Well dear readers, things are starting to wrap up as you will see in this chapter. I imagine there will be one, max two more chapters, maybe an epilogue, dependent on how things go. As ever you reviews are so appreciated!
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Seconds counted by heart beats, by the reckoning of every resounding thud in her chest, as each moment stretched out grotesquely and never seemed to end, like dreams where she was running, running with lead on her feet and she could never reach what she sought. Clara's mind spiraled out in all directions as she threaded through traffic, scenario after terrible scenario. When she finally reached the hospital she was convinced that Ivan was maimed, brain dead or worse... simply dead. Inertia alone kept her from falling apart. The look on the teacher's face when she greeted her at the door did little to calm her, she could barely stutter out a 'how is he?' and the teacher mumbled something which could mean anything and took her to where Ivan was in the emergency ward, hidden behind a thin curtain. Clara pulled the material aside to see Ivan's little body laid out, his eyes closed. She couldn't tell if he was breathing and a momentary panic beset her until she saw a tiny flaring of the nostrils and she though she could cry, she was so relieved. She moved to his side, her had reaching out until the teacher cautioned her about his arm and she looked down to see the sickening angle at which it lay, the skin turning a violent purple.
"Where's the doctor, why isn't someone seeing to this?" she demanded.
"They're about to take him up to do an x-ray on his arm and then set it."
Clara looked back to her boy, her fingers lightly brushing his forehead. She leaned over and kissed it and she felt tears fall in fat drops into his sandy blond hair.
"What happened?" she asked.
"It happened on the playground during lunch. A boy called Matheus fought with Ivan. I'm not quite sure why because they've always been friends, but something upset the two of them and Matheus pushed Ivan who fell backwards into the monkey bars, smacking his head and breaking his arm as he fell down."
Clara could hear the guilt in the teacher's voice, that sense of culpability. She looked at the woman. She'd never met her before, never spoken to her. She didn't even know her name. How ridiculous that this was the person taking care of her son during school. Clara wanted to shake her. She wanted shout at her. This was her baby. This was her precious child who was unconscious with a broken arm, he shouldn't be here at all and she wanted to blame this woman but instead she took a deep breath and closed her eyes a moment.
"I'm so sorry, Mrs Fernandez. It happened very quickly, it was over within seconds..."
Clara didn't want to hear anything more, she just wanted this woman to go and leave her alone. And she wanted a doctor to see to her son, how could he be left alone in this condition? What if she wasn't here and he woke up? He'd be confused and scared.
"Where's the bloody doctor?" she asked again
"I'll go look for him." the teacher said and left.
Clara pulled a chair up, her hand seeking out his uninjured one to hold in hers. She remembered how little his hands were when he was born, so tiny and perfectly formed with those sharp little nails she'd had to bundle up in newborn socks to stop him from accidentally scratching his face. Tears were making their steady way down her face, she blinked them away.
"Ivan." she said, "Ivan, my sweetheart, mummy's here. Mummy's here so you can wake up now. The doctor's going to take care of you and fix your arm, so you just need to wake up. Okay, my sweet boy?"
"Clara? Ivan?"
Clara turned to see Cadu standing there, a little out of breath, his hand on his racing heart.
"Cadu!" she said and her shoulders started to shook as a sob rose up. Cadu looked at her wildly, not comprehending, his fear evident on his face. He rushed to Ivans side, his hand coming to rest on Ivan's chest.
"Oh god, I though for a moment..." he said
"So did I..."
Somehow they ended up in each others arms, holding onto each other for dear life . Their son, lying on a hospital bed like this was their worst nightmare.
"Mr and Mrs Fernandez?"
A woman of about forty stood in her white doctor's coat and a chart in her hand, the teacher trailing behind flanked by two orderlies who came in and started to prepare the bed to be rolled up to the x-ray department.
The doctor explained what the process would be for Ivan and Clara barely heard it and then the teacher was leaving and they were following Ivan's inert form being wheeled down the corridor and into the elevator. Clara couldn't take her eyes off her son, as if breaking eye contact might make him dissapear. She clug to bed, her knuckles white. At the room the x-ray the doctor explains they should take a seat in the waiting room next door. They sat side by side and Cadu held her hand and in his. Any animosity between them fled in the face of this, it almost felt like old times before Cadu became so wounded and angry, Clara felt comforted.
"Do you think he'll be okay?" she asked even though he couldn't know any better than she did. She guessed old habits died slow, she somehow still expected him to know more just because he was the man. She caught herself in this and in detached sort of way this was almost amused that in spite of all the changes she'd experienced over the last months, all that growth, she was capable of regressing back to old ways of being.
"I hope so." Cadu replied sounding as scared she felt. She looked at him and smiled, trying to be brave but managing only in sending two more tears spilling down her cheek. Cadu used his free hand to brush them away.
"Our boy, Clara...our beautiful boy..."
The emotion welled up in his eyes and he searched her face, looking into her eyes and then he was leaning in and pressing his lips to hers. it felt so familiar and so strange all at once. She pulled back.
"Cadu..."
"Clara..." his eyes sought hers out and there was so much love underneath the pain. "Clara..."
A movement in the periphery of Clara's eyes made her turn and there stood Marina, looking at them, looking at their linked hands, her face suspended in a moment of frozen disbelief. Clara's stomach lurched. As her eyes made contact with Marina's the spell seemed to break and Marina took a few steps backwards and without a word she left the waiting room and hurried down the corridor.
Xxx
"Marina!" Marina heard Clara call out from behind her, "Wait!"
But Marina was walking steadily, heading for the elevator, blinking furiously, trying to un-see Cadu and Clara kissing and failing. Trying to un-feel the sense of betrayal that churned within her. And failing.
"Marina!" Clara cried out again and Marina felt her grab her hand as she caught up. Felt that warm familiar hand hold hers, stopping her from escaping, making her turn to face her but unable to look at Clara in the face, scared of what she might see there.
"It was nothing, Marina, nothing. You saw it, didn't you, I pulled away the moment he kissed me."
"Did you? I couldn't tell."
"I didn't want that at all, Marina. You know that, right?"
Marina shrugged her shoulders.
"I didn't. I don't know what possessed him..."
"He's still in love with you, Clara. He'd take you back in a heartbeat."
"Well that doesn't matter because I'm with you."
"Doesn't it?"
"No, it doesn't."
"He's the father of your son, Clara. You spent so long married to him..."
An insecurity she barely knew she had rose up then in the form of Clara walking away from her, of returning to Cadu, of them locked in a lover's clinch. It made her feel entirely unstable and panicked and she couldn't hold still, shifting from foot to foot.
"Do you doubt, for a second, what we have, Marina?"
Clara's hands grasped both sides of her face then and lifted her face up. Marina looked then and sank into the warm depths of those brown eyes.
"I'm in love with you, Marina. You are... you are the love of my life. And I don't say those words lightly. You are the love of my life."
Marina choked on the tears that swelled through her and she stepped into Clara's arms then, burying her face into her neck, melting into the sanctuary that was Clara's embrace. Clara's words calmed her fears, lifted her heart. She was the love of her life and she was humbled by this confession. They rocked together as Marina let the panic she'd felt subside.
"I'm sorry, I was just so worried about Ivan and when I arrived I saw the two of you and I just..."
"Shhh, it's okay, you don't need to explain. I'd feel the same if it was you and Vanessa."
Marina laughed and pulled back.
"Me and Vanessa!?" she said incredulously.
"Exactly. Me and Cadu?"
"He doesn't seem to think it's that crazy."
"That's because he probably thinks that two women can't really be in love. He probably thinks I'm just infatuated with you and it'll pass."
Marina took a moment, looked down.
"Do you think it'll pass?" she asked softly, voicing all the tiny insecurities she'd had over the many months in spite of every gesture, look and touch that confirmed just how special what they had was. Insecurities that had managed to survive in some unknown corner of herself.
"Never." Clara said, a finger brushing the bridge of Marina's nose and in doing so brushing away those fears. "Never, my love."
Marina heard the sincerity of those words and believed her. She pressed their bodies together and kissed her, uncaring of where they were, uncaring of anyone who might see. She needed to feel Clara's lips, to kiss away Cadu's imprint, however brief it might have been.
Xxx
The three of them had waited awkwardly, the tension palatable. Cadu didn't speak, he barely looked at them, he sat his elbows on his knees and staring off to the door behind which Ivan lay being x-rayed. In the children's ward, Ivan's arm now in a fiber-glass cast, they settled themselves around his bed, their eyes on his unmoving form and waited. Again silence too thick to cut with casual conversation. An hour later he opened his sleepy eyes and saw the three adults before him and smiled. The doctor was called and after prodding and questions he was pronounced perfectly fine, just in need of rest. They would keep him overnight to observe. They were so relieved they laughed and told Ivan never to do that again. It wasn't until he'd been fussed over, fed and kissed repeatedly that they asked him what had happened.
"I thought Matheus was your friend, Ivan." Clara said.
Ivan became quiet then and looked between the three of them.
"He's not my friend any more because... because..."
"Because what?" Cadu asked gently
"Is it wrong for mummy to be kissing Marina?" He asked.
Clara's heart went cold because she understood in an instant what had happened, she could guess at how it had happened and why and that mother's guilt that was never to far away kicked in. She looked to Cadu who had hesitated and wondered what he would say. She squeezed Marina's hand that had been clasped in hers and was about to open her mouth to interrupt whatever it was he might say but she was too late.
"Is that why you had a fight, son?" Cadu asked
"He said that he couldn't be my friend any more and that my mum was a sinner and would go to hell because she kissed Marina. I got mad..." he bowed his head as he trailed off.
"What, son?"
"I know I shouldn't have but I got so mad that I pushed him."
Cadu sighed. "You know that violence isn't the answer, son."
"I know, dad, but he pushed me back!" he said and then looked up, his eyes fierce, "And he said mum would go to hell!"
"That doesn't excuse it."
"Is it true?" He asked, his voice dropping away and his eyes looking between his parents.
Cadu looked to Clara, looked for a long moment and she saw the gears turning in his head as he decided how to answer. His eyes flickered to Marina who was silent and tense beside her and his expression was entirely unreadable. Until this moment- for all his hurt, anger and threats - he hadn't ever said or done anything to Ivan that might prejudice him against her or Marina. But with the way things had been between them, with how things had gone today, Clara wasn't sure what he might do, or how he might react. Again she went to speak, to stop whatever it was he was about to say but he bet her to it.
"No, son." he said, his tone serious, "It's not true. And your mother is not a sinner for kissing Marina."
And then he stood and exited the room.
" Cadu!" Clara called out as she ran after him in the corridor.
Slowly Cadu turned around and looked at her.
"Thank- you." she said "for what you said."
Cadu shrugged his shoulders.
"I guess it's time I accept that it's really over." he said and pushed his hands deep into his pockets. He gave a sad little smile and Clara knew that some part of themselves would always love the other and she felt it more keenly in this moment than she had in a long time. She got the sense that he'd released something just now and what was settling between them gave Clara hope.
She nodded then, at a lost of what to say, returning his sad smile with her own. The gulf between them seemed to shrink a little, seemed less echoing and cavernous, less dark.
"I'll go home and get Ivan some clothes." he said, "and then I'll be back."
And he turned, walking down the corridor, his shoulder's squared.