by Taylor Hobbs
But on the subject of men, particularly handsome disappearing fishermen and ex-husbands, Remy felt that Maggie would be a good substitute for grandmotherly advice. She could go to Madrid by bus and spend much-needed time getting men out of her head with copious amounts of wine and sightseeing. Maggie would also have great ideas on how to restore some of the buildings, particularly advice on how to design her cottage.
Excitement bubbled within Remy as she darted outside to her moped. I’ll run home, pack a few things, not tell Jack where I’m going, and by the time I get back, I’ll have a plan for my cottage, my books translated, and my head put on straight again.
“Bye, Ortigueira!” she shouted as she whizzed up the road back to the village. However, as if by speaking the words aloud, she jinxed it.
Chapter Five
When Remy pulled up and didn’t see Jack among the buildings, she breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t lasted long, just as she’d predicted. Jack was stubborn, but also hated being uncomfortable, and the mid-day heat was anything but mild. Assuming that her ex had gone back to his hotel room for a siesta and air-conditioned comfort, Remy cheerfully made her way over to her campsite to pack in peace.
Shoving a few meager outfits into a backpack, Remy was done in no time. Life was so much easier when she didn’t care what other people thought of her appearance. If she ended up needing nicer clothes, Maggie would be more than happy to loan her some for a night out.
Remy couldn’t leave just yet, though. While she had accumulated a great deal more of her own camping gear over the past few weeks, the fancier items—like her water purifier and solar charger—were still on loan from Sebastian. It wouldn’t do to ruin the stuff he had so graciously let her borrow, so Remy broke down her campsite and decided to stash her supplies in a building while she was away.
As she made her way down to the little cottage, Remy noticed that the wheelbarrow usually parked in front of the bakery was missing. Damn it, Jack, I told you not to touch anything!
After a brief scan of the square, she saw it parked in front of the main house, halfway filled with new debris. Her irritation started to morph into real concern when she saw Jack’s helmet hanging from one of the handles. Of course, he wouldn’t have actually put it on; it was just for show. But Jack also wouldn’t have left it behind if he really did go back to the hotel.
“Jack? Jack?” Remy shouted at the house. She waited for him to swing the red door open so she could give him a piece of her mind.
There wasn’t even the creak of a floorboard to indicate his presence. She inhaled through her nose, trying to stay calm rather than jumping to conclusions. The air was dead quiet, and Remy only heard the sound of her breathing.
She approached the house as she would a wild animal—with slow, even steps and her hand stretched out in front. Her palm touched the door, and when she pushed it inward it squealed in protest.
“Jack?” she whispered, feeling the need not to frighten the house any further. Remy rounded the corner and saw a thick layer of new dust had settled over the floor, barely covering size twelve footprints. Then she saw the actual boots themselves, poking out from underneath a two-hundred-year-old wooden beam.
Remy ran to him, coughing as she stirred up the air. Please be alive, she thought. A thick support beam had fallen from the second story and appeared to have knocked Jack sideways across the dining room. It lay across his thighs, pinning him to the floor, but that was the least of Remy’s concerns.
The back of Jack’s head rested on the fireplace stones, blood pooling underneath matted hair. What do I do? Remy squeezed her eyes shut to try and make sense of what had happened. She felt like she was moving in slow motion or watching a scene from a movie. It was all a dream—Jack wasn’t really here. He was safe and at home, back in New York. He never came here, never saw Remy, and she never left him alone in the village.
He was pale as a sheet, and not moving. Needing to touch him but terrified of hurting him at the same time, Remy brushed her fingers across his cheeks. The jolt of his still-warm skin, with just the smallest hint of stubble, broke through her denial and ricocheted Remy from spectator to participant in a split second. It was enough to spur her into action.
“Can you hear me? Jack?” Her hands wandered to his chest, where its slight rise and fall indicated that he still lived. “Oh, thank God,” she murmured. But you have to wake up. Breathing wasn’t worth much of anything if he was brain dead.
A soft groan escaped his lips and gave Remy enough reassurance that he might regain consciousness while she dialed one-one-two. With surprisingly steady explanations, she conveyed—in English—to the emergency operator exactly what had happened. It was only at the end, when they assured her that an ambulance was on its way, did she start to break down.
“Gracias,” she whispered, and stayed on the line. Jack didn’t make any other movements, but now Remy prayed that he would stay unconscious and protected from pain until the medical personnel arrived. Remy had no idea what to do if he woke up screaming in agony. She didn’t think she had it in her to hold Jack down if he was thrashing or panicked. She couldn’t move him, couldn’t lift the beam, and couldn’t do anything that might exacerbate a spinal or head injury.
Instead, she gave him what little comfort she could, reaching for his hand and squeezing it gently in hers. “I’m here,” she told him. “You’re going to be okay. They’re coming to get you, and I won’t let you go alone. I love you, Jack.”
Jack had traveled all the way to Spain to hear those words from Remy’s lips, and she spoke them because they were the truth. Had it been under any other circumstance, Remy wouldn’t have dared to utter them in case Jack took it the wrong way. But she did love him, of course she did, and there was nothing more gut-wrenching than seeing someone you love so grievously hurt. Love was the most powerful language, and Remy channeled the emotion to Jack through their entwined hands and hoped that it would help.
Where is the ambulance? It should have been here by now. Hurry up, she thought. Was it just her imagination, or were Jack’s fingers growing colder? Was that wheezing sound coming from his chest?
She couldn’t wish. She didn’t dare. But the words were on the tip of her tongue. I wish for the ambulance to show up right now and for Jack to be okay. A simple phrase would make everything better.
“The medical team is two minutes away, Remy,” the emergency operator reassured her through speakerphone. “Are there any changes to Jack’s condition?”
“No, none,” Remy choked out. “The bleeding might be slowing down. I don’t know. It’s too hard to tell.” Her voice rose an octave. “Tell them to hurry up!”
“Just stay calm, Remy, you’re doing fine. Any minute now.”
And then she heard the blessed sirens, their screech cutting through the air like an angel’s song. Remy just had to hold on and be strong for a little while longer.
“Over here! Over here! We’re in the main house!” Remy screamed until she heard footsteps on hardwood floor.
A uniformed team of four burst into view, carrying a stretcher between them. They spoke to each other in terse Spanish, and Remy couldn’t follow the conversation. The EMTs set the stretcher down out of the way and approached Jack, stepping over the beam and being careful not to jostle anything. One man appeared to be in charge and said a few phrases into the radio attached to his lapel.
Nobody even looked at Remy; she might as well have been invisible. They were so focused on Jack that she had to scramble out of the way when they all knelt down around him at once. Slow down, she wanted to say. What’s happening? What do you see? Is he going to be okay? The word “hospital” might have been included in their conversation, but the rest was a blur. Why wasn’t anyone explaining anything to her?
The radio guy finally addressed her and barked a sharp sentence. Remy focused her dazed stare on him. “Huh?”
His lips tightened to a thin line and he pointed to the corner of the room. Remy got the hint—Get the he
ll out of the way. She was useless. There was nothing for her to do but watch.
With practiced movements, the team immobilized Jack’s neck and body as best they could, and then positioned themselves to lift the beam off his legs. “Uno, dos, tres.”
Remy gasped when she saw his legs revealed. One knee was twisted backward, and the other ankle looked crushed. The EMTs must have given Jack a sedative of some kind, because he didn’t groan or move once his body was free. His broken and mangled figure didn’t cause the team any pause, because as soon as they set the beam down a safe distance away, they gently loaded Jack onto the stretcher and strapped him down.
Jack had always seemed so big. Larger than life, big money and big dreams, coupled with a booming laugh and broad shoulders. Jack was indestructible, her rock, even through the darkest parts of her marriage and depression. Nothing could take him down. To Remy, he still seemed twenty-two, no matter how old he got, but the village had snatched away this hero-worship of him in one afternoon. It revealed a vulnerable and older side of Jack, a man that could break physically as well as emotionally. He looked so small strapped to the stretcher. The lines in his face and the gray in his hair were thrown into sharp contrast by the bright blood on his head.
He was mortal. He might die. And it was all Remy’s fault.
She followed the stretcher outside, where the EMTs loaded Jack into the waiting ambulance. Remy put her foot on the first step to follow him but was stopped by the female technician.
“No, I have to go with him,” Remy said, close to shoving her way onboard.
The EMT hesitated for a split second while everyone else filed into the ambulance. It was a moment’s pause, enough for her to see the desperation on Remy’s face. “¿Familia?” she asked. Are you family?
“Sí,” Remy declared. “Familia.”
The woman gave her a quick nod and held out a hand to help Remy inside. Remy grabbed it. As long as she kept moving forward, she wouldn’t have time to reflect on the accident.
Could that have just as easily happened to me? Remy wondered. Only it would have been days before anyone noticed she was missing. The vulnerability of her day to day life sent a shiver down Remy’s already frayed nervous system. Maybe Jack was right. She had no business being up here all alone. Thoughts of her already reckless behavior—the drinking, running down cliffs, talking to strangers, sleeping outside—were put into a whole new perspective.
Remy had trusted the village to keep her safe, and it had done so thus far. But Jack had spent mere hours in the village and it almost killed him. How could the village have betrayed her like that? Sure, she hadn’t wanted her ex-husband poking around there, and she had definitely wanted him gone as soon as possible, but that hadn’t meant she’d wanted him dead. Jack had been at the wrong place at the wrong time, and the roof happened to fall on him. Was it pure luck or coincidence that Remy hadn’t suffered the same fate? Did the village recognize those meant to be there and those who wished it ill will?
She shook her head. The main house doesn’t have motive, it doesn’t have thoughts! It is a building, for God’s sake. But still, the thought of going back to the village, which had previously felt more like home than anywhere else, freaked her out. At that moment, she wanted to be surrounded by people, in a well-lit hospital, far away from that haunting red door. It was all too much to comprehend, and Remy felt that familiar desire to run away.
But she was in too deep now, and she especially couldn’t abandon Jack. All plans of Maggie and Madrid were thrown out the window as the ambulance arrived at the biggest hospital in Coruña. Jack was whisked through automatic doors and past a threshold that Remy could not follow. Instead, she was directed to a waiting room where other wide-eyed family members sat in hope and silence.
One hunchbacked old woman sat with her eyes closed and a rosary clutched in her ancient hands, fingers running with practiced movements over the worn beads as she muttered fervently under her breath. Remy wanted to join her, to have the ability to ask and pray for things without risking a slip-up. To have fate completely out of her hands would be freeing, and to ask for something from an omnipotent power without waiting for backlash would be a gift.
All Remy could do, though, was help in whatever small ways she was allowed. Phone calls, she realized. I need to let people know what happened. She pulled out her cell phone and unlocked the screen, her thumb smearing a spot of blood that had congealed on the surface. The names in her address book stared back at her like strangers. Who did she trust enough to call? Most of the people in there were half a world away.
She couldn’t call Jack’s parents. They cut off contact with their son when he went to rehab for the first time, after his second drug arrest. Neither of his parents had attended their wedding, either, and Remy had met them a grand total of one time in all the years she spent as their daughter-in-law. Jack’s grandparents had been more forgiving. They helped him with the auction house in its early days and gave him access to a substantial trust fund once he proved he wasn’t going to blow it all on, well, blow. But they had passed away close to a decade ago, and Jack was an only child.
Remy couldn’t call anyone in her family, obviously. They didn’t even know that Remy had married Jack, much less divorced him and moved to Europe. She didn’t have their contact information in her phone, though somehow her brain could recall her home phone number from twenty years ago. As ridiculous as it was, Remy couldn’t help but feel that if she did dial those ten numbers, her mom would pick up on the other end. That thought clenched her stomach, and Remy started scrolling to distract herself.
My lawyer, she realized. I can call my lawyer to tell Jack’s lawyer what happened. He would know Jack’s emergency contacts and who has power of attorney. Remy placed the call and received the promise that Jack’s lawyer would call once he had answers.
It didn’t feel like enough. How could Jack and Remy, both in their late thirties, have no one close enough to call but their lawyers during a crisis? Remy needed someone who loved both her and Jack, someone who would have both their backs and fight for them. With a sigh, she scrolled up to the top to the A’s. Adding on a quick acknowledgment of total forgiveness, she clicked Anita’s name. Her best friend had won again, and now was not the time to hold a grudge. When the chips were down, Anita would drop everything for her.
“Remy?”
“Neets, I need to talk to you. It’s about Jack.”
“Did he find you? I’m so sorry—”
“Anita. I need you. Jack was in an accident.” Remy’s voice cracked, and she tried to regain composure. “We’re at a hospital in Coruña. Can you come? I just need…” Remy didn’t know how to voice exactly what she needed, but Anita understood. By some miracle, Anita didn’t even ask her customary one hundred questions and demand an explanation over the phone. Remy wondered how desperate she actually sounded.
“Tell me where and I’ll see you soon.”
When Remy hung up the phone, what was left of the adrenaline surged out. Exhausted, she collapsed against the plastic chair, which suddenly seemed like the most comfortable seat in the world. There was still blood on her clothes and her hands, but Remy couldn’t summon the energy to get up and find a bathroom. I need to be here when the doctors come out and tell me what’s wrong, she reasoned. I’ll sit right here until they let me go back and see Jack.
But the minutes dragged into hours, and Remy’s limbs and eyelids grew heavier. She hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep until a gentle pressure on her shoulder jolted her back into the world. Snorting with surprise, her eyes focused on a pair of scrubs standing in front of her.
“Is he awake?” she asked, once she could form words.
“No, Señora, but he has been transferred to the intensive care unit,” the nurse said, in perfect English. Feeling relieved enough to weep that she had found someone to explain things to her in her native tongue, Remy said, “Oh, thank God!”
“The doctors have stabilized his vitals, but he ha
s not woken up on his own. They need to run more tests and do additional brain scans.” The nurse held out a clipboard to Remy. “Any medical information you can give us about the patient would be helpful. You are his wife, yes?”
“Ex-wife, actually,” Remy said, looking down at the paperwork. “But I know his medical history.”
“Oh, my mistake. I’m sorry. I can only give out patient information to family or next of kin.” The nurse looked flustered and pulled the clipboard from Remy’s hands. “Is there anyone else we can contact instead?”
Remy reached up and yanked the forms back down into her lap. “I said I can do it. I’m the only person here that Jack knows. And if this is going to help save his life, then you’d damn well better let me do it.”
“But—”
Remy all but bared her teeth at the woman. “I could have filled them out by now. To start with, go tell the doctors that Jack is allergic to penicillin. I’ll have the rest of his information ready for you when you get back.”
The nurse scurried off while Remy filled in blood type, age, and medications, marveling at the fact that even though they were divorced, she could never “un-know” Jack. From allergies to childhood dreams to deep-seated fears, Remy knew there must be a reason why marriage was meant to last forever—it was just too damn hard to forget every detail of the partner you once loved.
Remy needed to make room to fit other parts of her life, but Jack still took up far too much space. Both mentally and emotionally, he was just as entwined into Remy’s personality as the most basic aspects of herself. The thought of how much time it would take to extract herself from his influence was overwhelming. She would one day have to realize who she was without him, but today could not be that day.
Today, she needed to be as close to Jack as she could bear to get him through this. Though it would be more painful for Remy later on, she needed to embrace their connection instead of trying to deny it. Would it weaken her enough to let Jack talk her into going back to New York? All that work, and all her weeks of distance and starting a new life—would it be wiped away, and eventually feel like a distant dream?
