“Yes, his girlfriends always are.”
I feel a stab of something, I’m not sure what. “Was she a cheerleader?”
“Actually, this one wasn’t,” says Estella.
We look through more pictures of Julian during his senior year, the year I’m about to begin. He was in varsity basketball. There are lots of shots with friends and with Estella’s son Brandon. Several are from Brandon and Claire’s wedding. Brandon has Estella’s dark features whereas his wife, Claire, is much lighter, with a round cherub face and short blond hair, so they’re like opposites and look very cute together. I want to ask Estella what happened to her sister, how she died, and how old Julian was when he came to live with her, but now’s not the time. I just keep complimenting how great everyone looks and then Estella puts the photo album away.
Chapter Three
The minute the album is out of sight, Estella’s stress level multiplies by a factor of about a hundred, particularly when Julian’s arrival date is moved up a day, and Estella’s non-changeable flight is therefore set for the morning after Julian will be there. Ultimately, we’re able to convince her that Julian will probably not be conscious or aware when he first arrives anyway—and no, she shouldn’t just pay for new flights or take the car and drive all the way down to Maryland to be there for him when he first arrives. The morning we have to leave, she’s still a mess about the delay, and about the trip in general. She can’t remember if she packed her socks or travel alarm. She can’t find her keys.
“Have a safe trip,” Dad says to her. “Call me when you get there.” He gives her an embarrassingly long hug and kiss goodbye and then turns to me and tells me—in French—to be as helpful as possible. Like this message is so important it requires his native language for added emphasis.
“I will.”
We finally make it into the shuttle van and to the airport and then there’s the stress over the tickets and whether to check or carry on the bags. This, of course, is really all about Julian and how worried she is for him, and nothing I do or say makes her feel any better. I only hope when she sees him, she’ll feel slightly more reassured.
Estella’s going to have a nervous breakdown before we even reach the hospital, I text Luke. But I have to power down my phone for takeoff before he can text me back.
Estella spends the whole flight memorizing maps of the area surrounding the hospital and then shredding her cocktail napkin into tiny little pieces and floating them in her ice water.
“We’ll be landing soon,” I say encouragingly to her. She blinks and nods but doesn’t really answer.
We carried on the bags, so without delay Estella hits the cab line and gets us from the airport to our hotel. There are a lot of hotels within a few miles of the hospital. Estella’s picked out one of the ones within walking distance.
“Let’s just check in, drop off the bags and head right over,” she says. She seems definitely on edge now, almost cranky.
The hospital is just under a mile away, so still a fair distance. The bags hit the room and I just have time to use the bathroom before she’s hurrying me back out again. When she wants to, Estella can really move. I’ve never been left in the dust so quickly outside of a running track before in my life. I have to pretty much jog to keep up with her, and the fact that I’m slowing her down seems to make her bad mood even worse.
“I wish you’d hurry!” she snaps.
Good grief. “Did you hear some news about Julian that has you more worried?” I ask.
Estella glares at me in response. All I meant was did a call come in I don’t know about that has her particularly in a rush. But I don’t bother to explain and she doesn’t care to stop to listen. Then all at once she turns to me when we reach an intersection and are forced to wait for the light.
“Look, Cami. I appreciate your father’s concern for me,” she says. “But this really isn’t the kind of thing you need to be exposed to.”
Oh, so that’s it. She’s still upset I’ve been sent on the trip with her, whereas I’ve pretty much made my peace with it. “I’m just here to help,” I tell her. “What if Julian could use a fresh blanket or a hot meal? I can run out and fetch those things for you. I can go back to the hotel and get something for you, whatever you might need. I can call people like my father or Brandon to let them know what’s going on, so you can focus all your attention on Julian.”
This seems reasonable enough to me and must to her as well, because she considers me before we head into the crosswalk. “I hadn’t thought of it like that,” she admits.
“Yeah, well.”
“That’s not how your father put it.”
“Dad’s a man. He’s not good with the whole communication thing sometimes.”
“I just hope Julian’s condition has stabilized,” she says.
No idea what this means, but it sounds really scary. “Me too. I’ll do whatever you need to help either one of you, okay?”
She gives me a faint smile and touches my arm. “Thanks.”
From the moment we walk in the front doors, I kind of have to force myself not to freak out—hospitals just aren’t my favorite places. I go out of my way not to look at anything too carefully, but of course it’s all still there in plain sight—the wheelchairs, the gurneys, the nurse’s stations, the doctors with stethoscopes draped around their necks, the curtained-off beds and blue IV machines. And then there’s the smell, that awful unmistakable antiseptic hospital smell. Estella’s shaking so hard, I want to squeeze her hand or something but even though she’d typically like it if I did, now I’m not sure. I think I’ll somehow be interrupting or bothering her.
Julian’s not in the critical care unit anymore, which is good. We find his room, and once we reach the door, I tell Estella I’ll wait outside. She doesn’t even register that I’ve spoken. She’s too locked on what’s inside that room. She’s so drawn to it, to her surrogate son, that I can’t stop watching her. Like a peeping Tom, I linger by the open doorway as she approaches Julian’s bed. There’s another patient in the room with him, but he’s the one who’s closest. “Hey handsome,” I hear her say, very softly. “How do you feel?” All I can see is her back. I don’t even know him and my heart is thundering away.
I can’t hear his response.
She leans over his face, probably to kiss him.
Then she turns away from him, obviously hiding the fact that she’s crying. I feel so bad for her, I go in and hand her the crumpled tissue in my pocket. She takes it and holds my arm. She holds it like she needs it to stay upright. I don’t even notice the patient in the bed, I’m so focused on Estella, and she’s blocking my view anyway. “I’ll get you a chair,” I say. She’s nodding. Trying to keep it together.
“No, don’t sit down,” a garbled voice from behind her says. “Just leave.”
“But Julian,” Estella begins, turning to face him.
“LEAVE!” he cries.
Some nerve. “You know, Estella has been worried half out of her mind,” I say. “She flew down here with her heart in her...”
Holy Mother of God. Estella moves away and I’m looking at her nephew. And I’m praying. Holy Mother of God, I pray. Well, a sort-of prayer. His eyes are so blackened and swollen he must hardly be able to see. His nose is broken and bandaged. His bottom lip is a busted mess. He’s wearing a neck brace. His right leg, covered by a hand-knitted quilt, is cut off just below the knee. His left leg is bare and outfitted with an extremely scary-looking apparatus made of metal rods and pins. The pins have been surgically inserted into his skin, presumably to hold the bones in place.