Weird.
Somewhere beyond my feet, I heard the voices of Colin, Marguerite, Zaul, and then in my left ear, I heard the angelic whisper of Maria. “Uncle Charlie, Aunt Shelly says we’re twins now.”
I raised my hand, reaching for her, and she took my hand, kissing it.
All the world was right.
I couldn’t talk as there was a tube down my throat. I made a signal like I wanted to write something. Someone placed a pen in my right hand and paper in the left. I wrote, “Tube out, please.”
They laughed.
Throughout the day, I got bits and pieces of the story.
* * *
I was attacked by Zaul’s friends, who had somehow crossed paths with and been hired by the foreman. A nasty combination. Unfortunately for them, after killing me, their escape was hindered by several hundred Nicaraguan farmers. In pretty bad shape themselves, they were turned over to my good friends the chief of police and the mayor of León. Their futures are not bright.
Zaul called his dad, who immediately dispatched the jet, which landed on the highway about seven miles from the plantation. Paulo drove us down the mountain, Leena grabbed her passport from the house, and we met the plane as it was landing. They loaded me up, turned around, and took off before Nicaraguan authorities ever knew they had a plane in their airspace. Given the speed of the G5, we landed in Miami a little over an hour later. I died twice on the plane; both times Leena brought me back. I died a third time in the ambulance, where the paramedics shocked me until they got me to the hospital. In the truck and on the plane, Leena had cradled me while also attempting to keep pressure on the bleeding, keeping my face elevated; she’d also packed me in as much ice as she could get to lower my pulse—which explained the cold. At the hospital, Colin had the best trauma surgeons he could find on standby, and they immediately went to work. Colin also went to work finding B-positive blood, which he said he found in a myriad of donors. He laughed as he told me. One unnamed pop diva, himself, Zaul, my new friend Liv-ed (aka William Alfred Butler), and Leena. I’d lost most of my blood, so it took a lot of donors to bring me back. Colin said if I started speaking in rhyme, that’d be the Mr. Butler part of me. Once I’d been stabilized, and my collarbone set and my shoulder put back in its socket and the cartilage in my knee repaired, Shelly was brought in to put my face back, as the guys who attacked me had done a pretty good job of carving it off—which explained the blood. Shelly had done what she could and chances were good that I’d smile again, but it’d take a while. They were afraid that I’d lose my right eye, but she thought she was able to save it. We wouldn’t know that until they pulled the gauze off sometime in the next few days. Colin continued to say that Leena had not left my side since I’d been there and she had kept me alive—when she got off the plane, she was covered in me. And I’d been in a medically induced coma for a week in order to give my body a chance to heal.
I told him I felt rested enough.
He said Zaul had been living in the house. “No piercings. No friends. He’s been hanging out with Maria, and the first night we were all home together, Marguerite made dinner. When we were finished, he got up, disappeared into the kitchen, and had most of the dishes cleaned by the time we got there. Strange. What did you do to my son? Oh, and did you know he plays the drums? Pretty good, too.” He finished by telling me that everyone had been worried, and in an uncharacteristic show of emotion, he had teared up and said he, too, was worried I might not make it. I held up my left wrist and asked if anyone had seen my watch. He said Zaul had been wearing it, keeping it safe until I got well. I told him Zaul could keep it. I’d get another. Not sure that one was good for me. In the time that I’d had it, Maria had been hurt, I lost my fiancée, I nearly drowned in a well, and I had been attacked and nearly bled to death. I told him I’d find another or not wear one.
He also told me that once Zaul had explained the situation in Valle Cruces, he sent the jet back and Zaul returned with Paulo and Isabella. They’d been here ever since. Maria and Isabella had become fast friends. Colin explained that neither Paulo nor Isabella had passports, but that he had contacts in immigration who fast-tracked a visa. He shrugged. “It pays to have friends.”
Three days later, they unwrapped my face, and thanks to Shelly and her gifted hands, I could still see out of my right eye. Things were foggy, as was expected, but I’d recover. The first image I saw when I lifted my lids was Maria’s smiling face. She pressed her nose to mine. “In case you’re wondering, you look a lot worse than me.”
Later that afternoon, they had me up, walking the halls, and straining my muscles in therapy. After two weeks in the hospital, when I finally asked if I could go home, Shelly relented and said, “Yes—” She then looked at Leena. “Provided she goes with you.”
Leena knew the story of Shelly and me, so when she sensed Shelly wanted a moment with me alone, she disappeared in search of bad hospital coffee. When Leena left, Shelly held my hand and said that operating on me was one of the more difficult things she’d ever done. But she was glad she could do it. She laughed and said that putting my face back together helped patch up a few things in her. When she finished, I told her I was sorry for keeping the truth of me from her. That she deserved better. That if I had it to do over, I wouldn’t do it that way. And that I hoped she found someone that made her happy.
She nodded toward the door and said, “You can be kind of thick when it comes to women and the signals they send, so I’m going to help you out a bit.” I waited. “That woman—” She pointed in the direction that Leena had walked. “That gorgeous Nicaraguan goddess, who’s got all of the rest of us looking in the mirror to see how we measure up, has fallen for you. She’s crazy for you. You realize this, yes?”
“Well, actually—”
“Charlie—” She laughed. “You need a keeper.” The laughter was healing. For both of us. “Have you told her what you do for a living? Your occupation?”
I held up a finger. “Previous occupation. With emphasis on ‘did for a living.’”
She smiled. “Well?”
“Yes. She knows.”
“You may as well know now…we may have patched you back together, but she’s the reason you made it here alive. Somehow”—she shook her head—“she kept you alive on that plane. And she hasn’t left your side since you arrived.”
I turned the tables. “Thank you for what you did for me.”
She kissed me. “My pleasure, but I’d rather not ever do it again. Now don’t change the subject, you do understand why she’s still here?”
“Well, I guess—”
“Charlie?”
“I don’t know, I—”
“Let me put it in terms you can understand: She’s ‘all in.’”
That did make sense.
* * *
The hospital discharged me and Colin took us to his house where, in about fifteen minutes, I’d convinced him to take us in the helicopter to Bimini, that the saltwater and ocean air would do us some good. Leena helped persuade him, as she’d never ridden in a helicopter and never been to the islands. By sundown, fifteen days after the attack, unstable on my feet and trying to wean myself from pain medication, I was walking on the beach in Bimini, Paulo and Isabella plucking lobster from the rocks, and Leena’s arm tucked in mine. And while her heart tugged on mine, so did the one thing I had yet to confess.
For the life of me, I just could not figure out how I was going to tell Leena.
Colin left us alone for three days, allowing me to introduce them to the island. I showed them where Hack had lived and where we worked. Paulo was incredibly interested in his tools and how we used them. I showed him the unfinished skiff that lay in his shack collecting dust, and he just could not get over how smooth the edges were and how seamless the boards met one another. He wiped his fingers along one of the joints and said, “It’s magic.”