The Feria (18 page)

Soledad felt at peace in her deep sleep. But then, the images began. Behind closed eyes, flashes of Emmanuel, blood, and death, began to dance. Images so strong, they stirred her. Her legs, hands, twitched as she fought him off yet again, and then suddenly, peace, as clear and as calm as it had been before the images surrounded her. Whether she was dead or dreaming, she could not be sure, but what happened next was nowhere near explainable. Where she was semi-certain a bed lay under her hands, she was suddenly fully aware of the coldness of the tiled floor. Certain she would not be able to open heavy-eyelids, she was suddenly fully aware, fully conscious, and looking at the under view of a bed. Her hands, palms down beside her as they had been on the bed, now touched the cold floor. Baffled, but not afraid, she scrambled out from under. She never felt herself move. It was as if she had sunk right through the bed and onto the floor, same position. She stood, stronger than she suspected, and looked around a hospital room. The ticking of the silver wall clock loud and definitive in her left ear, murmurs of voices to her right. And then there was one voice, one strong voice that began to pull at her. It pulled so hard, she felt as if she was not walking, but being tugged through the air with a great force. It was only a stir from behind her that suddenly commanded her attention.

It was as if time, with its milliseconds, minutes, hours, collided to a halt as she stared at the hospital bed. It was the only vision that could stall her from satisfying the pull that wanted her from an unseen area. There was a woman lying on the bed. The vision was an atrocity. A face so swollen, disfigured, it only paled to the immense number of tubes that entered and exited the full body, from the bottom all the way to the mid-section, arms, and mouth. Through the mouth receiving a tube, spaces where teeth should have been were empty. It was quite a fascinating thing to see. She would have lingered, as rude as it was to stare, but the pull was now too great. The voice was a beacon. She made her way out into a hall. It was clear now that she was in a hospital. This began to worry her. Questions fought to come and she fought to restrain them. Hushed voices tended to several of the sick. Again, she would have lingered but she sought something far greater than anything imaginable. And suddenly, she was there. Exactly where she wanted to be. She stared intensely at the image that matched the voice. A man with sapphire eyes. She held her gaze on those brilliant blues, until a whimper made her follow the length of his arms until they stopped where they wrapped around a girl. Suddenly, the memories emerged from her like scenes from a movie reel. They slapped at her, her mind in a dash. In a lightning bolt of a second, everything became visibly clear. She was dead. Emmanuel had killed her. Her shell lay rooms away, devastated in that hospital bed. This young, beautiful girl was her precious Abril, and only Xavier’s voice, through any space, time, or dimension, would ever be strong enough to pull at her very soul.

Soledad watched with wide eyes as Abril clung to Xavier. She could not be consoled, not even by her own father.

“What. Happened?” She spoke in short breaths.

“I didn’t protect your mother.” Xavier’s blue eyes, as beautiful as they were, were tired with guilt and worry. Leaving one arm around his daughter, his other hand reached up to his temples, those jeweled eyes closed. A tear escaped and ran down his cheek.

The doors to the ICU opened, and Soledad watched a woman who resembled her mother retreat. Her eyes red and moist. Yes, that was her mother.

“She’s resting. I held her hand.” Flor spoke random ideas that didn’t seem to connect. She’s resting? Did she mean her? Impossible. She now grasped the severity of her situation and knew her aimless soul sought out its final rest, but as long as it was in the presence of Xavier, rest would not be possible. And while this all came to fruition, she didn’t feel afraid, she didn’t feel the urge to cry or panic. What she did feel was great agony. To see her daughter, her family, her precious Xavier in such pain, shook her very soul. Literally.

A woman, one Soledad could now identify as Ramona, reached out and pulled Abril from Xavier’s arms, protecting her in an embrace. There was Alex; he stood nearby.

The doors opened again, and a doctor approached them. Soledad knew him. He reminded her of Santa Clause. His cheeks, rosy, his spectacles small and round and a voice strong and jolly, clearly even in the most dire of circumstances. It was as if ice overtook them, locking them all in place.

When the doctor spoke, Xavier’s face was unreadable, but it tore at her. He looked as if a fist had closed around his heart as the doctor gathered them in a circle. Flor stood next to Abril, and Alex stood next to his Ramona. Soledad felt the almost collective intake of breath as they waited for the doctor to continue speaking.

“It’s very touch and go. She’s a fighter, but I don’t know how much fight is left in her. We’ll be operating to repair her trachea. She’s in shock. This night will be the determiner of how things will proceed.” His face looked painfully apologetic as he prepared his next words. “You should call in your family if there is anyone who concerns you in seeing her. Say your goodbyes, and well ... if you believe, then pray.”

Muffled cries rose to the ceiling. The doctor’s eyes met with Xavier’s. “You are her husband?”

“Yes, sir,” Xavier replied without hesitation.

Yes, yes, they were married. She remembered that, for even in death, the memory was one strong enough to take with her. She could see the questioning gazes that mounted him, but not one person in that beautiful circle, the collection of the people she loved, asked anything.

“May I speak with you?”

“Of course.”

Xavier and the doctor moved away from the group to apparently discuss next of kin decisions.

As they spoke, two detectives came down the hall. The doctor and Xavier finished their discussion, and the officers led Xavier away to a small waiting room. Soledad followed close behind, not only because she was desperate to hear what they would tell him, but also because he was magnetic to her.

After reviewing once again the details about what had happened that only Xavier could provide, the officers had the information they needed to pursue an investigation against Emmanuel, who was now dead. Her heart, or what would have been had she still lived, leapt. He was finally gone, hopefully to hell.

“We had been following him for months when he suddenly disappeared.” The officer’s eyes never left Xavier’s face. “We lost all traces of him until now.”

“Please tell me again, what had he done?”

“For several years now, apparently, he’s been using your deceased father-in-law’s business to scam investors. We were forming a case against him when he ran. We may have never found him again had he not gone back into California.” As if an afterthought, the detective added, “I’m very sorry for what’s happened to your wife, sir.”

In what seemed like forever later, Soledad watched her family disperse. Apparently, they could not return to the cherry plantation and had to set up in a nearby motel. Hours later, she watched Xavier, who had stayed behind, realize that his body could no longer fight sleep. He dozed off in a chair in the waiting room. She felt robbed of those beautiful eyes, hiding now behind closed lids.

As he slept, she watched his body twitch in a silent battle only she could know. It was most likely the same one she fought again and again. Then, he spoke, pleading with God in his sleeping state.

“
Please. Please, God.” They were the only words he spoke.

There was a peace that came with the morning. The night was clearly frightful and full of the unknown for those she loved dearly. And while the day, according to the Santa Clause doctor, remained uncertain, the sun, the light ushered in hope. The family gathered back in the ICU waiting room in the early part of the morning. Her surgery was to take place this morning. The night apparently proved too risky. It wasn’t frightening to her, only odd that she would hear information about herself being passed right around her. Clearly, she wasn’t dead. But what was she doing? Dreaming? Was this even real, or another realistic pictorial, one that would keep her twitching and fighting in that hospital bed just a few rooms away.

Her focus on the matter was stolen by Xavier and Abril, who sat across from each other. There seemed to be words to speak, but he didn’t seem to know how to start, and apparently neither did she. Finally, when Abril got up to stretch her legs in the hall, Xavier followed, and so did she. She felt bashful to intrude, but again, Xavier pulled at her with an unspoken force. Perhaps he knew there would never be a good time to speak to his daughter.

Abril turned to face him. As he stared at her, Soledad found herself smiling. It was clear that Abril was everything he could have hoped for in a daughter. How could she not be? Soledad wondered if he saw what she was seeing in Abril, that his own eyes looked back at him, but her face carried all the beauty of her side of the family. She could see that now.

“I’m sorry that you had to find out about your mother and me the way you did.”

“I am, too.”

The look on his face could only mean one thing. Soledad wanted to cry out to her daughter, “Be kind! Be understanding! Soon, he’ll be all you have in this world!” But it was to no avail.

Abril returned her gaze to her father. “But I’m not sorry that it happened.”

Xavier brightened and became animated with her words.

“You make her happy, and that makes me happy.”

Abril began to choke up, deep sobs racking her frame. Soledad raced to her side, wrapping futile arms around her daughter.

Xavier opened his arms, and Abril slipped out right from her mother’s ghost arms and entered his.

“My mom’s happy, and she needs to live so she can enjoy what she’s always wanted. You. A life with you.”

Xavier put a hand around her head, cupping it into his chest. “Don’t lose your hope. I need you to keep a hold of hope. Please.”

“I’ll try. I—I promise to try. It’s all I can do.”

“Your hope gives me hope.”

“You shouldn’t depend on me so.”

“I don’t depend on you. I live for you.”

“I think I know that.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, and I’m sorry I haven’t addressed it. I just didn’t have the nerve, and I didn’t want you to feel obligated to want me.”

“My dear, I have spent every day thinking of you, seeing your beautiful face in my mind every day since I learned you were mine.”

Abril smiled. “I thank you for that. It’s been a while since I’ve felt peace or sincerity. I’ve felt lost about everything that’s happened with Emmanuel.”

Soledad felt pity for her daughter. She spoke the truth. This man, a stranger, had never given her all the riches Emmanuel had bestowed on her, yet in these few seconds, Xavier had given her the world, and more.

“My heart begs your forgiveness that you were ever put in such a situation.”

“It’s wasn’t all bad. I’ve had a good life, but now it’s fulfilled.” Her mouth twisted. “But the man I believed to be my father killed anything that I could ever feel for him again. He made it easy to hate him, to despise him, to disconnect from him, even if he had been my real father.” Abril paused. “I look forward to getting to know you. Truly I do.”

“That would make my life complete.”

Father and daughter embraced, but now that the words had been spoken, the acknowledgements made, it felt new, promising. There was a surge of hope for their future as father and daughter. If Soledad did not make it, if her soul remained determined not to return to her body, to receive life, then she would go, perhaps not happily, but at the very least peacefully, knowing that her two most beloved people had found one another.

“I have one more question, Abril.” Xavier cleared his throat and his eyes searched her weepy gaze.

“Yes?”

“You’re okay about Alex?”

Abril took a deep breath and exhaled. “It’s not easy. I’m not going to lie. It’s weird, and I’m afraid we’re both embarrassed, but it’s survivable. We were never all that attracted to each other. It’s like nature fixed everything.”

“It always does. I’m a firm believer of that.” Xavier gave her another reassuring squeeze.

Soledad could not take even one more second. Agony poured over her. She must end this dream, which was quickly becoming a nightmare. She must survive the surgery, survive this threat of death, looming, as though it was waiting for her to make a decision. Here before her, stood everything that made her heart beat. She made the decision, lighting quick. She would fight with everything within her. She would live. She raced to the pull that her own body now had on her, one as strong as that of Xavier’s.

A ringing in her ears suddenly brought her to an alertness that was all too different from the finely-tuned hearing she had just experienced. The last thing she could recall was the shouting.

“She’s coming to! She’s waking up!”

“Gracias, Dios. Gracias!” Suddenly, Xavier, her beautiful husband stood at her bedside.

Many, many summers ago, Soledad’s life was altered with a spark so bright, it charged the rest of her life. Today, once again in summer, she faced another milestone. After raising her child, cherishing endless days with her grandchildren, saving her father’s legacy, caring for her elderly mother until she joined her beloved Eduardo, and traveling with Xavier, there’d still been time to achieve one more dream.

She scanned the room slowly, taking in the sea of people clad in black gowns, buzzing with chatter in the waiting area. Representatives from the university positioned themselves at the exit holding big signs with the name of the specific schools within Stanford, and letters of the alphabet to indicate where the graduates should line up.

A younger graduate behind Soledad helped her put her honor chord around her neck. Once everyone was lined up, the journey from the waiting area to Stanford Stadium began. A young man, also graduating, kindly carried the honorary banner for Soledad during the walk over. She’d been asked to carry the banner representing her school because she’d done so well academically. The young man had even offered to stay close by in case she needed a hand once they were inside.

“Pomp and Circumstance” began, and the graduates were cued to begin their march into the stadium. The reality of it all was overwhelming. Soledad glanced at where her family said they would be. They had prepared for this day by looking at maps and set-ups, so they made sure to arrive early enough to secure the most perfect seats. She found them and smiled proudly at her loved ones.

Each member of the audience rose to their feet to applaud the graduates’ entrance. They smiled in unison with her. Big, small, young, and old. Some members of the audience were crying.

The graduates took their seats, and the ceremony began. This was the 107
th
commencement ceremony. The guest speaker was a man named Ted Koppel of ABC News. His closing words were by far more powerful than the entire speech. He spoke about applying a rigid standard of morality to your life. It was as if he was speaking directly to her, as though he’d written the words for her. She quickly did a mental inventory, a life’s worth of flashbacks at every time she felt that she’d failed in her moral standards. And it was okay. Failure was okay. It was necessary for the greatest outcome of all: redemption.

At the end of the ceremony, she was whisked away by the university’s public information officer to do an interview for a special interest story one of the local news stations was doing on her. Her family came along with her. She was honored not only for her academics, but she was now officially the oldest graduate of Stanford University.

“Now look at me and not the camera, okay? It’s just us talking. Don’t even mind that camera.” The young reporter wore a navy blue suit and looked to Soledad like a sailor. She was very pretty, very young.

“How does it feel to be the oldest graduate of Stanford?” The reporter encouraged her with a nod.

Soledad shyly and accidentally glanced at the camera but was instantly guided back to the reporter by the cameraman’s finger.

“I hope that I have inspired anyone out there to believe that it’s never, ever, too late to pursue your dreams. And no matter what point in time you achieve them, it’s worth it.” She glanced over at her family who was watching off to the side.

Xavier beamed proudly. Joining him was Abril, along with her husband and their family, and she held her newest grandson in her arms. Ramona and her husband, and Alex with his wife and their family were there as well. It was the most beautiful sight Soledad had ever seen. “It’s worth it,” she repeated, her eyes meeting Xavier’s.

“What kind of obstacles led to you achieving your dream at this point in your life?”

Soledad smiled. “My dear, when you are ready to write a book, perhaps a bestseller, you call me.”

Everyone, even the several onlookers, laughed.

That next summer, across the border in Mexico, Soledad and Xavier, holding hands, fingers intertwined, were getting ready to introduce their great-grandchild and great-nephews and nieces, now of perfect age, to an event that came once a year, and that had long ago, forever changed their lives
.