I hate hospitals.
If I could say I hate anything in life, it’s actually going to a medical center with all the people looking at you like you’re hopeless. Maybe I feel that way. The truth is, I’m not ready to leave my son alone. Having brain surgery makes me consider every single option and everything that can go wrong with this. However, I must do it. My responsibility and duty as a parent are to look at every alternative, not to leave my child alone.
Since Arianna passed away, I started having memory loss, first forgetting where I put the cell phone, then it increased, and I started to worry. I wondered if I fed the baby or if I ate in all day. Banalities and issues that were not important or noticeable. Donatella has always been there to take care of Dante. She never thought of leaving me. Even from the time I was little, she always watched over me. As crazy and changeable as my brother’s temperament is, she was always there for him. Despite the circumstances, she is one of the most constant people in our lives. If I’m accurate, it was her idea for this whole thing that happened with Arianna. She devised the plan. Although at first, I didn’t see it as appropriate or prudent, as we could all have intense and serious consequences if the true reason for Arianna’s death was discovered, the influence and position that the money I inherited from my family and earned by my own sacrifice allowed me to create the perfect scenario and to take care of my son, to protect my family from the press. I cannot imagine being besieged even more than I am now.
“Dr. Semillón is ready to see you, Mr. Magghio,” my doctor’s secretary tells me.
My palms sweat, and it is impossible not to feel my heart racing.
Fear? I don’t think it’s a fear of bad news. Part of me feels it’s a fear of leaving Dante alone, of not seeing him grow up, of not knowing what he’ll want to be as an adult, of not seeing his face when he graduates from college, or maybe seeing his first steps.
I am afraid of not being there.
I walk decisively to the office. I have nothing to do or how to avoid this.
“Magghio, it’s good to see you again.”
“I think it’s time to put aside that barrier and start calling me by my first name. After all, I don’t think it’s the last time we’ll see each other.”
He smiles sadly, and that gesture doesn’t help with the fear that consumes me.
“Well, Darío, if that’s what you want, that’s fine with me.”
“How are we going to proceed? What studies am I due for this week?”
“You know I’ve been monitoring you since you told me…”
“Cut to the chase, David. What about me?”
“Because of the trauma you suffered when you fell off the balcony, your brain developed a fissure in one of the short-term memory nerves,” he speaks as if I am dumb or lacking intelligence.
“I know that we talked about it when you were at my house a few months ago.”
“I’ll go on, then.” He clears his throat, uncomfortable with my attitude.
I’m not a big, grown-up guy… whatever he’s going to tell me. I can handle anything.
Seven months ago, though, I didn’t think I could even handle my life.
“We can try to rebuild the nerve and help you so you can keep the memories, what you live.”
I immediately think of Tatiana. The dream with her on the shores of Lake Di Tenno. All so real, so vivid.
“If you can fix it, what’s the problem? Why does your face look like I’m going to die?”
“It’s a risk. We’re talking about going into your brain. So you are at risk of permanently damaging your memory, not just the short-term memory, but also what connects to your memories from years ago, from your whole life.”
“You mean amnesia? Can I suffer from amnesia?”
“I don’t usually say that, not to my patients, but I have to do it with you. You have practically a newborn son, one who has already lost his mother…”
“I’m beginning to lose patience, doc. Either say it or get out. And you’d better say it clearly and precisely, not with that medical spree I’ve never understood.”
I get up from the chair in front of David’s desk. I don’t mind him just putting wet cloths on the wound. As much anesthesia as I want to place on the diagnosis and the risks, in the end, I know this is all hell. I don’t care which way it looks.
“You can lose your motor skills, be left with severe brain damage, and even lose your eyesight.”
Wow.
Who would have thought that trying to save someone could cause this mess in my head?
Trying to save one, I’m almost about to lose myself.
“But could it turn out to be a success?”
“It could work,” he replies, not very convinced.
“Well, we do it.”
“You can have a good quality of life without undergoing surgery and live long adulthood without remembering some moments. First, however, I need you to understand the risks.”
“Forget about my son and me! Forget that you’ve known me for years! Tell me what you would tell any patient. Tell me what you think. That’s what you have to do. Don’t lecture me because you know I’ll take it up the ass.”
“Arianna wouldn’t want to leave her son an orphan…”
“Arianna’s fucking gone! She’s gone, she’s gone. Assimilate just like I have,” I explode, furious.
Who the hell is he to tell me which decision is good and which is not? Dante is my son! He’s my fucking responsibility.
All Arianna did was fuck up my family, destroy it until there was no more left until she made it, so I couldn’t look my brother in the eye without thinking about the two of them rolling around in my bed while I was on the road.
“Arianna slept with Dawson,” I confess what no one knows except for Donatella and Dawson himself. “They fucked while I was working to give her and the children, we would have a better future.”
“I’m sorry, Darío, I had no idea. I didn’t mean to…”
“But you did, you got into my life, into what you don’t know, so don’t tell me what Arianna would have done because you didn’t know her as I did.”
The little bitch slept with Dawson and threw it in my face the next day when I got home from Brussels.
“I got sick of waiting for you!” she said as soon as she saw me arrive.
“What the hell are you talking about, woman?”
“Didn’t your little brother tell you? Didn’t he tell you what we did?”
A heat went up all over my body, and I looked at her quizzically. I had no fucking idea what she was referring to. It must not have been good the way she was looking at me, wrapped in her silk robe. Her loose hair fell like a wild waterfall over her chest and down to the beginning of her round, flirtatious buttocks.
A body of sin.
I always knew she would be my undoing.
“He does it so much better than you; stronger, more vigorous, hotter.”
A month later, we learned of her pregnancy. Nevertheless, everything was screwed up between her and me.
Marriage would be as I promised my parents: for life, even if my life would go on forever standing next to such a despicable woman, one with a double face and triple standards, one capable of sleeping with my own brother. That’s why I don’t care what he does with his life. I don’t care if he wants to marry Tatiana’s sister. He can fuck a monastery full of nuns with a pact of eternal celibacy for all I care. I don’t care what happens to him, not anymore. I lost that interest when I found out he was with Arianna.
“Shall we proceed?”
“Let’s proceed,” I reply as I sit down.
“Do you have someone to call to come with you and wait for you? Someone to wait for you when you come out of surgery?”
On impulse and suddenly, the image of a golden-haired, brown-eyed woman came into my brain.
“No,” I spit out. “It won’t be necessary to call anyone. So when do we start?”