the same square jaw, the same naughty twinkle in the eyes, the same wavy dark hair. I never get tired of looking at Diego, I just try not to be too obvious about it, it’d be pretty embarrassing if he caught me staring at him with my mouth open, he’s my cousin, after all. I only wish he dressed a little better, he wears these tight-fitting t-shirts summer or winter, I can see he’s wearing one now under his winter jacket. I know he’s a bodybuilder and likes to show off his big muscles, but he looks so conceited that way and a bit like a burnout too, though I have no intention of telling him so, he’d take it pretty hard, I’m sure. Diego says he’d love to come to the United States for an MBA, like my dad did, after he finishes college, and I tell him if he gets into a school around New York City he can stay with us, which I’m sure would be okay with Mom and Dad, and he says maybe, maybe, and he winks, and then he says it’s time to go back because he has a class he’s got to go to.
After lunch Bueli says she and Grandpa will be going to the hospital again to visit Miriam. I can relax in the apartment, she says, or go out for a walk, although not too far so I don’t get lost, but I tell them I’d like to go to the hospital with them. Miriam being sick and all is screwing up my vacation, anyways, so I might as well go to see her instead of being stuck in the apartment with nothing good on TV or going out for a walk, like Bueli suggested. Grandpa and Bueli look at each other, not saying anything for a while, and then Grandpa says it may be too hard for me to see Miriam the way she looks now, skinny like a skeleton and completely bald and with all kinds of tubes coming out of her body. She’s also in a lot of pain. What he says scares me, I don’t know if I’m up to seeing her like that, I may get grossed out, but I don’t want to be a wimp either, maybe she’ll be happy to see me, so I say it’s okay, I think I can handle it.
We drive to the hospital and from the lobby we take the elevator to the third floor and walk along wide, battleship-gray hallways to Miriam’s room. The smell of disinfectant hitting my nostrils makes me gag, and I breathe deeply several times, and after we turn a corner we have to squeeze against the wall to let a stretcher carrying a patient full of bandages and connected to a bottle hanging from a metal pole go by, and I can’t take my eyes off him or her, it’s hard to tell with all the bandages around his or her head. The door to Miriam’s room is closed and her mother, Aunt Rebecca, is standing outside, and her eyes are red and her nose is puffy, and she tells Grandpa and Bueli the nurses are doing a procedure at the moment, and it’s going to be a few minutes until it’s okay to go in, and then she sees me and begins to cry. She’s Bueli’s older sister, and every time I saw her in the past she always had this look of tragedy to her, and that was even before her daughter got sick, she’s worse than Bueli that way. Bueli asks if there’s been any change, and she just shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head, and she looks at me like she wants to say something, but in the end she doesn’t say anything.
It takes a long time until the nurses come out, and I try not to look around too much because I can see some very sick people in the other rooms, with all kinds of tubes and oxygen and stuff, and I also hear a lot of moaning and crying and people talking in whispers. Finally the nurses come out and say it’s okay to go in, and Grandpa tells me to wait outside for a moment so they can tell Miriam I’m here, and the three of them go in and I wait and wait, and then Grandpa comes out and says Miriam would prefer I don’t see her the way she looks now, she’d prefer I remember her the way she used to look, and I’m kind of relieved, to be honest, I don’t know how I would’ve reacted seeing her, if I would’ve been able to look at her in the eyes and have a conversation and all. The funny thing, though, is I’m having trouble remembering how she looked before, I have a fuzzy image of her, which is not the case with any of the other family members. Maybe it’s because they told me how she looks now, and that image has kind of taken over in my mind and pushed away any other memories I may’ve had of her. It’s a pity, but what can I do?
Grandpa and Bueli come out after a while and say we can leave now, and Bueli is crying for a change, so I hold her hand and she squeezes my hand very hard, and we’re walking down the hallway when Aunt Rebecca calls us back and says Miriam would like to see me after all, for just a couple of minutes, she’s not in a lot of pain at the moment. My heart skips a beat and my legs feel kind of shaky, and I stand outside the door for a moment to pull myself together, and I tell the others I’d like to go in by myself. I guess I don’t want anybody to see me if I freak out or something. I take a big breath and go inside.
The moment I go into the room the smells of medicine and disinfectant and I don’t know what else, the smell of a sick person, I guess, hit me like a slap in the face, I thought I’d gotten used to it already after being in the hallway so long. I keep my eyes down, not looking at the bed where Miriam is lying. I know I can’t keep them down forever, though, I’ve got to raise them and look at her soon, I sense she’s looking at me, and I feel kind of feverish all over. The room is in semi-darkness, it’s getting dark outside and no lights are on inside, which is okay with me, the less I see the better, and finally I raise my eyes, slowly, carefully, I wish I could keep them out of focus, I wish I could see shapes and colors but no details, and the first thing that hits me is a pair of eyes staring at me, a pair of huge, gigantic eyes, eyes as if out of their sockets, as if outside the head, and those eyes are examining me from top to bottom, up and down, up and down, and then I see a hand on top of the covers, a skeleton’s hand, all bone and no flesh, and that hand is calling me to come closer, so I take a couple of steps toward the bed, and the hand goes up in the air looking for my hand, and I take it in mine, what else can I do, and it’s cold and scaly, like grabbing a dead fish in the fish section of the supermarket, except it’s not wet, it’s totally dry, and now I understand the expression bone dry, and I hold it in my hand and I feel a little pressure, like she’s trying to squeeze my hand but doesn’t have the strength for it, and finally I’m able to take my eyes off her eyes and look at the rest of her, and she’s completely bald and has no cheeks to speak of and a tiny nose and thin lips white like paper. I can see her bare arm too, where a clear plastic tube is held in place with tape, and I can see every vein in it, running up and down and sideways, all sky-blue like the sky I saw this morning from the top of Cerro San Cristobal.
I say hola, and she asks with a voice I can hardly hear, a voice coming up from deep down her throat, the voice of a ghost, when was the last time we saw each other, and I say two years ago, for Felicia’s wedding, and she nods and closes her eyes, and after a while I wonder if she’s fallen asleep and if I should leave, but I’m still holding her hand, and if I let go of it she may wake up, so I don’t know what to do, but then she reopens her eyes and stares at me again and says she was still well for Felicia’s wedding, although most likely the illness was already in her, and says she remembers dancing at the party, how she loved to dance, it was one of her favorite things to do, and I kind of remember her dancing too, although I’m not sure, and she sighs and closes her eyes again, and suddenly her whole body twitches and she opens her mouth as if she’s going to scream, it looks like the pain is coming back, which is pretty scary, and I wonder if now is the time to leave. This is the bad part about having come in by myself, nobody is here to tell me when I can leave, so I just stand next to her with her hand in my hand, and her hand is getting a little warmer, which is a good thing, I guess, and then Grandpa sticks his head in and gestures for me to come out, and I place very gently Miriam’s hand back on top of the covers and say, goodbye Aunt Miriam, I’ll come back to see you some other day, and she keeps her eyes closed and I don’t know if she heard me or not.
Grandpa, Bueli and I keep quiet until we’re back in the car, and then, as we’re driving away from the hospital, Grandpa asks if it was too shocking for me to see Miriam the way she looks now, and I want to answer him, to tell him it was okay, but suddenly I can’t speak, my throat is choked, and then I begin to cry, which totally surprises me because I didn
’t feel like crying until just now, not even close, and now I’m sobbing, unable to control myself. Bueli turns halfway back to me and she’s crying too, which doesn’t surprise me, she cries all the time, and Grandpa slaps the steering wheel with his gloved hand and says he’s mad at himself for having let me come to the hospital, he should’ve known it’d be too scary for such a young girl like me, and I try to tell him that’s not why I’m crying, I’m glad I saw Miriam, but then I realize I don’t know why I’m crying, maybe it was too scary, maybe I did get grossed out without realizing it, so I keep quiet and try very hard to stop crying, which gives me a bit of a headache.
After dinner we watch TV and by ten o’clock Bueli says maybe I should go to bed, it’s been a long day and also a…and she pauses, looking for the right word, which she seems unable to find, but I know what she’s trying to say, and I say I’m not tired yet, I’d like to stay up a little longer, although what we’re watching is pretty boring, some news or political stuff, I’m not sure. I can understand Spanish really well, I grew up speaking both English and Spanish, but on TV it’s a lot tougher, and half of what they say goes right over my head. At eleven o’clock Bueli insists I go to bed, and again I say I’m not tired yet, although my eyelids feel like lead, and Grandpa gets up and says he’s going to bed, and suddenly I realize I’m scared to go to bed, I’m scared of the dreams I may have, I’m scared Miriam may pop up in them and try to hold my hand like she did at the hospital, and I don’t want her to do that, I don’t want to see her eyes either, but I know I’ve got to go to bed sometime, I can’t stay up all night, so I get ready for bed and get under the covers but I keep the light on and I lie on my back looking at the ceiling, and then the ceiling begins to spin and spin and I realize I’m falling asleep, so I turn off the light but stay on my back with my eyes open, waiting for Miriam to appear, telling myself I shouldn’t be scared if she does, it’ll be just a dream, but Miriam is not appearing, maybe she won’t appear after all, so I turn on my side, the way I normally sleep, and I close my eyes.
When I wake up I know it’s late because the sun is high in the sky. My mind is blank for several minutes, like I’m spaced out, which feels great, actually, I wish I could stay like this forever, but then I remember Miriam and my visit to her and all, and at first I’m happy I didn’t dream about her, but then I kind of shake all over. What bothers me the most, actually, is that I told Miriam I’d come back to see her some other time, and I’m not so sure I can keep that promise.
When I come out of the bedroom to let Nana Eudocia know I’m ready for breakfast I see Bueli is all dressed up, which is unusual, even at this late hour, and her eyes are red and puffy and she’s kind of bent and doesn’t look me straight in the eyes, like she’s hiding something from me, and then Grandpa takes me by the hand and says there is something he’s got to tell me, and we go into my room and he sits down on my bed and I stand in front of him, and he says Miriam passed away during the night. He’s sorry to give me such sad news, he says, but it’s actually a good thing it happened, she was in a lot of pain and now she’s resting in peace. He also says I should find comfort in the fact I took the time to visit her, and I do, I’m happy I did, although my first reaction is I’m glad