te agradezco mucho,” Alex said.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“No puedo agradecerte lo suficiente.”
“Stop.” Jav kissed his head. “You guys are my family. I’d do anything.”
He kissed Val’s head. Then six arms wove and wrapped and they held each other tight.
It wasn’t her fault.
She’d been making a clean run down one of the intermediate slopes. Not showing off or hot-dogging. She was at her top speed, but a half-dozen other skiers were passing her.
The trail merge was up ahead. One universal rule of the mountain was you always yielded to anyone below you. Another was you didn’t assume the uphill skiers could always anticipate you crossing their path.
Clearly no one ever thought to make a rule against treating the merge like a U-turn and trying to ski up the trail. But that was exactly what some guy did. Straight into Deane’s path. She veered to her right as he dodged to his left and she flew into him at forty miles an hour.
The chest-to-chest collision blew her out of her gear, cracking the bindings on both her skis.
Mommy, she thought.
A pinwheel of sky and snow.
Mommy, I’m not supposed to die this way.
Another pinwheel, tinted pink and orange by her goggles.
But I might.
Someone screamed. Was it her? Then another big crash and a stream of cursed Spanish. Something hit her head. Or her head hit something.
Mommymommymommymommy…
Then her thoughts stopped.
She woke up in the hospital and was told she was lucky. Insanely lucky. The X-rays and scans showed only a tiny, hairline fracture in one of her lumbar vertebrae. Her helmet couldn’t prevent a serious concussion, but it had kept the brain bleed to a miraculous minimum. Without the helmet she’d be dead, the nurses said.
Deane wished she were dead. From shoulder to kneecap on her right side, she was one giant, tender bruise. Every breath like a spike through her chest. Every cell in her stunned, battered body crying Mommy.
The pain crawled through her head like a sick slug, oozing across her chest and down her back. She never knew pain could have a texture. Hers was cold and slimy and sickening.
I want my mother.
Her brain clanging in her skull. The horrible nausea and disorientation after they started her on morphine and her body revolted. Her team of nurses rolling her on her uninjured side and keeping her immobile while she threw up.
I want my mother.
Heaving was agony. Moving or being moved was agony. Even thinking was agony as she thought, I will never say I’m miserable again. Ever. I will never be more miserable than this. This is ground zero.
The frazzled thought bumped into a memory and flipped up an image of Alex pacing the house like a caged panther while the TV carouseled images of smoke, fire, falling buildings and airplanes. Val lost somewhere in the middle of it. Down at ground zero.
Mommymommymommymommy…
“Shh,” Jav said, a cool hand on her burning forehead. “Estas la más valiente.”
You’re the bravest.
She couldn’t believe he had come. She knew it would take her parents a whole day, maybe even two, to fly from the other side of the globe and get to the hospital. When she opened her eyes and saw a strange man dressed in street clothes sitting by her bed, she thought she was dreaming. When her scrambled brain identified him, she thought she’d gone insane.
“Jav?” she whispered around a throat still raw and sore from the breathing tube.
He smiled. “At your service.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Oh…” He hitched a little closer to the bed and stroked her cheek. “I was just in the neighborhood.”
She burst into tears, which hurt like hell, but she couldn’t stop them. He carefully gathered her head in the crook of his arm, gently patted under her eyes with a corner of the sheet. He smelled musky and strong and she cried all over him.
“It’s all right,” he whispered over and over.
“I want my mother,” she cried, surrendering. “I want my mother, please, get my mother. Please get her. Get my mother.”
“I did, honey. She’s coming. She’s on a plane right now with your dad. They’re coming, honey. You hold onto me. I’ll stay right here the whole time.”
He never left her bedside. Once when she woke from a doze, he showed her his phone and an email from Ari.
Tell her I’m so sorry about Bernie. He turned out to be a jinx.
“Who’s Bernie?” Jav asked.
“I don’t know.” Inside Deane’s aching head, a frantic huddle-up: Bernie? Who’s Bernie? I don’t know anyone named Bernie.
“Don’t cry,” Jav said, stroking her forehead. His hand slid and he gently pulled on one of her earlobes. Deane reached to touch the other—it was bare.
“My earrings,” she said. She had a vague memory of the nurses cutting her out of her clothes. They must’ve taken off her jewelry, too.
“Oh,” Jav said, patting his pockets. “Wait, they gave your stuff to me.”
He drew out a small buff envelope and tipped the contents into his hand. Her earrings, bracelets and a thin leather cord with…
“Bernie,” Deane said. Relief made her sink deeper into the pillows as the huddle in her head exchanged high-fives and trotted back into the game. Jav carefully fastened the cord around her neck and the St. Bernard’s medal fell cool on her chest. “Ari gave me this,” she said. “For luck.”
“Well, in my opinion, it did its job,” Jav said. “This could’ve been a lot worse.”
Deane closed her eyes. One player from the huddle lingered on the sidelines of her mind, worried. Trying to connect circuits that couldn’t quite reach. Buzzing sparks of disjointed recall. Something about Ari. And the saint’s medal.
Casey. Stella. The kitchen. Her house.
Home. So far away.
“Where’s Mom?” she said.
“She’s coming, honey,” Jav said. “She’ll be here soon.”
Three days post-crash and Deane was out of the ICU and over being a coddled invalid.
“Dad, you can’t fly five thousand miles to the city where you were born and not go looking for your house,” she said. “Now all of you get out of my room so I can have a sponge bath in peace. Don’t come back without pictures.”
“I guess she told us,” Jav said after their dismissal. He turned to Alex. “Lead the way.”
The little Alex had seen so far of Santiago was unrecognizable, but certain locales had stayed firmly in his memory all these years. He lived at Calle Isabella, 42 and his father’s bookstore was on Calle Trinidad, off the Plaza San Margarita. Eduardo walked to work so it couldn’t have been too great a distance from the house. Of course it felt like forever to him when he was eleven. Because he was eleven.
The hotel concierge got them a map and showed them bus routes. They hit the Plaza first. Alex stood at its center by the fountain and turned in all directions.
“No?” Val said.
He shook his head and shrugged at the same time. “I can’t…”
“Take your time.”
He turned again, laced hands at the back of his neck. “I remember the fountain,” he said. “The fountain is the same, but I don’t recognize anything else. I can’t orient the fountain to where the shop was.”
He looked around, sighing heavily. “I have an old photo at home of my dad outside the shop, maybe if I had it…”
“Where is it?” Jav said. “Ari can take a picture of it and send it to us.”
They put the Plaza on hold and followed the map to Calle Isabella. Along the block of the fifties, Alex’s steps grew slower. He kept looking around, chewing on his lower lip. They crossed a wide avenue. Passed number 48.
“Forty-six,” Val said. “Forty-four.”
An Exaltation of Larks Page 27