“I spoke with Sam,” she says softly. “Leah is in Thailand. It’s why no one has been able to reach her.”
My eyes narrow. It’s almost second nature when Leah’s name is mentioned.
“Why?”
Claribel clears her throat. It’s a tiny, chirping sound.
“It’s all right,” I tell her. “I don’t have ties to her emotionally.”
“She went with her boyfriend. Since you were supposed to have Estella for Christmas.”
“God, and she just didn’t tell anyone? Was he able to contact her?”
She pulls on her necklace and frowns. “He’s trying.”
I cover my eyes with the heels of my hands. I haven’t eaten or slept in thirty hours. I glance at Estella.
“Her mother should be here. Let me know as soon as you hear something.”
“I’ll get them to send a cot up. You should eat. You need to be strong for Estella,” she says.
I nod.
I don’t eat. But, I do fall asleep in the chair next to her bed. When I wake, there is a nurse in the room checking her vitals. I rub a hand across my face, my vision blurry.
“How is she?” I ask. My voice is hoarse.
“Vitals are stable.” She smiles when she sees me rubbing the back of my neck. “Your wife went to get a cot sent over.”
“I’m sorry. Who?” Had Leah made it back that quickly?
“Estella’s mother,” she says. “She was just here.”
I nod and start walking toward the door. I want to know where the hell she was while our daughter almost lost her life. You don’t just leave the country without telling anyone when you had a child. She could have made it here before I did if anyone had been able to contact her. Why she didn’t bother leaving a number with my parents … I stop walking. Maybe she had. They weren’t here to confirm it. Maybe that’s why my mother had sounded so strange on the phone. Or maybe my mother had known who Leah left the country with, and that’s what made her upset. My mother. Think about that later, I tell myself for the thousandth time today. My feet kick-start and I’m walking again. Around the corner, into the main corridor where the nurses’ station is. Beeping … beeping … the smell of antiseptic … I can hear muffled footsteps and hushed voices, a doctor’s pager going off. I think about the crying I heard earlier and wonder what happened to the patient. Had it been tears of fear or mourning or regret? I could cry the trifecta of those emotions right now. I look for red hair and see none. Rubbing my hand across the back of my neck, I stand in the middle of the corridor, not sure where to go. I feel detached, as if I’m floating above my body instead of being inside of it. A balloon on a string, I think. Is this what exhaustion looks like, everything muted and blurry? Suddenly, I’m not sure what I came out here to do. I turn around to go back to Estella’s room and that’s when I see her. No more than a few yards away, we’re both still, watching each other, surprised — and yet, not — to have fallen into this same corridor together. I feel the balloon pop and suddenly, I’m being pulled back into my body. My thoughts regain their sharpness. Sounds, smells, colors — they all come into focus. I am living in high definition again.
“Olivia.”
She walks slowly toward me and doesn’t stop a few feet away like I think she will. She comes right into my arms, molding herself against me. I hold her, pressing my face into her hair. How does such a tiny fleck of a woman have so much power that I can be restored just by looking at her? I breathe her in; feel her under my fingertips. I know, I know, I know that I am the match and she is the gasoline and without each other we are just two objects void of reaction.
“You were in the room earlier?”
She nods.
“The nurse said that Estella’s mother was here. I was looking for red hair…”
She nods again. “She assumed and I didn’t correct her. Sam called Cammie, Cammie called me,” she says. “I came right away.” She touches my face, both hands on either cheek. “Let’s go back in and sit with her.”
I blow air through my nose trying to quell the overwhelming emotions, the relief that she’s here, the fear for my daughter, and the anger at myself. I let her lead me back to Estella and we sit on either side of her, saying nothing.
Olivia stays with me for three days. She coaxes me into eating, brings me clothes and sits with Estella while I shower in the little bathroom attached to the room. In the days that she is there, I never ask why she came, or where her husband is. I leave out the questions and allow us to exist together in the worst few days of my life. Besides Leah, another person missing in action is my brother, Seth. Steve had mentioned that he was going on a deep-sea fishing trip the last time I spoke to him. I wonder if Claribel had managed to contact him and if he knew that our mother and stepfather were dead? Then, the strangeness of the situation hits me. Leah and Seth both missing at the same time, and how strangely my mother was behaving days before they were supposed to fly to London with my daughter. Had my mother known that Seth and Leah were together? I try not to think about it. What they do now is their business.
On day two, Olivia quietly reminds me that I have to make funeral arrangements for my parents. I’m on the phone with the funeral director late in the afternoon when Olivia walks in holding two cups of coffee. She refuses to drink hospital coffee and has been making the pilgrimage across the street to get Starbucks twice a day. I take the cup from her and she sits down opposite me. Albert — Trebla — the funeral director is asking questions, but I can’t focus on what he’s saying. Flowers, religious preferences, email notifications. It’s all too much. When she sees me struggling with the decisions, she sets her coffee down and takes the phone from me. I hear her speak in the voice she reserves for the courtroom.
“Where are you located? Yes, I’ll be there in forty minutes.”
She is gone for three hours. When she gets back, she tells me that everything is taken care of. She is just in time to see Estella wake up. I’ve been looking at her eyelids for days, so I almost cry when I see the color in my daughter’s irises. She whimpers and asks for her mommy. I kiss her nose and tell her that Mommy is on her way. Leah had trouble getting a flight out of Thailand. We’ve done nothing but fight over the phone. Last I spoke to her was a few hours ago, and she was in New York switching planes. She blames me, of course. I blame me too.
When the doctors and nurses leave the room, Estella falls asleep holding my hand. I am so grateful she didn’t ask about her grandparents. Long after her fingers go limp, I’m still gripping her little hand, my heart beating a little easier.
Olivia is standing at the window watching the rain late in the day. She left earlier to go home and shower. I expected her to be gone for the night, but she came back two hours later, wearing jeans and a white tunic shirt, her hair still wet and smelling of flowers. I watch her silhouette and for the tenth time that day, am overtaken with the grief/regret cocktail I’ve been drunk on.
“This is my fault. I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have made my parents bring my daughter halfway across the world to see me…” It’s the first time I’ve said any of this out loud.
She looks startled, turning away from the window and glancing my way. She doesn’t say anything right away. Just walks over and sits in her usual chair.
“The day I saw you in the music store it was raining too, do you remember?”
I nod. I remember everything about that day — the rain, the drops of water clinging to her hair, the way she smelled like gardenia when she furtively approached me.