Stuck in the dark purgatory of his ruminations, Fernando waited with Chico for the doctor to return. He didn’t want to think anymore about that hellacious storm and the fallout from it. He didn’t want to think anymore about anything. He hated how he couldn’t just stop thinking—even for one single goddamn second. He felt like a prisoner of his own mind. He told himself not to dwell on what had happened, that it was pointless. He told himself that the storm was over, but this was a lie. Because the storm was still there, raging on inside him.
The beer was doing nothing for him. What cheered Fernando far more than the lukewarm sips he took were the sights and sounds of the younger children at play. Through the junked, weedy warrens of the yard, they chased chickens and dogs and each other around in their made-up games, heedless to the miseries of the world at large. Fernando was glad for them. To him, this small world of theirs seemed like paradise. Trampled tangles of wildflowers tanged the breeze. Fleeing fat yellow butterflies lighted on stacks of fraying tires. Wary crows cawed from the twisted boughs and bracken. A scattering of tamarillo trees strained up through a mulch of scrap metal, broken brick and rotting wood pickets, bearing their egg-shaped, orange fruits aloft despite this adversity or perhaps in spite of it.
The screen door banged open and shut behind him, heralding the doctor’s return. Between patches of white frizz, Dr. Jimenez mopped at his shining head with a handkerchief. He approached them with a dour look.
“You are the patient’s grandson?” he asked Fernando.
Fernando nodded in reply.
“Your grandmother is very ill,” the doctor said, businesslike. “I’ve administered antibiotics to her. I’ve also sedated her to stop her thrashing. Until her fever breaks, I’d advise further sedation to keep her stabilized, although I must warn you that doing so may impair her mental faculties.”
“Do it,” Fernando said, at once.
Beside him Chico frowned. Fernando ignored him.
The doctor held Fernando’s eye for a moment, then nodded. “Very well. I’ll return later to check on her condition and administer the sedative. If her symptoms worsen in the meantime, give me a call. You can go upstairs and see her now.”
As Dr. Jimenez took his leave, Fernando got up and went inside. He found his grandmother sleeping in deathlike repose on the conjoined cots. The flush of fever stood high and ruddy along the bones of her crinkled brown cheeks. In the rocker beside her, Emmanuella sat at vigil. She read aloud from a breviary as stout and careworn as the hands that held it. Her tone was hushed and warm, her earnest liturgy a stinging balm to his soul.
Fernando waited for her to finish her rites, but before he could even speak a word, she said to him in the same breath of pause she took, “It’s no imposition, Fernando, so don’t even think that for a moment. You’re family, both of you, and you’re always welcome here. Stay as long as you like.”
Fernando swallowed, bowing his head. He didn’t share her faith in God. But gratitude for her simple goodness welled up in him, the only divine font he had ever known.
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La Gorgona © CS Dark Fantasy