by Taylor Hobbs
He was asleep. Remy let out a sigh of relief and sagged against the door frame.
“What do you think? Should we wake him up? Let him know you’re here?” Anita asked, looking a bit let down that the dramatic moment between Jack and Remy had been postponed. She’d come thousands of miles to witness it, after all.
A thick gauze wrapped around Jack’s head, and purple bruises on his temples blossomed out from underneath the bandage. Small scratches raked bright against his pale face, but his expression remained serene. He didn’t appear to be in any pain, and Remy gave a silent thanks for morphine. Tubes connecting to IVs and monitors spiraled out from him in every direction. The rest of Jack’s body was covered by a blanket, though Remy could guess that damage to his legs was severe due to the bulky hints of what lay underneath.
“He needs to rest,” Remy said. He was safe here, and in good hands. She didn’t feel like the one who had to be solely responsible for keeping him alive anymore. Everything was under control. Anita was here, Jack was healing, and nothing truly disastrous had happened. Remy felt like she was finally waking up from her nightmare.
“He will be confused for a little while.” A voice behind Remy and Anita made them jump at the same time. “But hopefully within a few days, he will regain most or all of his cognition and memories. There was not any lasting damage that could be seen on the MRI, but concussions are still serious.”
Remy turned to face the doctor, the same one who had given her the good news at four in the morning. “Thank you—” she started to say, but the doctor barreled on, clearly in diagnostic mode.
“The damage to his head was what we were most concerned about, and he has a long road to recovery ahead, including physical therapy for his legs. His right leg was shattered from kneecap to ankle. He will require additional surgeries to regain full use of it. His left leg fared better, a clean break at the ankle, but there was some tendon damage—”
“How soon until he can travel?” Anita interrupted. “I mean, no offense, but it would probably be best for Jack to be seen by doctors in the U.S., right Remy?”
“I can’t think that far ahead now, Anita. Jack might not be comfortable with that. Look at him; he’s hardly even responsive.” Though Jack’s eyelids had flickered when the doctor had come into the room, they didn’t open. “He doesn’t even know we’re here right now.”
“I’m just trying to do what’s best for you both,” Anita said. “And I think that would be getting the hell out of here and back to New York as fast as possible. They have the best physicians in the world. This is why you had me come out, right? To have your back?” Anita turned back to the doctor, who had kept his calm and professional composure while being interrogated, but now looked more than a little irritated.
He spoke again. “Recovery will be a slow process, like I said. Are you a family member?”
“I’m Remy’s sister.”
The doctor gave them a dubious once-over. “Jack should really only have one visitor at a time…”
“I’ll sit here with him while you talk to the doctor, Remy,” Anita announced, already crossing the room to Jack’s bedside. Remy was surprised but followed the doctor out into the hallway.
“Jack was very lucky you found him when you did,” the doctor said. “He lost a lot of blood. It was touch and go seeing if he would wake up—”
Remy’s heart started to pound, and her vision blurred. My fault. The guilt came back with a roaring vengeance. I shouldn’t be here. I need to stay away from Jack.
“I, uh, have to go to the bathroom,” Remy mumbled, and pushed past the doctor, trying her hardest not to sprint down the hall. It’s too hard to breathe in here. The walls were closing in on her. She needed to get some fresh air before she could tackle the logistics of Jack’s treatment.
But Remy’s feet had other ideas. They carried her at a run once she burst out of the hospital doors and pounded down the sidewalk. Have to get away, a voice whispered. It was all too much. Anita is there, he won’t wake up alone, her conscience reassured her. You did all you could.
When she started to think about turning around, her arm flew up on its own accord to hail a taxi. Only instead of telling the driver to take her back to the hospital, she gave him the address of the village.
“Ortigueira?” the driver asked. It would be a substantial fare.
“Sí,” Remy said, her mouth forming the words while the angel on her shoulder yelled at her to go back to check on Jack.
Home. Remy needed to know if the village would still feel like home after Jack’s accident. Her happy place had been tarnished, and she didn’t know if she could look at it the same way again. Would she ever be able to enter the main house? Would she feel jumpy and haunted as she tried to restore the village, waiting for another roof to cave in on her? The only way to know was to go back. Then, she would know if she had to return to New York with Jack and Anita.
As the taxi wove its way up her driveway, raindrops spattered the windshield. The sky grew overcast and gray, matching Remy’s somber mood. When she paid the driver and got out of the car, Remy waited a beat before turning around to take in the sight of her property.
It felt like it was weeping with the rain. Depressed and wet, the buildings had never looked drabber. Though it was the last place Remy wanted to go, she forced herself to approach the main house. The red door was still open, as if hopeful of her eventual return.
A thump followed by a muffled curse made every hair on Remy’s body stand up. Another trespasser? Doesn’t everyone know that this is my village now? For the time being, at least. Unless she decided to chicken out and flee to New York.
“Who’s there?” Remy demanded. “Being here is a good way to get yourself almost killed.”
“Remy?” The voice came from the same room as the accident. The last room in the world that Remy wanted to go investigate.
“Sebastian? What are you doing here?”
“I thought you would be at the hospital, Señora. I wanted to finish before you saw…” Sebastian’s voice grew louder as Remy approached the room. She rounded the corner to see a very dirty real estate agent, clutching a dripping mop.
He looked from Remy to a sudsy bucket and back to her face. His cheeks flushed red, and he explained, “You should not have had to clean this up. I did not want you to return to this horrible…” He couldn’t think of the right words to describe the immense pool of blood that had been left behind and tracked through the house on the EMT workers’ shoes. Remy vaguely remembered what it had looked like—a scene from a cheesy horror movie, with an overly enthusiastic director who loved fake blood. Only it hadn’t been cheesy, and you couldn’t fake the vomit-inducing metallic smell of the real thing.
“I can’t believe you did this for me, Sebastian.” Remy could only imagine how much of an ordeal it was for her friend. It was probably a bigger job than he had anticipated. Most of the blood had already been cleaned up, save for a few shoe prints in the corner that were Remy’s own.
“I was thinking you were at the hospital this morning. Is Jack awake?”
“He’s out of the woods for now. A pretty bad concussion and broken leg, as well as a broken ankle, but he’s getting better. No long-term damage.”
Sebastian’s face broke into a grin. “That is wonderful news! Did he speak to you? Did he say what happened?”
Shifting her weight back and forth on the balls of her feet while she hesitated, Remy finally answered. “No, not yet. He was asleep when I left. But the doctors told me he had woken up and would be okay.”
“Ah.” Sebastian looked confused, but too polite to pry further. Remy could tell he was wondering what she was doing back at the village. “I can drive you back to the hospital,” he offered. “I am almost done in here.”
“My friend from New York flew in overnight. She is with Jack at the hospital now. He isn’t alone or anything,” Remy rushed to explain.
Sebastian held up a hand. “No need. I am just a phone call away
if you decide that you need anything else.”
“You’ve already done so much,” she assured him. “Really, it was more than I could have asked for. Thank you for thinking of this.” She gestured to the damp floor. “I honestly don’t know what I would have done about it on my own.”
Now that the visceral reminder of the accident had disappeared, it didn’t seem as terrifying being in the main house as she would have thought.
Already Remy could feel her memories restructuring themselves in order to protect her from the pain. It had been the same with her miscarriages. A blur of blood, pain, cramping, and screaming as that potential little life met an undignified end in the bathroom. The details always became hazier as time went on, until months later she would decide that she should risk it all again because what if this time it works out? And in trying again, she would block out everything that had traumatized her the previous times.
So out of habit, she didn’t try to fight the numbing calm as it took over. She embraced the comfort that it gave her and accepted that the worst was over. Remy recalled an article she read about how the best time to travel was immediately after a terrorist attack. Cities and airports were the safest then, because citizens were on such high alert. The worst time to get on a plane was when everyone was lulled into a false sense of security. Remy’s security had been stripped from her, but the debt had been paid. Whatever karmic balance she owed, it would be quite a while before anything bad like that happened again. The village would be safe for a while, at least, if it adhered to this bizarre logic. Evidence to the contrary screamed at her, but the longer she spent in the village, the quieter the screams became, until they were just little whispers in her mind.
Sebastian peered at her, witnessing the change that dropped over Remy’s face. “Do you still want to stay here?” he asked, point blank. “My wife has offered the spare room in our house—”
The words left her mouth of their own accord. “Yes. I will stay in the cottage, though. This house isn’t safe yet, as we all now know.” Her heart spoke, overruling the last of the fear and apprehension in her brain. I don’t belong anywhere else.
“Are you sure that you will not be frightened? And it is a long way from the hospital.”
“It won’t be an issue,” she said, refusing to explain further. “I’ll meet you back outside. I have some of the camping gear you loaned me.” Giving the room one last cursory glance, almost disinterested now, Remy exited the house.
The pile of supplies was exactly where she had left it while packing the day before. She had dropped the camping gear right beside the wheelbarrow due to her crisis en-route to the cottage. It was soaking wet from the rain. Thankfully, the tent had been on top, and had deflected much of the water from the gear underneath. Remy took it up onto the sheltered front porch and shook out the light canvas. While organizing the stack, Remy realized that she had left some very important books that were not waterproof on the ground.
“Shit!” Looking closer, she was relieved to find that they were only a little damp and the pages were slightly wrinkled, so she set them standing up to air out. The historical scrapbook one, however, looked like it had received the brunt of the damage. Remy groaned, wondering how much trouble she was going to get in with the cranky librarian when she tried to return it. Somehow, she didn’t think that “My ex-husband almost died” was going to fly as an excuse with him.
Cautious fingers turned the pages, and a few of the letters peeled off. Some of the ink ran, but most of the book was still legible. Or it would be, if I could read Spanish.
Sebastian joined her out on the porch, mop and bucket in hand. “You are sure you want me to take this back?” he asked, gesturing at the soggy pile. “You can borrow the tent for as long as you need. I think it would be better.”
“No, staying in the cottage will give me the incentive to fix it up faster,” Remy said. And distract me from Jack, but she didn’t say that out loud. Anything to avoid going back to the hospital for a while. It used to be that she would paint to distract herself, and let the hours and days pass in the blink of an eye. Now, she needed a different way to become immersed in a reality other than this one, and translating a Spanish architecture book and pounding nails might be her only way to do it.
She held up her books to Sebastian. “I’ve got everything I need right here,” she said. “If I have any translation questions, though, I’ll call you,” she promised.
Sebastian’s eyes skimmed the titles. “I don’t mean to offend, but I do not believe that a book about the Camino de Santiago is going to help you rebuild your cottage.”
“Aren’t you the one who told me that the miracles in the village are tied to the Camino?” Remy reminded him. “I’m going to need some miracle help to fix up my cottage, and the rest of the buildings.”
“But the accident…I do not think that was a miracle from the village.” Sebastian shuddered. “After all of this, maybe I was wrong about this place.”
“I’ll hire a crew for the structural stuff,” Remy conceded. “But statistically, there shouldn’t be another accident like that.” Sebastian didn’t argue with her but looked skeptical. “If you’ll excuse me, I really need to organize some stuff. You know, before I have to go back to the hospital to see Jack,” Remy lied, but Sebastian nodded in understanding.
“Do you want me to wait while you pack your bag?” he asked. “Then you won’t have to drive your moped in the rain.”
“Ah, no. Really, it’s okay. I need to call Anita and see what she wants me to bring back for her, too. I might be a while.” Just leave, she thought. She had done a good job of blocking the memories out, and Sebastian insisted on reminding her all over again. She didn’t want to keep up the ruse of handling it all like an adult. Her growing irritation toward him was unfair, but impossible to stop. Forcing a small smile to her lips, she said, “Thank you again for cleaning up. It was very kind of you. You’ve done too much to help already.”
The urgent need for Sebastian to leave began to overwhelm her, and she basically pushed him to his car with arms full of wet camping gear. “I’ll call you later,” she promised, “with an update about Jack.”
Once Sebastian left, the rain immediately stopped. Remy breathed in the smell of damp earth and stared up at the clouds, transfixed at their movement as the wind picked up and carried them away. The sun broke through suddenly, blinding Remy with a flash. “Ouch!” Broken from her trance, Remy squeezed her eyelids shut and felt the sting of salty tears on her cheeks. Rubbing her eyes to clear the spots that kaleidoscoped across her vision, Remy waited for the pain to dissipate.
When she was able to see again, she looked across her village to see, of all things, a horse and rider plodding along through town square.
“Hey!” she yelled from the driveway. The rider didn’t appear to hear her at all, so she started speed-walking in his direction. “I said hey!”
Though the rider didn’t react, the horse clearly heard her shouts. The plodding hooves started dancing and its ears flattened to its head. The rider grabbed onto the reins and spun the animal around.
“Bieito?” Remy asked. That caused the rider to snap to attention.
“Hello? Do I know you?” he called.
Remy jogged closer so that he could clearly see her face. “Remy!” he said, and a joyful smile broke out on his features.
“What are you doing?” she asked, confused.
“Taking Blanco back to the barn,” Bieito said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“My barn?”
“I do not understand what you mean,” he said politely. “But I have been searching for you on the beach these past days. I have been hoping to see you again. You left rather suddenly during our first encounter. And now you are here! Right in my family’s village. I am very glad you have found me.”
Remy felt a little flutter in her chest when she heard that Bieito had been searching for her, but as he continued talking, she felt her heart sink. He
was a nice man, but obviously confused. Just my luck, I always crush on the crazy ones. Regardless, she could not let this unstable man stable a horse in her ramshackle barn. After what happened to Jack, Remy wasn’t going to let anyone wander around her property.
“Where did you get that horse, Bieito?”
“He is mine. I raised him from a foal, when his mother rejected him. I ride him to the port when my father does not need him on our little farm. Would you like to say hello? I will make the introductions.” In one fluid movement, Bieito dismounted. Running his hands along the horse’s velvet nose, Bieito whispered into the animal’s ear.
“Really, I think you’d better get him home—oh!” The horse bowed his head low in Remy’s direction, making a graceful curtsy to the ground. Then with a snort, the horse tossed his head high and trotted off down the hill.
“Your horse is running away!”
“Señora Remy, do not worry. He is just following your instructions. You told him to go home!” Bieito gave her a teasing wink and offered his hand to her. Remy held it out, surprised when Bieito bowed much like his horse had, and his lips grazed the back of her hand. “I might have told him to leave us alone,” he confessed. “Have you been thinking of me as often as I have thought of you? You are a hard woman to find.”
Don’t get flustered, Remy told herself. Stay on track. Find out where this guy actually lives. “I haven’t been down to the beach of late, unfortunately. I’ve been busy with…out of town visitors.”
“More Americans?” Bieito asked excitedly. “I told my brother and father that I had met an American painter on the beach. They had heard of no such woman, though, and teased me mercilessly for my fantasy. Just wait until they meet you!”
“And when can I expect to meet your family?” Remy asked, getting caught up in his enthusiasm despite herself. Bieito had a way about him that made everything else in the world fall away. Nothing seemed as important, and Remy found it harder and harder to question the logistics or reality of her situation the longer she was in his presence.
