The Heiress of Water: A Novel

by Sandra Rodriguez Barron

  A few minutes later, Monica kicked them both out, and in the hallway they heard the door lock slide into place behind them. Will asked Bruce to return with him to Caracol to persuade Sylvia to meet with Alma that night. “It works out perfectly” Bruce said. “Remember that you will be sleeping with your wife at the clinic from now on. Sylvia will be coming back here tonight to sleep in your room.”

  AN HOUR LATER, in the car, Will turned to Bruce and said, “I think you all handled the situation so well. It was really uncomfortable there for a while, with Claudia trying to force Monica into declaring a truce with Alma.”

  Bruce nodded. “The moral of the story, my friend, is that a couple must decide early on who’s going to mind the home fires.”

  “But real love is worth pursuing. And what you were pursuing back then wasn’t real love. It was infatuation. Right?”

  Bruce exhaled and looked out the window. “Love requires having the vision to look beyond today, beyond a pretty face, beyond the rush you get from the chase. It means walking away if she’s not good for you, or if you’re not good for her.” He sighed and shook his head. “I should have run screaming the day I met Alma Borrero.”

  “Hindsight,” Will said, hunching his shoulders.

  “You know what I’ve come to believe, Will? That most women seek stability and love, just like you’d expect. But what they really, secretly want is a someone who inspires them to risk everything.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  Bruce considered this for a moment and said, “Yeah. I guess so.”

  “And it can happen that someone loves you right back,” Will said, joining his two index fingers together.

  “It’s still not that simple,” Bruce said gruffly, holding Will’s eyes for a moment before going back to staring out the window.

  Will resented, pitied, and respected Bruce’s point of view all at the same time. This was a man who only knew failure in love, and whose lone success in the wars of the heart was to protect his child. It was what he did best.

  WILL WOULD ALWAYS REMEMBER his arrival at Caracol as the most surreal moment of his life. He would remember the crowd gathered at Yvette’s bed. The jubilance in Sylvia’s voice, the chatter and the tiny brown nuns gathered like munchkins from The Wizard of Oz around Yvette’s bed. They parted for him as he walked into the room. Sylvia prattled on about how miraculous God was and what heroes the staff had proven to be. Yvette was propped up on pillows, and as Will stepped before her bed, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing: her eyes fixed on him and followed him as he moved along the side of her bed.

  Everyone turned and looked at him, and he felt the weight of dozens of brown velvet eyes fall upon him, along with their sudden hush. “Yvette?” he said softly, as if she might possibly be someone else. He took one of her skinny hands. “Yvette?”

  “She spoke earlier,” Sylvia said from the opposite side of the bed, tickling the underside of her daughter’s chin like a baby’s. “Say something, honey. Look, your husband is here.”

  “Where was I going?” she asked.

  “You’re okay now, Yvette,” Will replied in a hoarse voice.

  “Why was I in such a rush?” She wiggled about, and Will saw that she was restrained by arm straps.

  Although he felt joy, he felt a sick bloating in his stomach, a lifting and puffing up of its contents, but he didn’t understand why. Something about her eyes seemed so unnatural. “Is she okay? Is there any … damage?”

  “Damage? Of course there’s damage,” Sylvia said absently.

  “She was in a car accident.”

  “Yvette, do you remember our dog, Chester?” Will said, grasping at some comforting memory of their past. “Do you remember the time we entered him in the Newport dog show and he won a ribbon?”

  Yvette rolled her eyes up and smiled. “Yes,” she said. Then, the smile suddenly disappeared and she squinted at him. “Tell the ocean to leave me alone.” He tried to embrace her but she stiffened, and he got a whiff of the ever-present metallic perfume.

  “She keeps complaining about the sound of the waves outside,” Sylvia said, smoothing her daughter’s hair. “Isn’t that odd? Most people find the sound of water soothing.”

  “Shut up,” Yvette spat. “Can’t you see I’m in danger?”

  In danger of what, baby?” Will pleaded.

  “The waves know my name,” she said, and looked away.

  “They know too much.”

  Will looked at Sylvia and said, “Let’s step into the hall for a moment. Something was tugging at him, something that wasn’t allowing him to completely rejoice at what appeared to be a miracle.

  In the hallway, Sylvia asked, astonished, “Aren’t you happy?”

  “Of course,” he said. “I just want her thoroughly examined.”

  “At least she’s here,” Sylvia said, pointing at her temple. “We can work on the rest later.”

  Maybe she was right, Will thought. Maybe the rest of her was going to be okay. The strange hostility might just be an initial stage, some kind of reentry shock. Sylvia shuffled back into the room because they could both hear that Yvette had just insulted one of the nuns. “Back in a moment,” she said.

  Will went in search of Dr. Mendez. She was finishing up with another patient, and so he headed back to Yvette’s room. He ducked into the chapel for the first time, dropping to his knees on the kneeler and pressing his palms together in prayer and supplication. He simply gave thanks for Yvette’s emergence and asked for the strength to handle whatever was to come.

  In the silence of the chapel, Will tried to remember if he ever did know where Yvette had been headed on the day of her accident, and why she had been in such a rush. Nothing came to him, and eventually he gave up, figuring that it was irrelevant. He was happy that, at the very least, she had been set free from her terrible limbo. As worried as he was about what Alma had said, he still felt a great softening toward Dr. Mendez and her staff. Maybe the old nanny’s suggestion was right on the mark—maybe Alma was trashing the program out of envy.

  His thoughts drifted over to Monica. In the last forty-eight hours, his feelings for her seemed to have grown exponentially, expanding across his heart to unwieldy proportions, filling him with hope, strength, and dread at losing her. He was sure of himself in this area, he didn’t feel guilt or regret. His marriage to Yvette had been irrevocably altered by the accident, and even though she had recovered some of her faculties, she would never be the same. He had already lived for two years of his life without her, and because of it he wasn’t the same person either. He looked down at his left hand, flattened against his right palm. Circling the fourth finger was a band of pale skin where his ring had been. It seemed to glow in the dim light of the chapel.

  He felt both fear and a great sweep of relief when the decision came to him: he would sell the house and his prized sailboat to finance whatever was needed for Yvette’s subsequent therapy. He would give up Tuesdays and work seven days a week. He would enable a new beginning for Yvette: his own version of the tunneled heart carved in the snow, Me ato returning to Te amo, at last, duty returning to love, even if it was an entirely different kind of love this time around.

  Then, a question presented itself as if it had been spoken by the varnished wood figure of Jesus hanging from the cross before him. What if Yvette’s spirit hadn’t been released as he’d believed all along? What if her wifely love for him remained intact within her new consciousness? Will squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger.

  Will felt Bruce’s heavy hand on his back, and Will was surprised to see the man kneel down next to him, bow his head, close his eyes, and put his hands together in prayer. “I’ve never put much stock in religion,” Bruce whispered out of the side of his mouth. “But today I’m willing to give it a try.”

  AN HOUR LATER, Yvette was unreactive again. Will ordered the staff to suspend any other treatments, and Sylvia flew into a tirade about her maternal rights
. Bruce managed to convince her to come with him to the posada to meet Alma, but Will was so angry he had to ride in a separate car. This is it, he decided. To hell with Sylvia.

  A mere two and a half hours had passed since Will had arrived at Caracol. Monica had slept for an hour and later claimed to have fallen into a precipitous slumber that had restored her with some of the energy needed to make it through the day. In the time before the men arrived, the two women had been alone and had begun the long and emotionally exhaustive climb, piecing together the shattered tableau of their lives. So difficult was that first hour alone together that they immediately welcomed the interruption of Will, Bruce, and Sylvia’s arrival. Will summoned Claudia, who had been watching the soap opera in the kitchen with the innkeeper, and asked the three women to sit down.

  No one expected the news they brought. Claudia’s mouth was frozen in the shape of an o, and Alma alternated between nodding and shaking her head. Monica sprang to her feet and hugged Sylvia, and then Will, even her father. “I told you prayer works,” she said to her father, and everyone unfroze and shared two more rounds of hugs and cheers for Will and Sylvia. “Down deep I must have been a bit skeptical myself,” Sylvia confessed.

  After a moment, the mood darkened when Will told them that Yvette had slipped back into stupor in only an hour. Alma pulled Sylvia aside and got down to business. Sylvia listened to Alma’s warnings, interrupting her to defend the treatment on each point. “I don’t care if she has a completely different personality,” Sylvia said, smiling. “My love for Yvette is unconditional. She can be whoever she wants to be, and I still want her here with me—alive, awake, able to speak and respond. I’m determined now more than ever to leave her under their care.”

  “No, we’re not,” Will said, his fists clenched at his side. “I draw the line here, Sylvia. We’re taking her home within forty-eight hours. The entire Neurology Department at Yale is on alert and is anxious to examine her the minute we arrive back in New Haven.”

  “You’ll take her over my dead body,” Sylvia said.

  “Fine, then we’ll pick out your coffin in the morning,” Will said. “I’m not screwing around here, Sylvia, she’s going home.”

  Alma put her arm around Sylvia. “Sylvia, we’re going to shut Fernanda down. Her supposed sponsor, BioSource of London, is completely phony, invented for credibility. The Borreros are BioSource, and the cover will allow them to slink away with the family name unscathed if need be. You got your awakening, now go home. Yvette should be monitored constantly while she’s conscious, and she will be again, have no doubt. But she is a danger to herself, especially immediately after a dose. Three of the ten patients who have been through this program appear to have committed suicide.”

  Monica asked, looking around the room, “Who’s with Yvette now?”

  “A nurse,” Sylvia said. “They were going to take her out to the sunning deck so she could get some sunlight before the sun goes down. They said she needs to produce some vitamin D.”

  SO THIS IS IT, Monica thought, as she watched Will pace the floor, his face alive with plans to rescue his wife. I’m finally in love with someone. Really, really in love. Unfortunately, my only reward is to know that it’s possible. But I have to fulfill my promise to myself. So in secret, loving sadness, I give him back to you, Yvette.

  chapter 20 THE GIFT

  Yvette watched the nurse fill the syringe with clear liquid from a small brown glass bottle. The lumbar punctures still hurt, and Yvette blinked back tears as the nurse plunged the needle into her spine.

  When she had finished, the woman put Yvette into a wheelchair. Yvette marveled at the concept of mobility; of seeing something other than the same high, closed window with frosted glass from the position of her bed. The woman rolled her out of the room without saying where she was taking her. Yvette saw that other people were lying about in beds, some with eyes open, others with eyes closed, but all of them silent and still.

  The nurse took her beyond a set of gates, across a stretch of hard-packed sand, and parked her chair on a wide patio facing the sea. Now she could see a dark beach, strange and desolate as a surrealist painting. The sound of the waves was as soothing as a heartbeat, and she closed her eyes to better listen. The nurse was called away by someone a distance behind them. A few moments passed, and Yvette felt her soul rushed with the drumming of water folding upon itself, of sheets of white foam being stretched and pulled back and elongated until the waves were spread clear and thin as hot glass.

  Tch-ch-cht.

  Yvette opened her eyes but saw no one. She was having difficulty seeing. Everything appeared as if she were looking through a tube of rolled-up paper.

  Tch- ch- cht.

  She rotated her neck left and right. Her muscles were still too weak with atrophy to lift her head and get a good look at the source of the sound. Suddenly, the range of her conical vision filled with the face of a small girl. She had a basket balanced on her head. She was spectacularly beautiful, with caramel skin and big, honey-colored eyes: an angel in a dirty and ripped dress. The girl dropped her basket and tiptoed toward Yvette, looking to the left and the right before she smiled.

  The little girl reached into her basket and plucked out a tiny chick, absurdly dyed cotton-candy pink, and placed it on Yvette’s lap. Yvette looked at the chick’s tiny, shiny eyes, its upturned beak, and willed her hand to move across her lap and stroke it. Its fur was so soft that Yvette could hardly believe it. The little girl stepped closer and spilled a handful of feed onto Yvette’s lap, and Yvette watched as the chick picked it up in his beak, tilted his head back, and swallowed the tiny pellets. She felt the delicate weight of the bird moving about on her thighs. Yvette began to laugh with the delight of a child, marveling at the sensory proof that she was very much alive. The little girl laughed with her and looked extremely pleased. “You can keep it,” she said in Spanish.

  Suddenly, Yvette had an overwhelming desire to pull this child into her lap and comb her sun-split hair, teach her to read and write, and love her forever. Yvette looked down at the chick on her lap. It was finishing the last of the corn pellets. “It’s time, Yvette,” the little girl said in Spanish.

  As the bird scooped the last yellow seed, Yvette suddenly remembered why she had been in such a hurry the day of the accident; why she had been so preoccupied that she’d forgot to put on her seat belt. The memory broke loose; and as it rained its details down upon her, it took her breath away.

  On that last morning, she had just dropped off the dry cleaning when she saw him. She exited the laundromat, stepped onto the sidewalk, and headed toward the post office, digging through her bag to make sure she had brought the stack of envelopes to be mailed. And there he was, getting out of a car across the street. Yvette froze. She wasn’t surprised to feel the old familiar coldness rise in her stomach, she knew it would always be there. Five years had passed since she had last seen him, and yet, it was as if someone had spliced time. Even from across the street, his presence still felt intimate and familiar. He was a bit heavier, but otherwise he looked the same. She had heard that he lived in Arizona now. Yvette felt a slight tremble begin in the bones of her hands, her knees, her teeth. She took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together.

  Across the street, he took a step back and opened the rear passenger door of his blue sedan. He leaned into the car, and when he emerged, there was an infant clinging to his chest. A slender woman, whose face was hidden behind sunglasses and a hat, stepped out of the other side of the car and took the baby while he fed coins into the parking meter. Then, he took his wife’s hand and they headed toward the Olympia diner.

  Yvette stepped back into the laundromat and watched them from behind the safety of the glass storefront. She remembered the date—the exact time, actually—that he’d come to her apartment and told her that it was over between them. After he left (she could still hear the hushed sound of his footsteps on the hallway carpet), she lay awake most of the night, curled up into a ball,
shaking violently at the prospect of the approaching morning. After she finally fell asleep, just before dawn, her exhausted body began to sweat, and when she woke up, her pajamas and sheets were completely soaked. He had left her the way an amputated limb leaves the body. There would always be phantom pain for him. Always.

  When she had had a few minutes to compose herself, she headed toward her car, forgoing all her morning errands. She slipped into the seat of her Mustang, wondering if he had recognized it parked across the street. As she headed back home, driving fast felt healing and defiant. She had not felt that it was a betrayal of Will to experience this old hurt again. She loved Will in a healthy, trusting way. The love she knew before Will had been a reckless thrill ride to the edge of the universe, a blast that would continue its cascade into empty space as long as she was alive to remember it.

  She thought, He’s someone’s husband now. A father. A yellow highway sign warned of a dangerous curve and fifteen-mile-per-hour speed limit.

  The chick jumped up excitedly on her lap and Yvette shook her head. What a relief to be free of that terrible bondage, she thought. She remembered that the days after her loss had been even worse than the time spent in limbo.

  Her thoughts turned to Will. The unexpected knowledge that he had not been her heart’s first choice made her love him even more. Years ago, her own ability to love had been restored by Will’s translucent and unspoiled heart, and whether he knew it or not, his loyal old soul would eventually sabotage him. Will would belong to his wife as long as her heart was beating. For better or worse.

  And then there was her mother, her biggest worry. By the blinding brilliance of Yvette’s brief lucidity, she could see that her recovery was a temporary gift. Eventually, the darkness would descend again and Sylvia would suffer even more. Yvette had struggled so long to arrive at a higher place, to escape the caverns of darkness. She just couldn’t return—not for Will, not even for her mother. She was tired, so tired. To stay alive meant a life without dancing, without laughter, without cooking or children or shopping or swimming or sailing. To rot in a bed and wait years for the relief that was being offered to her right now.