Jason felt the mug slip from his fingers, bounce on the counter and shatter into a million pieces on the floor while his head connected the dots. She had said goodbye to Marco and had seemed a lot depressed. What was that she said before going upstairs?
She accepted the kiss, but not only to correspond his feelings. She hadn’t said something like “see you later” or “I’ll be right back”.
She had said ‘bye’. It was a goodbye in disguise, in a softer and less shocking way.
It was a goodbye.
Jason, eyes lost while trying to make some sense out of it, felt he was being observed by Marco and, when he returned to earth, he was already running towards the stairs.
“How long she’s been in there?” He shouted, running across the house.
“Dad? Dad! What happened?”
Marco stood up in a jolt and chased after his father, sensing something was not right.
But Jason… he knew it. He had seen that before, he knew what that meant.
He ran upstairs, Marco on his rear, completely unaware of what was on his mind.
“Clarice!” Jason yelled at the top of his lungs, repeatedly punching the solid door, which didn’t even flinch. “Clarice! I know you’re there. Open the door, Clarice.”
“Dad, is everything ok?”
“Marco… Ah!”
Jason moved away from the door and gathering the strength he still had, kicked the door hoping it would cave in on his first attempt.
Despite the loud thud from the impact and a slight creak, it stood still. He kicked it again and again, each time increasing the strength he was putting into it. Marco, who finally understood what was happening, got away and watched, as he tried to digest the shock.
“She wouldn’t do it, would she? She just can’t…”
“Marco, if you’re not gonna help, shut the fuck up.”
Jason stopped to take a few deep breaths, his foot already throbbing after the repeated blows against the door, and he decided to chance his attack. He moved back as much as he could and turned his shoulder against the door, running and throwing himself against it. And again. And again. Finally, Marco decided to join him.
“Wait. Let’s do it together, on three.”
“One.”
“Two.”
And they both threw themselves against the door with all they got.
And, at last, the lock caved, wide opening the door with a crash that echoed through the house. Marco, unsure of what to do, stayed at the door, while Jason stormed inside the bathroom as a police officer busting into an operation.
And his biggest fear got confirmed, hitting him along with that ice in his chest that froze his old heart for a bit, immobilizing him.
Clarice was immersed in the bathtub, completely. Besides, the water was not only fogged because of bath salts or soap bubbles; it was red, just as the sides of the round tub. On the floor, one of his razors. She had found them and she knew how to use them, maybe quite a lot.
Without thinking twice, Jason entered the tub, ignoring his shoes or his pant and lifted Clarice’s naked body, immediately removing her from the water and the imminent drowning. She was inert and cold, though the water was still warm. Behind him, the wide window that covered almost the entire wall showed him a wide cold night, not helping with that feeling of helplessness.
“Marco, grab some towels. Lots. Go to the guest bathroom, bring me all you can find.”
Marco hesitated in a second at the scene of his father and the woman in his hands, her wrists bleeding. Then he stormed out, while Jason tried to put her on the floor and get rid of those blurry eyes.
“Clarice…” He called, slapping her face a few times. “Clarice, please.”
She was still out. He looked at the wrists. The cuts, fortunately, were superficial, although large enough to get her weak, mainly when she hadn’t eaten anything since lunch.
With the towel beside the bathtub, the same Clarice had taken with her, he attempted to stop the bleeding, absorbing the excess of blood that still kept on coming out through the humid wounds.
“Clarice!”
“Here.” Marco announced, entering the bathroom again with a stack of towels in hands.
The first thing Jason did was to partially cover her body and use the other towels to bring her head up.
“Dad, she’s not gonna die, is she? She can’t…”
“Go get the first-aid kit. Fast, Marco!”
The last part came out in a furious growl and Jason hoped Marco would understand his despair and not confuse it with anger in its purest form. He was also desperate, not sure of what to do with Clarice.
She couldn’t leave him, not now. She had saved him, now he had…
“You have to save her.”
The voice came from the walls and Jason blinked strongly, trying to get rid of that blurry vision. Adrenaline was rushing full throttle in his body and that was probably some side-effect due the excess hormone. When he opened his eyes again, he saw the bathroom totally covered by blood. Floors, walls, the tub. And Clarice was floating on a thick layer of blood underneath her body.
And Michelle, at the tub, observed it all in her clean and untouched white dress.
He blinked a few more times and ignored the blood around himself, trying to help Clarice.
“She’s losing blood, Jason. What do you need to do now?”
“You are not real.” He whispered to himself, shaking his head while trying to bring Clarice awake. “You are not real. You are not real.”
“I want to help you, Jason. What do you need to do now?”
“You. Are. Not. Real. If you’re causing this, I swear I…”
Michelle’s laughter echoed through the bathroom, lifting every single hair in Jason’s body, bringing him to the edge of desperation tears.
“You what, Jason? Are you going to kill me? If I’m not real, how possibly can I be causing this to her? Are the wounds fatal?”
Horizontal slits, Jason though. Non-fatal. However, Clarice was still out of conscience, which he knew would only happen if she had lost a considerable amount of blood.
He held the towels on her wrists, until Marco returned, scared, holding the kit in hands.
“Get me some gauze and tape. Fast, Marco. And come help me.”
“Dad, I don’t know if…”
“Don’t you want to be a doctor? That’s the least you should do. Come!”
Marco removed the packs of gauze and the tape roll from the box, already running to his father, looking at Clarice. She was pale, almost the same tone of the bathroom walls, the same tone of the tub. And she was motionless, distant. Jason didn’t want that distance to grow further, not now.
With Marco’s help, he opened the plastic packs of gauze and removed the towels from the wounds. The bleeding already seemed quite smaller. He stanched the excess and started to cover the cuts with the bandage, rolling it around Clarice’s wrist while applying pressure at the same time, making it tight to avoid further leakage.
“I taught you well, Jason.” Michelle repeated, showing him the gauze. “Cover it. And apply more gauze after. She won’t die, Jason. Or will she? Can we trust you?”
“Shut up! For Christ, shut the fuck up!”
Marco, who dressed in bandages Clarice’s other arm, halted and stared his dad.
“I didn’t say a thing.”
“Not you, her.”
“Dad, there’s nobody here.”
“Shut up, Marco and help me. Not the opposite.”
“That’s how you talk to our son? Soon he’ll hate you too.” Michelle kept on saying, while observing Clarice with attention. “Looks like her breathing is returning… weak. I’d help her.”
“Dad,” Marco called, observing his eyes were lost onto nothing. “You are not…”
“Marco, shut your mouth or leave!”
Jason dragged himself up to Clarice’s head and, taking advantage of the fact her head was already up, he slightly tilted it back and started th
e procedure to help her breath. She had started to drown and he had forgotten that. The longer…
“… she stays without oxygen, the worse are consequences, Jason.”
“Shut.” He brawled and his voice came out so strong Marco felt the mirror vibrate.
Marco had finished the bandage on his side so, without any more words, he rushed out of the bathroom, with heavy steps. He was angry at his father and was not on his better mind to deal with that, at that moment.
Jason blew once and held back. No responses. He tried again and put his ear against her chest. Was her heart beating?
The heart was beating.
He tried again and, this time, he almost got hit by the water that escaped Clarice’s mouth when she recovered her air. She was frantic, but weak, and even when she tried to put on a struggle to be free, she failed. Her mouth, as white as paper, showed low blood pressure.
“By the looks of it, Jason, she’ll live.”
Yes, she would.
Between the gasping and the faltering breaths, Jason kissed Clarice again and held her, waiting for the moment the tears would come and hoping he would be able to help her overcome that too.
Once more he had saved her and, although Michelle was still there, looking right at him, present in case Clarice got lost too, he was sure that she wouldn’t leave anymore. Clarice, because Michelle he wanted gone once and for all.
And she kept on staring at him, smiling, in the middle of the bathroom covered with blood that, in a blink of eyes, came back to normal.
VI
The flashlight hit his eyes, moving from one side to the other. The paramedic smiled as he saw the responses and got away, allowing the first aid to be duly given to Anthon.
It made no sense. He had never been so mistaken before when it came to his investigative sense and, suddenly, there he was in an accident with a van when, minutes before, he was about to collide with a car identical to his and that, apparently, had vanished.
Nothing so serious had happened. Monica presented a simple bruise on her face and chest, caused by the impact of her forehead against the car window and the seatbelt, whereas he had a bleeding skull and a mild torsion to his arm, nothing that would prevent him from moving or that demanded a more urgent visit to the doctor.
Sitting at the back of the ambulance, Anthon observed while his department mates surrounded the place, taking pictures and analyzing the scene as a whole. Monica, on the other hand, was being calmed down by a couple of paramedics who didn’t seem that comfortable to the general situation.
“And the car had the same plates of yours?” The captain asked, turning his attention back to Anthon from behind his cheap suit and thick mustache. There was a clear tone of disbelief in his question and Anthon wondered where the years of consideration and work well done had gone.
“Yes, I don’t know…”
“There was no car!” Monica shouted, getting rid from the paramedic trying to calm her nerves while applying some bandage to her forehead. Her voice exhaled despair and anger. “There was no car chasing nobody! I told you that you were losing it, Anthon, I told you!”
The captain walked away, giving some air to the couple. Anthon, pissed by the interruption, grabbed Monica by her shoulders and set her away from the others, trying to bring her down.
“Monica, please, I need some support here.”
“Anthon. Anthon!” She laughed quite hysterically. “There was nobody! You were speeding towards a busy intersection and I couldn’t do anything about it!”
“But…”
“There was no one.”
Anthon looked down, his mind trying to gather all information. Flashes, little by little, came to his mind and he was dazed. If, for some seconds, he had seen that black car facing his, clearly advancing against him, on other flashes he’d only seen the pavement and the threatening intersection ahead. It made no sense. He scratched his forehead, trying to put the evidences together… after all, that was a detective’s job, wasn’t it? Gathering evidences and facts so that he could get to a logical and neutral conclusion.
And he couldn’t.
“You’re losing it, Anthon. You should at least hold on to your integrity, since our marriage you have slowly been destroying.”
“Monica, it’s no time for that.”
“It never is, Anthon. Your madness almost got both of us killed.”
“You’re not dead.”
“I could be. And for what? For an apology I barely heard? For an empty promise and a silent dinner in which I tried to talk to you for nearly an hour and didn’t get a not even a single nod?”
“Monica, I don’t know…”
“I’ve got no time for that.” She said, already walking away, her phone ringing in her hands. Probably another urgent call from work, another indispensable to be made.
Anthon puffed and almost punched the ambulance, something he thought better since he didn’t want another wound. There was a lingering buzzing in his head and, even though he had tried to focus his eyes on the asphalt, he couldn’t do it. There was pain in his arm and head, which seemed about to explode, but the eyes were still blurred along with that bothersome nausea as if he had been drunk – something that the breathalyzer after the accident proved untrue.
What was going on?
He sat down again, trying to recapture his breath and reorganize his thoughts. Keeping his eyes open hurt, trying to stabilize himself made him even more nauseated and breathless. Anthon even tried to put himself up again, but when he did it, the thud came against his face.
Monica had slapped him with a strength that probably represented all she had said, all she could have said and all she would say from then on.
“Monica.”
“I’m tired, Anthon. Tired!”
Her yells had already called all the attention of all the officers around the car and themselves. Anthon even tried to calm her down, trying to bring her out of the focus zone, but the attempt only made her more aggressive and nervous.
“Don’t be condescending, asshole.”
“Okay, that’s enough.”
In the heat of the moment, Anthon grabbed Monica by her arm and dragged her to the back of the ambulance. She kept on screaming for him to let her go and he knew he was using an unnecessary strength with her, but who could or would stop him? As soon as they were away from the outside eyes, he let her go.
“You hurt me, Anthon.”
“And you were hysterical.”
“Do you know how absurd it is to hear it from you? How ridiculous it is to be treated this way? You spend a whole life trying to prove yourself, trying to be someone beyond what society imposes and all of that for what, Anthon? To live at the mercy of a shitty piece of man like--”
“Monica!”
Anthon’s roar shut her and echoed along the empty avenue, muffling the sound of the sirens and the other natural ones from a big city. Monica withdrew and, for a few seconds, he saw fear reflected upon her eyes.
With trembling hands and tears on her face, Monica searched for something on her phone and shoved the device hard against Anthon’s face.
“Explain that to me, Anthon. Explain this shitty relationship to me, this load of fucking bullshit you try to push against me all the time. Explain it to me!”
Amongst her screams and the blinding light against his eyes, Anthon tried to concentrate and understand what was causing all that hatred to rise in her. And as soon as she took a beat, he managed to see the phone screen and the pictures. Something she probably had just received, the real epicenter of all that anger, not only started by the accident.
Wind blew cold, strong, hitting Anthon sharper than those pictures themselves.
Photos of him with Georgia. Outside the hotel, across the hotel window, together at the bed in scenes that should not have been captured. Photographs Anthon had no idea on why they had been taken, much less the reason they had been sent to her.
“Monica…”
“I don’t want to her
your voice. I don’t want to talk to you.”
Monica muffled and drowned herself in a mixture of fury and drama, something worthy of a Greek tragedy. It was all falling apart, Anthon had already realized, and there seemed to be nothing he could ever do to avoid that. In a fit of total lack of control, Monica threw the phone far away, shattering it into a million pieces, while trying to calm herself with her hands on her head.
“You know whatever’s on those pictures came before our--”
“Does it make any difference to you? Because, to me, it doesn’t, Anthon. I’m trying to salvage our marriage, trying to save you and what do I get in return? Is it some game of yours? Tell me!”
Once more everyone’s attention was over them and Anthon felt like shrinking under the judgmental glares from his coworkers around. Judgment, distrust, mockery and humiliation. He could see all those feelings printed on the faces around him. What was left for him to do? Nothing beyond a nod. He was losing that battle and he was losing it bad.
“Do not ignore me again, Anthon.”
“I’ve never ignored you.”
He wasn’t so sure. Anthon wasn’t so sure of anything else anymore after that imaginary accident he had, apparently, avoided just in order to create an accident as serious as it could have been with the other car due to his imprudence and altered state. What was happening?
While Monica growled by his side, uttering countless obscenities and all of her revolt, the pieces started to fit together inside his head, starting with the files he had lost, up to that opportunistic moment of mysteriously sent photos. Was it possible? His head was still light and oscillating, trying to keep its focus, and he kept on trying to understand all that was unravelling around him.
“Monica, that’s enough.”
His voice was like a shout that spread through the area, shutting everyone off. And she had got the message. Scared, she watched him with her face stained by mascara and tears, not sure on how to proceed. He moved onto her, trying to keep his cool.
“I told you, at the restaurant, all I want is you. I want a new shot. I want our life to be stable again.”
“But you…”
“I want,” he went on, on a louder note, obviously pissed off by the interruption. “you to understand that I’m speaking from my heart, but none of that will be possible…” She came for him again, but Anthon held her back by closing his eyes and a gentle nod that followed. “I need to continue.”
The Woman Hidden Page 21
