DISCLAIMER: Not mine. No money made. Maca, Esther and (to my great disappointment also Cruz), along with the entirety of Hospital Central, belong to Telecino. All I own is my brain and a very vivid imagination. I only lay claim to the journey I'm sending the characters on.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: After taking refuge in the Hospital Central fandom almost a year ago, I am delighted to see the growing interest for Maca and Esther in the international community, where Ralst's call for submissions finally convinced me to post this story here as well. It is originally being written in single chapters on the Spanish Maca y Esther board at miarroba (Ralst has kindly added the link to the HC link section, and if any of you speaks Spanish, I'd advise you to run and don't walk over there and take a look at the fan fic section) and is as of yet unfinished.
TIMEFRAME: uh… let's call it al Alternative AU, which is like an Über, but not quite. The Spanish folks on miarroba write nearly exclusively in this form.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
71
"I think I could use 'Africa' as the theme for the party," Hector said conspiratorially, half leaning across the lunch table in the cafeteria. He wanted to celebrate his upcoming birthday with a bigger party and was polling his colleagues at the Central for a party motto.
"That won't make Lesedi look at you with different eyes," Monica commented dryly, sitting down next to him with a sealed bowl of fruit salad in her hands. "If you want to be sensitive about her heritage, come up with something a little less tacky."
"Lesedi? The new nurse up in trauma?" Carlos asked from the other side of the table. "So that's what all the ruckus is about?" He whistled softly through his teeth. "Way to go, Hector!"
"Why do you need a big party and a motto anyway?" Esther asked practically between two sips of coffee. "If you like her, ask her out!"
"You clearly never tried to impress a woman smoothly," Hector replied sulkily, his cheeks a little red at having been found out.
"You may be right about that," Esther stated guilelessly, thinking that kissing without preamble and hands-on dancing might have worked for her at some point, but that it had neither been smooth nor particularly subtle.
"Oh, that reminds me…Esther…" Monica looked up from where she was crumbling a package of salty peanuts into her fruit salad. "I've been meaning to tell you, we have a woman up in Tropical who was a clinic doctor in Africa as well."
"Where in Africa?" Esther asked, cursing herself for her suddenly quickening pulse.
"Oh, I saw her when she got in, she's one of Aimé's patients," Hector interrupted enthusiastically. "Some Patricia Fernandez or something…" He grinned broadly. "A real looker, too."
"Tanzania," Monica stated succinctly, rolling her eyes at Hector's antics. "She apparently really brought a clinic up to date there." She paused over a bite of sweet salad with peanuts and then reached for the salt shaker on the table, ignoring the looks on her colleagues' faces. "She flew in with a coworker who swears she walks on water."
"Jungle Fever," somebody muttered into the round and Esther looked up sharply.
"For a leggy blonde like that, you bet…" Hector stated, making Carlos hide his face in his hands with a groan.
"For the love of God, just ask Lesedi out, will you?" he pleaded, squinting through his fingers.
"She doesn't get many visitors…" Monica continued toward Esther, across the heads of the men. "Perhaps you want to go up see her sometime? She's nice to talk to, and I'm sure she could use speaking to someone who has seen some of the same things."
Esther was surprised at the sudden pang of hurt as she shook her head. "No thanks." Perhaps it was because she had recalled kissing Maca just a minute ago, but she didn't think she could deal with all the memories again, not right now. Miguel was right, it wasn't good for her mood. Least of all if she now talked to someone who was possibly as lost and uncertain as she had been upon her return. "I think I've heard all the Africa stories I ever want to," she declined, trying to sound friendly.
"Me too," another voice added, and Begoña stepped up to them, an open bottle of juice in her hand.
Esther looked up at her, nodding with a friendly gesture before she and Monica moved to make some room for her. Begoña was new in the ER team. She had been working up in Trauma before, but since with Monica's impeding maternity leave, there was an empty spot in the nurse rotation, Esther had asked Cruz to hire a new nurse – which had turned out be Lesedi – to take over for Begoña so that Begoña, whom she knew to be a seasoned nurse, could take the more demanding ER spot. Of course, that had been after Esther had gotten over the initial surprise that Begoña had been working at the Central for months already without ever running into her. Even Cruz hadn't known since the ER fed to the other stations, but operated pretty independently otherwise.
All awkwardness aside, Esther had agreed with Cruz that Begoña was a reliable colleague and if Esther was honest, most of their disagreements in Kasaï-Oriental had been about Maca in some way or another, and not about work. And so far, Begoña made an effort to fit into the team. She and Esther didn't interact much, though, giving each other ample space as if the loss that tied them together demanded it. A helpless awkwardness tinged most of their brief exchanges that never touched upon anything personal. Neither was Maca ever mentioned, but she was present in every look they shared, a knowing sadness always lingering a the recesses of their minds.
72
"It's about time this week is over," Monica muttered when she needed both hands for leverage to get up again after lunch. "I'm gonna miss you all, but I'm ready for a few weeks downtime before this baby will corner all my attention."
"Just two more days," Esther stated comfortingly.
Monica smiled wryly. "Somehow I have the feeling that I will spend those two days mostly in the bathrooms." She grimaced. "Speaking of which…"
Esther shook her head, looking after her colleague. Actually, Monica was long past morning sickness – another happenstance that had convinced Esther not to become pregnant anytime soon – but over fruit salad with stale peanuts from the vending machine, all bets were off. In fact, when Monica ran into her in the medicine cabinet not fifteen minutes she was a little pale around the nose, enough to make Esther suggest that she lay down for half an hour in the nurse's room.
"All right," Monica agreed in defeat. "I just need to get this up to Tropical first." She gestured at the box of medication under her arm, a set of folders balanced on top.
"Nonsense." Esther took the box with one swift grip. "You lay down right now. Ah…" She stopped Monica who had drawn breath to interrupt her. "I'll take this up to Tropical for you, and you put your feet up for a while." She gently maneuvered both of them out of the room that she locked doubly behind her. "If you get dizzy, I'd prefer you do that while you're lying down and not while you're trying to switch drips or hand out medication."
"Yes, boss," Monica conceded with a mock salute. "Thanks."
"Not a problem," Esther said with a smile, pressing the button for the elevator while she motioned for Monica to walk toward the nurse's rooms, taking in the slow waddle of her steps that halted when Monica stopped and looked back at her, having remembered something.
"And if you have a minute, check in on Dr. Fernandez!" Monica called over the 'bing' of the elevator.
Esther turned around, one foot already in the door of the elevator. "On whom?"
Monica waved after her. "The one from Tanzania," she reminded her. "She's in 439."
"All right," Esther agreed with chagrin, balancing the medicine box on her hip. Perhaps she could just walk in and out quickly and with any luck, this Dr. Fernandez would be asleep anyway.
In the end, signing over the medications took a while and Esther was already glancing at her watch every other minute, thinking that down in her ER, things were running a lot smoother. She almost forgot to check in on Monica's African doctor, only remembering it when she passed room 439 on her way to the elevators. For a moment, Esther hesitated, tempted to simply walk on and tell Monica she had forgotten about it. But then she squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and moved to knock on the door.
She couldn't even explain why she was so incredibly nervous about this, as if all her memories would come up at seeing someone else in her place: newly returned, sick and lost. All the studiously rationalized emotions would be washing over her again, pulling her under once more, and there wouldn't be Maca's arms to keep her afloat.
There was no answer to her knock, so Esther softly opened the door and stepped into the room.
Both beds were empty. One looked pristine and untouched; in the other one, the covers had been thrown back as if the occupant had just gotten up to go to the bathroom. But the door to the small bathroom was open, the light switched on even though nobody was in there. On the sink, there was a lone toothbrush in a cup, the standard toothbrush you could buy downstairs in the little shop close by the main entrance. Mostly, patients who came in and didn't know they would have to stay overnight used the model. Those, and people for whom nobody would get or bring a toothbrush from home.
Esther reached in and turned the light off before she looked around the bedroom once more. Somebody had brought a small bouquet of flowers that stood on the table by the window. The flowers were from the hospital shop as well, Esther recognized the banderole. A half finished glass of water was sitting on the nightstand. On a chair next to the bed, a few magazines lay splayed open, one of them with a half-finished crossword that stood out to Esther across the room because it was in Cyrillic letters. Other than that, there was nothing else in the room, nothing personal, not even clothes thrown over a chair.
It was strange, Esther thought. With someone who had just gotten back from a presumably longer stay in Africa, she would have expected cards and more flowers, and friends and family visiting at all hours.
Perhaps this Dr. Fernandez really didn't have anyone. Esther glanced at the chart at the foot of the bed, suddenly feeling shabby for not wanting to talk to this woman. When she had gotten back from the Congo, at least there had been her mother and Miguel, and Vilches and Cruz.
Slowly, she walked out of the room, telling herself that she would come back at a later time, if her schedule allowed it. She even cast a look down the corridor to both sides, but there was only a nurse wheeling past a teenaged girl in a wheelchair and an elderly woman forlornly staring out of the window. And old man moved down the corridor with a walking frame, difficulty apparent in his every step. Someone else, tall and in a hospital robe, just limped around the corner on a pair of crutches. Esther could hear the telltale rhythmic thump of the gummed tips moving down the hall.
There was nobody who looked as if they were recovering from a severe case of blood poisoning. Esther breathed in slowly, and without knowing why, a sensation of feeling lost settled over her, more strongly than in months and suddenly, she could picture Maca in front of her in vivid detail, as if she had set in that chair by the window only a minute ago.
Esther crumpled down into the vacated chair, overwhelmed by sudden tears. Sometimes she still missed Maca so much that everything hurt. In those instants, the tone of her voice, the sound of her laughter were so tangibly close that Esther could barely breathe. Sometimes, she even thought she could smell the scent of Maca's hair or the fragrance of her skin, still warm from sleep.
And Esther cried, simply because she would never hold Maca again, because the body whose touch she was still craving was nothing but ashes over the planes of Kasaï-Oriental, and because she still couldn't stop longing for it.
"Miss…?" Someone gently cleared their throat in front of her and Esther looked up to find the old man with the walking frame gazing at her with clear, friendly eyes. "Miss, are you hurt? Do you need to see a doctor?"
"No, thank you." Esther wiped at her eyes, struggling for composure. She didn't know what had come over her, her entire being curled around the pain that was Maca's absence like it last had in the early months after being released from the hospital. She shook her head at the old man in front of her. "I don't need a doctor."
73
"You'll need to see the registry office about your papers, but I think you know that," Aimé stated with professional bluntness, gazing over the rim of the folder while he revised Maca's papers for release. "I don't want to involve border control, and I know things can happen down there…" He shrugged a little awkwardly. "Do you have anyone to vouch for you?"
Maca wondered absently how long it took him every morning in the bathroom to get his hair to look like this. "Yes… in Jeréz," she answered finally, feeling no need to tell him where exactly. She tugged on the simple pants and blouse Tatyana had organized for her before she had left, going back to their clinic. For a moment, Maca toyed with the idea of naming Esther as a reference, but whether Aimé would have the patience to call for a foreign nurse from a small private clinic on the outskirts of town, she didn't know. Besides, she wasn't ready to see Esther. Not yet. Not like this.
"I'll assume you'll go there as soon as we release you here?" Aimé asked, a little frustrated with the cryptic answer.
Maca just nodded as she held up her blouse so he could check on her vitals for a final time.
"Impressive set of scars," Aimé commented as he stepped back. "Not exactly the thing you get handing out vaccines to the under five crowd."
"No," Maca agreed with arrogant reserve.
"Did the tattoo come as a package deal or did you get that extra?" Aimé asked coolly, and he sounded annoyed, falling prey to the 'Wilson attitude'.
Maca touched two fingers to the lion on her hip. "No, that was kind of a package deal," she admitted and she smiled despite herself, simply because she and Esther were in the same city again.
"My daughter would love it," Aimé said with chagrin, charmed by Maca's smile. "She's into Lion King right now."
"Really?" Maca's smile broadened. "How old is she?"
Now it was Aimé's turn to smile as he proudly spoke of his daughter. Maca half expected him to pull a photo out of his wallet. She found him a lot more likable like this.
"Monica says you are a pediatrician," he said finally, changing the topic. It sounded like a question.
"Yes," Maca confirmed, not sure what he was getting at.
"I'm on a board that is organizing a congress on Tropical Medicine right now, here in Madrid, and we could still use someone to speak from a Pediatric perspective," Aimé offered, looking at Maca intently. "It'll be in two months, so there is still time to think about it, but if you get your papers straightened out… would you like to do a presentation on your experiences in Tanzania?"
Maca didn't even think about it. "Sure." It was a start, she figured, and if she got along with him, she could ask him about the opening in Pediatrics at the Central. It was also an excuse to return to Madrid shortly, and while she told herself that she liked that because it was a good idea not to look for a job in Jeréz, too close to her parents' expectations, there was also the thought of Esther. The mere idea of her vicinity was comforting for Maca, even though she wasn't sure whether she was up to face her just yet.
But the thought that she could drive out to the little private clinic and leave a message for her if she wanted to already seemed like such a luxury that she contented herself with it.
74
The doubts only came when Maca turned around the corner, the one after which the cut shrubs gave view onto the estate sale store above the wine cellars down the road. The gravel driveway taking off to the left another two-hundred meters ahead was still out of sight, as was the mansion at the end of it.
Maca looked down at the dust covering her scuffed shoes, suddenly uncertain how welcome she would be. Her father's distorted face stood clearly in front of her eyes again, the way he had stood in the door, derisively staring down at her at the bottom of the stairs. "You'll come crawling back yet!" he had yelled after her, and she hadn't looked back over her shoulder once, neither at him, nor at her mother who stood silently beside him, no emotion visible on her face. And Maca had walked on, down this same pathway she was walking up now.
Before she had left for Africa, she would have scoffed at the idea of traveling down from Madrid with a tourist class train ticket, then taking one of the city busses to the outskirts of Jeréz and finally walking the last few kilometers to the mansion. Now, she didn't mind, instead enjoying the slow arrival. She had found herself watching the gradual change of the colors in the landscape, gazing out of the train window for most of the time. The odd pull in her stomach had become stronger every mile and now, walking along the country road for the past half hour, she felt weak with homesickness, flooded by memories she hadn't known she still kept. There was the road leading to the stud where her father had first taken her riding, and the crooked little corner where she had been bucked off her horse – one of those many times that she had recounted to Esther. There was the small church where she had played hide-and-seek underneath the benches with her brothers during their cousin Almudena's boring wedding, and the old abandoned barn where she had badly banged her knees by falling of the roof and her mother had been angry that she couldn't put her into a dress the next Sunday because her legs were so scraped. Of course, her mother would have been even more angry if she had known that behind that same barn, Maca had kissed Isabella Martinèz at age seventeen, having impressed her with the old motorcycle which she had borrowed from her brother Jero.
Maca had grinned at the memory, her step becoming lighter although now that the entryway of the mansion was visible ahead, she unconsciously slowed down, her heart beating nervously. She wondered who might be home at this hour, for a moment terribly afraid that something might have happened to her parents, or Carmen, or one of her brothers over the past years.
In walking closer, she saw that the awning on the front terrace was unrolled; chairs stood grouped around a table. A lone figure got up from a lounge chair at the sound of her steps, shielding her eyes with a hand against the sun to see who was walking up the gravel road. In the other hand, she held a cup of tea and Maca knew it was chilled ginger tea, the one that her mother loved to drink in the afternoon. Walking up to the front stairs, the woman stared at the approaching figure with wide eyes, her hands beginning to shake.
Before Maca could utter a word of greeting, nervously standing at the bottom of those same stairs her father had sent her down all those years ago, the delicate tea cup slipped from Rosario Wilson's fingers, splintering into a hundred tiny shards on the stone steps.
"Macarena…?" she whispered tonelessly.
"Hello Mother," Maca said a little awkwardly, shifting from one foot to the other. She hadn't expected the warmest welcome, but her mother didn't even comment on the plain clothes she was wearing, which would have been the first thing Maca expected her to do under normal circumstances. This was odd. Growing nervous under her mother's frightened stare, Maca raised her hands. "What…?"
That finally broke the spell, and Rosario hurtled herself down the stairs and into the baffled Maca's arms. "Lord Almighty… my child…" She hugged Maca to her with desperation, her fingers clawing into the fabric of Maca's shirt as she wept helplessly.
Maca could recall a total of three incidences in her life where she had seen her mother cry – when her oldest brother Pedro had lost his left hand in the stamp machine at the vineyard as a child, when her father had had a bad riding accident when Maca was a teenager, and when Maca had come out to her.
This was completely atypical, Maca thought worriedly. Her mother felt small in the hug, much smaller than Maca remembered her. "I'm here, Mother," she said soothingly. "What happened?"
"What happened?" Rosario echoed incredulously, moving backwards in the embrace so that she could look at her daughter. "We thought you were dead!"
Taking in with nervous fascination how her mother didn't even seem to care that her mascara was streaking all over her cheeks, it took a few seconds until the meaning of her words registered with Maca. "Dead?" she repeated in shock. "Mother, you know I went to Africa, I wrote you from the Congo… and my clinic addresses were always at the headquarters, you could have reached me at any time, you knew that."
"No," Rosario said between sobs. "After that… your clinic got attacked, and your colleagues came back without you… they said you were dead." She stroked her hands across Maca's cheeks, as if she still couldn't believe that her lost daughter stood in front of her, alive and breathing.
"But they knew…" Maca stammered with a sinking feeling in her stomach. "Begoña knew… Esther knew… I told them…"
Rosario simply shook her head under tears. "We went to your funeral, Macarena…" She gasped, pressing a fist to her lips. "You have a headstone… at the crypt…"
Maca swayed, feeling sick. "I was in the jungle for a while after the attack," she explained queasily, thinking that this was probably not the best moment to mention her gunshot wound to her mother. "Then I was working in Tanzania, for a little more than two years, but I fell ill and they sent me back now…" She helplessly stroked her hands over her mother's shoulders that were feeling cold even in the warmth of the afternoon sun. "Did none of my colleagues tell you?"
"We didn't talk to anyone…" Rosario stated forlornly. "Not after the funeral."
"Damn," Maca swore, cursing herself for not writing to her parents from Tanzania. Of course, how could Esther or Begoña have known that her parents presumed her dead?
"They probably thought we knew," Rosario mused absently, not really caring why Maca was back as long as she was alive and healthy. "Come on in," she said, hastily shaking her head as if she only now remembered what to do. "You must be exhausted…" She looked around Maca, only then realizing that she had walked up to the house like that. "Don't you have any luggage?"
"No." Maca shook her head and moved to climb the stairs, step by step. Now that her mother had mentioned it, she did feel the exhaustion from the trip and the half hour walk up here couldn't have been good for her injured leg. Even the ever gentle Tatyana would berate her now, Maca thought guiltily, noting with a wince that her leg had started to throb again.
"Why are you limping?" Her mother asked with a touch of hysteria to her voice.
"It's a long story…" Maca waved it off, gratefully taking her mother's offered hand to pull her up the two last remaining steps. "Nothing grave, I promise." She came face to face with her mother who suddenly took a step back and squinted at her.
"Macarena Wilson! Just what are you wearing?" Rosario frowned in consternation. "And what happened to your hair?"
Maca smiled tearfully. "I missed you, too, Mother," she mumbled, bending her neck and hiding her face against her mother's shoulder, hugging her tightly again. And for once, Rosario didn't move back to remind her children of her evening dress, or her hairdo, or her make-up. Instead, she hugged Maca back, gently rocking them back and forth, right there on the entrance stairs.
Suddenly, steps were audible on the terrace to the side. "Mrs. Wilson?" Carmen's familiar voice rang out. "Would you like me to serve the cookies someplace else?"
Rosario moved back a little. "Carmen, call Pedro," she ordered over her shoulder.
A few more steps and Carmen came into view, carrying a tray with homemade cookies and a teapot. Maca felt warmth trickle down her insides at the sight of their old cook and housekeeper whose once black hair was now streaked with light gray.
"At the office?" Carmen asked dubiously and Maca had to smile. One of the unwritten rules of the Wilson household was to never disturb Pedro Wilson while he was at work.
Rosario didn't turn around, her eyes fixed on Maca's as she repeated, "Call him."
Maca stepped out from behind her mother. "Hello Carmen… do you have a cookie left for me?" she joked feebly.
Carmen seemed to sway on her feet for a moment, then she dropped the entire tray and clutched her hands to her heart. "Holy Mary mother of God…"
After a few seconds, she stretched out her arms and then Maca was crying again, stepping over the shards and cookie crumbles and burrowing herself in Carmen's safe, reassuring hold. She suddenly felt very young in the embrace of the woman who had basically raised her, in whose kitchen she had eaten those warm, fresh cookies until her stomach hurt, to whose stories she had listened to late at night while her feet grew cold on the tile floor, and who had wished her good luck and winked at her when Maca had snuck out on her first date with Isabella.
It was a feeling Maca hadn't known since she had last woken up with Esther in her arms in the Congo:
Home.
75
The days in Jeréz easily turned into weeks as Maca slowly arrived home. Fences in the Wilson household were mended awkwardly, and without many words being spoken. Her father didn't outright apologize to her, but he asked her to go riding with him again and he went patiently at slow speed – something he never did – mindful of what her leg allowed. And right away that first evening, he had called Jero away from a tasting and with the sleeves of his perfectly pressed shirt rolled up, the two of them had dismounted the headstone at the crypt.
It was Jero, not their father, who told Maca later that Pedro Wilson had funded a private expedition to Kasaï-Oriental to search for her, bribing his way past the Congolese administration. Maca had cried, but she respected her father's reserve and didn't mention it to him. Neither did he. He never spoke about the night he had thrown her out of the house, or why, either.
Rosario Wilson had returned to her socialite duties, but she kept uncharacteristically quiet about Maca's return, not even telling close friends that she had returned. For once, Rosario wasn't eager to have the local yellow press show up to get footage for a new story about the 'lost daughter in the Foreign Legion', instead preferring to have her family to herself which she showed as she knew best, by putting great care into organizing a new wardrobe for Maca.
The only one of Maca's brothers who was still living at the mansion was Jero, who had by now already taken over part of the family enterprise. His wife, Maca already knew, but a pair of four-year-old twin boys and a two-year-old little girl were new to the family. Rosario had even let them buy a dog, something she had always forbidden Maca and her brothers as children, always worrying about dog hair on her precious furniture and dog prints in her flower beds. Now, Rosario looked on with a smile while the twins chased the dog through the front garden and Maca enjoyed the fact that the grandchildren were finally softening her mother, something her own children had never quite accomplished.
Of course, her nephews and her niece were cute as buttons, especially Pedro jr., who had taken a special liking to 'Aunt Maca' and trustfully sat on the edge of her lounge chair on the terrace for long hours, asking her to tell him stories. Since Maca couldn't really race across the garden with them yet, she enjoyed this even more and her favorite part of the day became the early evening when the twins tugged her up the stairs to their room for a goodnight galanty show, half the time forgetting in their impatience that Maca couldn't move as fast as they did.
For her part, Maca was amused that the galanty show fairy tales that she had picked up from some of her Congolese patients were such a big hit with her nephews. It made her think of Azuka, and she made a note to herself to write to him from 'far away, across the sea, in a plane'.
She had even heard from Paula and Baptiste and the newly returned Tatyana. Things at the clinic seemed to be going reasonably well and Paula enthusiastically recounted two births they had had in one week, but Maca still couldn't help but feel guilty about not having gone back. She emailed them back to Kalemie, where the Red Cross station printed the messages and would send them on with the mail transporter to the clinic.
There was no further talk about Maca's funeral or her demise in the Wilson household, as if her parents were trying to erase the painful memories, for all of them. The only one who talked to her about it was Carmen in whose kitchen she sat at night, although this time in a proper chair and not on the small footstool anymore. And, as always, Carmen was the closest confidante she had. She even mentioned Esther to her when Carmen asked with worry who the girl was that had broken her heart like this, making her look so serious.
Maca had looked up at Carmen with a chagrined smile. "I could never hide much from you, could I?"
"Sure as hell not," Carmen had replied with a broad grin, and then she had listened until long past midnight while Maca told her about how she had met Esther, and she held Maca's hand and soothingly stroked her hair when Maca started to cry in between.
It was nothing she talked about with her parents. In fact, there was no mentioning of Azucena or Maca being gay at all, despite the fact that Maca had yelled it through the entire staircase all those years ago, declaring that yes, she was leaving to start a life with a married woman.
It was Jero who told her that Isabella Martínez, whose marriage to the Gázquez heir – another estate on the other side of town – had broken Maca's heart at age nineteen, had had an ugly divorce almost two years ago, and that rumor had it that she had disappeared to the U.S. with her tennis trainer.
"A woman," Jero had added with a wink, and Maca had grinned back at him, absurdly grateful to be acknowledged as who she was at least by her brother.
Maca knew it would be time for her to leave soon when she heard Marta, her sister-in-law, worriedly and in hushed tones complain to Rosario about any unsafe 'influence' Maca could have on her children, especially on her daughter with whom Maca had played car race in her toddler car the day before.
When at breakfast the next morning, her mother smiled at her and casually said, "Did you know that Rodrigo Gázquez is single again? I remember you got along well with him when you were teenagers…", Maca nearly sputtered her orange juice all over the table. For a moment, she was very tempted to comment that if she were to date one party of that divorced couple, it would definitely be Isabella, but the sudden tense mood around the table let her drop the topic. Instead, she nodded placidly while she pushed another bite of Carmen's sweet brioche past her lips that suddenly tasted bland and bitter.
The same afternoon, when she sent the final version of her speech for the congress with a copy of her brand-new papers – it helped to have a father who had connections among the administration – to Aimé, she also included a formal application for the open position in Pediatrics at the Central.
She glued the envelope closed at Carmen's kitchen table, and Carmen put a prayer on it for good luck. And when a heavy envelope came back two weeks later, Maca opened it in the kitchen as well, biting her lip at first and then broadly smiling at Carmen who had her hands clutched to her chest in nervous anticipation.
"I got it!" she stated excitedly, holding up the acceptance letter.
"That's my girl," Carmen stated proudly, enveloping Maca in a hug. "Now you can go back to doing your job, not being married off like Mrs. Wilson would like it." She shook her head, looking straight at Maca. "And go see your Esther," she ordered sternly.
"She is not my Esther anymore," Maca corrected glumly.
"She is, my dear," Carmen said with a serene smile, clicking her tongue. "Why do you think you're getting this job, out of all the other jobs you could have? And why are you taking it on?" She shook her head. "Don't laugh at fate, Macarena. One way or another, the two of you aren't over yet."
"Why did she marry someone else then?" Maca complained with bitterness.
"Don't presume you know better than fate, young lady!" Carmen pointed a finger at Maca. "And now go tell your parents that you got that position!"
"Yes, Carmen…" Maca got up and snatched a cookie from the still hot tray as she walked out of the kitchen, her limp barely notable anymore. She grinned at the cook's exasperated sigh behind her, feeling as if once more, she could try and take on the world.
76
Maca watched as the door fell into the lock behind the last of the craftsmen, leaving her alone with a few remaining boxes and surrounded by the scent of fresh paint. With a groan, she crossed into the living room and let herself sink into the cushions of her new couch, thankful that she didn't own much chattel at the moment. At least like this, unpacking had been easy: a bit of wardrobe and some equipment for her kitchen and her bathroom. Any knick-knacks, she would have to acquire all over again, although her time in Africa had left her with a disregard of personal clutter.
Shifting a little, Maca realized that her leg was throbbing again. Like this, she would be sporting a limp in the morning again when she was supposed to have her formal interview with the hospital board. Maca grimaced, knowing that she should look for a physiotherapist. At least chances were good that one of her new colleagues at the Central could recommend someone.
She was looking forward to start her job, but it would still be a full week until she could start. At least beforehand, there was the congress with Aimé. Aimé had also been the one who had helped her through most of the formalities of her application – once he had seen the name on her changed papers, he had been even more polite – and he would also attend the board meeting in the morning since the actual boss of the ER, where Maca would mainly be working, was on a conference out of town this week.
At least with these few more days off, she could spend some more time on her apartment. The interior designer her mother had paid her was pleasant enough to work with, but Maca still preferred to do some things on her own. The idea to have a whole place to herself again, something she could lock up and call her own, was still taking some getting used to. This had been the second place she had seen and she had bought it on the spot, a top floor with lots of light and a large roof terrace. Her father, who had traveled up with her since he had to do business in town, had watched with a proud smile as she sorted out the conditions and had the contract ready to sign in less than a day. She was taking after him after all, he had stated and Maca had looked at him a little puzzled, less for the statement than for the numbers on the paper. It was strange to have that much money at her disposal again, after she had lived for years without much need for it.
It was something her father wouldn't understand, just as there were other things about her life that he would never really comprehend. Her departure from Jeréz had been with mixed emotions. She had been sad to leave her nephews and Carmen, and she would miss riding out with her father, but Maca knew that the newfound peace would be short-lived if she stayed much longer, evidenced by the fact that her mother had given her Rodrigo's card before she left – Maca didn't even want to know how and where she had obtained it – telling her that she could always get in touch with him at one of the Madrid offices of the Gázquez Enterprise.
The card had been the first thing that Maca had thrown into the brand-new waste basket in her new apartment.
"So, how's your new place coming along?" Aimé asked the next morning as they were making their way through the administrative tract of the Central.
"Fine," Maca replied distractedly, trying to memorize their way through the maze of corridors. "I'll need to air out the scent of the paint for another few days, but other than that… great. I forgot how nice it is to own a big, comfortable bed."
"You already moved in?" Aimé asked with surprise. "I thought you were still staying at the hotel – didn't you say the interior designer was still working on the apartment?"
"I stopped him from turning it into the next cover of 'House & Garden'," Maca related dryly. "I want to live in this place, not take entrance fees for it."
"I see," Aimé agreed with a nod, but his smile was a little uncertain, giving testimony to the fact that his mother had probably never sent an interior designer to decorate any of his apartments. "Here we are," he said, stopping in front of a door that looked just like any other on the corridor. "Ready?"
It had gone well, Maca thought afterwards as Aimé led her back through the corridors, this time through the patient tracts since, as he apologetically stated, his shift was about to start. Of course, the board interview had been nothing but a formality, but it was still a good feeling to have made a good impression, and as Dr. Fernandez no less. She didn't want to involve the network of Wilson family connections here and Aimé had respected that. For this job, she had applied on her own, and she had gotten it on her own. Her father had nothing to do with it.
Aimé left her into the entrance hall for the ER that seemed vaguely familiar to Maca and it took her a moment until she realized that this was where they must have wheeled her in when she had been flown in from Kalemie. Nurses walked back and forth and patients were waiting for admittance, but the center of the melee seemed to be the reception area where a woman who had to be in her fifties animatedly talked to a male nurse with short, dark hair.
On the wall next to Maca, there was a bulletin board with what had to be staff announcements, from shift schedules to cartoons and apartment requests, and she stopped to read a few of them, smiling at the fact that in a mere week, she would be part of this, as well. In one corner, buried underneath a flyer that announced massage therapy, a green sheet called her attention: it was the announcement for the Congress of Tropical Medicine where she would speak. After a moment's hesitation, Maca reached for a free pin and hefted the congress sheet on top again. Then she walked towards the exit, past the reception counter where the receptionist was still deep in conversation with the same nurse.
"Hey, did you see this?" Laura reached out to catch Esther by the sleeve, stopping her in front of the bulletin board where she was standing. "There's a congress on Tropical Medicine next week."
"It's been up there for weeks," Esther commented, shifting the pile of folders under her other arm. "I think Aimé is on the organization committee." She gazed at Laura with curiosity. "Since when are you into Tropical Medicine?"
"I'm not," Laura answered with a shrug. "But I still need a congress attendance on my residency record for this year, and this one is in town… if I get Cruz to move my shifts a little, I can attend and cross it off my list." She canted her head to the side, all but batting her eyelashes at Esther. "Would you attend with me? That was it's not so boring. Besides, it's kind of your topic – you've been there!"
"Yes, and I know all about Tropical Medicine I'll ever need," Esther replied with reserve, not really interested in spending two of her free evenings this week in a conference hall, but Laura gave her such a pathetic look – it did look kind of cute on her, Esther noted absently – that her resolve crumbled. "Oh, all right, I'll go," she conceded with a laugh. "But you're inviting me for dinner to that Thai place afterwards, the one where we went for your birthday!"
"Deal," Laura declared happily. "As long as you keep me from falling asleep during the speeches…"
"…at the Tropical congress?" Hector stepped up to them, placing an arm around each woman.
"Yes," Laura said, turning her head to look at him. "Are you going?"
"Yes," Hector nodded. "It sounded interesting."
"You're not getting out of dinner," Esther interjected, making Laura laugh.
"I also asked Begoña," Hector continued with a grin. "She said she's coming if it fits with her shifts."
Esther frowned. "What happened with Lesedi?"
"She's engaged," Hector said, his shoulders slumping a little.
"Too bad," Laura agreed sympathetically.
"Yes," Hector nodded glumly, but it only lasted for a second. "Hey, did you already hear anything about the new doctor we're getting? Fernandez, or something like that?"
"No…" Esther shook her head. "I don't know any more than you."
"Do you know whether it's a man or a woman?" Hector asked curiously.
"I don't know," Esther repeated. "Why don't you ask Teresa?"
"I did," Hector protested. "But she said she doesn't have access to the application files, only you do."
"With Cruz on that epidemic conference on the Canaries, I'm not seeing that many files, either," Esther corrected before she continued on her way down the hall, adjusting the folders under her arm once more. She would need to have a word or two with Teresa on privacy policies. But not before she had asked her about that new doctor, of course.
77
"Esther!" Laura called across the reception area of the ER.
Startled, Esther looked up from where she was leaning against the counter, dead on her feet after a shift that had extended long into the afternoon even though she should have been on her way home by noon. "What?" she asked, stifling a yawn and praying that Laura wouldn't wave another folder at her. Only then did she realize that Laura was dressed in a nice skirt suit, complete with a purse under her arm and hair that looked a lot better than it had all shift.
"…the congress, remember?" Laura prompted helpfully, causing Esther to glance at her watch and curse.
"Oh damn… is it that late already? I don't even have anything to change into here!" With Laura on her heels, she hastened towards the locker room. "And I need to call Miguel to tell him that I won't be home for dinner… damn…"
"It's gonna be a room full of stuffy old men whom you'll never see again," Laura said with amusement, leaning against the lockers while Esther fumbled for her cellphone. "Stop fretting about what to wear!" She reached over and plucked the phone out of Esther's fingers. "I'll call Miguel, and you take a few deep breaths and change, all right?"
She scrolled though the quick dials while Esther went in search of the brush in her locker, still cursing. In the end, they were running a little late to meet up with Hector and Begoña, who had finished their shifts early and had agreed to meet them in front of the hotel where the congress was taking place.
"Esther…" Laura glanced back impatiently at Esther who was still trying to get out of the cab in her skirt.
"Yes, yes… coming," Esther replied grouchily, shutting the cab door behind her with a little more force than necessary. "Really, I do know all I need to know about tropical illnesses…"
"Just think about the nice Thai dinner you'll get in a few hours," Laura cajoled her, pulling Esther along by the arm.
They strode through the foyer into the entrance hall, signing up next to the door for the lecture room. Between Laura, Begoña in a sharp red suit and Hector in a proper shirt and tie, Esther felt out of place.
"If this is a big hit, Aimé will be insufferable for the next few weeks," Laura mumbled, looking over the mingling crowd of doctors, scientists and nurses.
"It's a congress on tropical medicine," Esther pointed out dryly. "Do you see any movie cameras?"
"You know how Aimé gets," Hector muttered, pushing them through door into the lecture room between lots of gray and brown suits. Next to him, Begoña nodded, but before she could add something, Laura spoke again.
"Wait, there's a billboard with the program." She pointed ahead. "Let's have a look, I'll tell you during which ones you'll have to keep me awake…"
"Fine," Esther agreed, thinking that after the near double shift she had pulled, she was much more likely to fall asleep than Laura.
"Oh, if it gets too dry, one of you two can always get up and share a few personal stories." Hector rubbed his hands together and grinned gleefully. "I bet half of them have only ever seen malaria in a petri dish."
Begoña laughed, making Hector straighten a little. "If it comes to malaria, Esther and I can do a lot more than share a few stories." She glanced over at Esther for confirmation, but Esther didn't react, instead looking at the billboard in front of her.
Skimming through the list of unfamiliar names and exotic topics, Esther only listened with half an ear, predicting that both she and Laura might sleep through the entire evening. Begoña stepped up next to her, looking over the list of speeches while she continued talking to Hector and Esther needed a moment to notice it when suddenly, the animated chatter stopped. She more felt than saw Begoña grow very still next to her.
Already about to look up, wondering what was going on, Esther stumbled over a painfully familiar name on the board. …Macarena Wilson… It stood out against the other words who turned into a indiscernible salad of black letters, leaving only these two readable for Esther.
Her hands felt icy and the sounds around her seemed to come through a thick fog all of a sudden. Her heart beat a mile a minute, drunk with the impossible, and Esther weakly thought that this was a very cruel joke.
She blinked, terribly scared, but when she reopened her eyes, the name was still there. For a moment, she feverishly thought that perhaps she was dreaming again, another of these terribly hopeful dreams where her brain came up with tempting ways of returning Maca to her, only to crush her with disillusion when she woke.
But her shift had been real. Laura, Begoña and Hector were real. The fabric of her skirt, the tiredness in her shoulders, the air-conditioned breeze around her: all this was real. And the poster in front of her was real.
Calming her raging pulse enough to squint at the chaotic mass of letters, Esther felt like the ground had just been pulled out from under her feet, leaving her dangling in thin air and any moment now, she would fall and crash, splintering into a thousand pieces all over again.
By some cruel coincidence, it had to be a scientist by the same name, perhaps some small, elderly woman with huge earrings. Not Maca. Not her Maca. Shakily trying to find the right line in the small print underneath, Esther tried to correct the chasm that had suddenly torn through her reality, both terribly afraid to be right and to be wrong about this. But there it stood, printed black on white: 'Dr. Macarena Wilson, pediatrician. On treatment methods for children developed during stays in the Congo and Tanzania.'
Esther stared at the billboard without comprehension. The room around her began to spin.
78
The first emotion to flow into the dizzying disbelief was hurt, hurt that Esther had locked away so deeply that now that it was touched upon, it erupted without restraint, tearing through the too small vessel of her body and leaving her torn with pain in its wake.
"Maca…" Her lips formed the name with difficulty, as if they had to bear it with just as much hurt. The room aligned around the printed name on the billboard, everything else swimming at the edges of her vision, but she felt every detail – Begoña, who was still standing next to her, stunned into rigor, the ebb and flow of the mingling people around them, bodies, voices, air.
She couldn't be feeling all this, Esther thought in growing panic. Her lungs seemed to small to draw breath all of a sudden and she was gasping for air, overwhelmed by an avalanche of emotions.
Hector caught her as she swayed and her knees gave way under her. "Esther, are you okay?"
She could hear him from far away, thinking the question absurd, and then she heard someone chuckle, only belatedly recognizing her own voice.
"They're starting every moment…" That was Begoña's voice, nervous underneath the trademark practicality. "We need to get her out of here."
"Should I call a cab?" Laura asked worriedly.
"No." Esther struggled to shake off Hector's protective hold, straightening and turning back toward the billboard. She pointed at it accusingly, her fingers shaking. "This can't be…" she tried to say, but it only came out as a whisper. The memory of those first painful days came back, being transported out of Kasaï-Oriental, weak and with her arms cut open, and waking up in the clinic in Mbuji-Mayi on her own. "She is dead…" Suddenly, she turned to look at Begoña, with so much despair vibrating off her body that the other woman automatically took a step back. "You… you said she died…"
Begoña looked left and right, clearly uncomfortable. "I… I didn't know…" she stammered, having turned pale herself.
Esther didn't relent, nearly lunging a her. "You said she was dead instantly…"
"I…" Begoña didn't know what to say, having expected this turn of events just as little as Esther had. Maca was not a topic any of them ever brought up.
But Esther had already turned to look at the billboard once more, staring at the tangible link to her deceased lover until it was blurring in front of her eyes. There was not enough air to breathe around her.
"Slowly, Esther, breathe slowly – you're hyperventilating, damn it!" Laura cursed under her breath. She pulled Esther's arm around her shoulder before she could fall. "Come on… we have to get you out of here." Between Hector and herself, they guided Esther out of the lecture room and back into the now deserted entrance hall, making her sit down on a chair with her head between her knees.
"Esther, what happened?" Hector crouched down in front of her, worriedly checking her pulse. "What is it with this Dr. Wilson?"
"She has to be one of her former colleagues from Africa," Laura mused, before she solidly hit her palm against her forehead. "Hector – Maca Wilson! The one Cruz was friends with, the one who died after Cruz got back. The daughter of the cognac empire."
"That Maca?" Hector looked up, his expression flabbergasted. "But she's dead… that's why Cruz named…"
"Exactly." Laura motioned at Esther who was still sitting with her head bent. "Did you ever have someone come back from the dead? Hell, I'd pass out as well!"
"Cruz is gonna flip," Hector stated with an incredulous grin. "But perhaps she knows already…"
Laura shook her head. "She would have told Esther… I'm sure she would have."
"Hey, I'm still present," Esther protested weakly, raising her head from between her knees. "Stop looking so worried, folks. I'm okay."
"Yeah right," Laura protested hotly, even though Esther's face had already regained a bit of color.
"They're starting," Esther nodded toward the lecture room. "You should go back in, both of you. – I just need to sit here for a few minutes and calm down."
"Are you sure?" Laura said doubtfully, stepping back with reluctance.
"Yes," Esther said calmly. "I'm a nurse, I know what I'm doing – I'd really just like to be alone for a few minutes."
"Okay," Laura said, still unconvinced and a little disappointed she wasn't going to hear the story behind this, and there had to be a story if their unflappable head nurse all but passed out.
"We'll take seats in the back, and if there's anything…" Hector didn't finish the sentence, instead putting a hand on Esther's shoulder.
Esther just waved them away, watching the door fall shut softly behind them as they snuck back into the hall. The silence and occasional rustle of applause that sounded mutely from the inside indicated that the introductions had already started.
Esther wasn't even sure when Maca would be speaking, but at the moment, she couldn't see anyone. Not even Maca. Least of all Maca. She leaned with the head against the wall behind her, the sensations raging through her still more emotions that actual thoughts.
Somewhere, distantly, she was surprised that there wasn't more relief, more joyousness, but next to the incredulity there was hurt, as if her feelings were muscles she hadn't used in a long time, shaky and stretched tight with pain, long since having grown unaccustomed to themselves.
Slowly, very slowly, did the idea that Maca might be alive sink to the bottom of her consciousness, eyed by her feelings like a foreign intruder, something not to be trusted. And then the questions formed, fueled by helpless anger, bubbling up to the surface of her mind.
If Maca, by some inexplicable miracle, had survived her deadly gunshot wound and the explosion, what had happened to her? Where had she been? What had she done during the past two and a half years? And underneath that question, there echoed another one, a low undercurrent: What had she done all that time without Esther?
Maca might be alive. Maca might be right here, on this congress. And suddenly, Esther gasped, as if she was breaking through the surface of a deep sea, her head now finally above the water. She might see Maca. In that lecture hall, within mere hours. Nervous anticipation settled over here and she felt sick, even though the last thing she had eaten was lunch, nearly half a day ago.
She looked over at the door again, oddly shy to return to the lecture room. She would wait just a little longer out here, wait and breathe in and out until she wouldn't have to remind herself to breathe anymore.
And then, she would go in there.
79
Small squares of red and green were sprinkled throughout the gray, interspersed with turquoise diamonds. Esther stared at the carpet in the entrance hall, for the first time seeing the pattern and wondering why congress hotels always had such ugly carpets. The offhanded thought seemed to be the only one she was able to fathom, her mind a jumble of emotions and memories.
She looked at her feet, dark boots on gray carpet, as gray as the January sky outside. Slowly, another image pushed in front of it, making the pale walls around her disappear: Maca's bare feet, her toes hardly touching the stamped earth underneath as she lay reclining on the simple bed, the mosquito net pushed to the side for the day. Warm air flooded in through the window openings and outside, past the line of moving trees, a few of the younger patients had started to play ball, laughter and single words of Luba ringing through the air.
"Don't you agree that 'siesta' is an international concept?" Maca asked in that tone that managed to raise the hair on the back of Esther's neck. She swallowed as she watched Maca shift another inch backwards on the bed. A bare toe brushed along her calf. "I promise I'll help you organize the storage tent after evening shift."
Esther took a step closer until her shins touched the rusty bed frame. "You do remember what happened the last time you tried to help me organize the storage tent, don't you?" she asked dryly, but she couldn't keep up the stern expression when a broad grin spread across Maca's features.
"Maria wasn't supposed to walk in," Maca reasoned and reached out to grasp one of Esther's hands. "And I don't remember you protesting… much." She tugged on the hand in her grasp. "Five more minutes?"
Her eyes were warm and intense, and Esther knew she had lost. Not that she minded. She had probably lost for good the first time Maca had looked at her like this, and again, she felt the little jolt in her stomach, still a little incredulous at the fact that this woman wanted her.
"You know we'll never get up in just five minutes," she pointed out knowingly. "But I guess Vilches will yell if there is an emergency…"
"…and also if there isn't," Maca added with a smile before she pulled Esther onto the bed with her. "It's not my fault you're so addictive."
Staring again at the awkward mix of red, green and turquoise in the gray, Esther smiled weakly. They should never have been separated, never. The soldiers should have let her get through to Maca, especially if Maca had still been alive, which was so hard to believe. Perhaps she had been unconscious, without a pulse for a few moments. In the melee, even a seasoned nurse like Begoña could have made a mistake.
Addictive, Maca had called her, and Esther had conceded with a laugh, that time and many more, wrapping her arms around Maca's neck and hugging her close, breathing in the sweet scent of her skin. It had been addiction all right, perhaps something that never would have worked out of Africa, and it had cost her body many months to understand that Maca wasn't there anymore, and that however much Esther craved her warmth or her touch, she would never be there again. Esther had disciplined herself, compartmentalizing the desire and the yearning until it was only a small shadow in the background, something that she had learned to live with.
And now that the emotions that she had so long denied herself were rising again, pushing against the painfully erected barriers, she wondered how Maca had learned to live with it.
Reflexively reaching for the pendant around her neck – she had started to wear it again shortly after the wedding, feeling oddly naked without its weight against her chest – she remembered how she had barely survived Maca being torn from her side. Esther didn't know whether she would survive Maca coming back.
Voices and steps down the hall tore her out of her dazed state and she looked up to see a group of people dressed for the congress walk towards the lecture room. Esther easily recognized the tall figure of Aimé. Her eyes slid over the woman next to him, and for long moments, Esther's heart stopped beating as her entire world drew to a halt.
Maca.
She had never learned to live without her. That was Esther's first, feverish thought when her pulse stumbled and stuttered into motion again, her own blood pulsing loudly in her ears. She had always waited for a miracle, unbeknownst, and here it was. Here was Maca, alive and breathing, leaning towards Aimé as he said something to her, her hair sliding across her shoulder with the motion. She looked different, a little older and a bit more severe which might be owed to the formal suit and the heels she was wearing, but other than that, it seemed as if not a day had passed since Maria had walked in on them in the storage tent. Those were the same warm eyes, the same luscious lips, the same confident walk.
Esther wanted to jump up and rush towards her, but found herself glued to her seat instead as the small group walked past without seeing her. Her eyes followed Maca's every motion, stumbling over every detail, the curve of her fingers on the conference map, the line of her neck in the suit jacket.
This was how dying wanderers in the desert had to feel when in front of their eyes, the oasis appeared, drawn up so many times in their minds already that the reality of it didn't quite sink in, only to let them finally realize that they had forgotten how to drink.
Every emotion that Esther had ever managed to rationalize or lock away came rushing back at her, clawing at the thin barrier than separated her from instant madness.
"Maca…" she breathed, but it only came out as a choked sob.
80
Even before there was the sound of her name, her name in the one voice that she had forbidden herself to imagine, Maca had begun to turn around, feeling that she was being watched, and not just watched: held by a gaze in a way that sent a shudder down her spine.
The frisson of awareness was there before she even saw her and although her mind was still drawing blanks, even after seeing the woman seated on one of the chairs down the hall, something deeper than her consciousness knew that there was just one answer, one face.
Turning fully, Maca froze in place, not replying to Aimé's latest question. The others walked on, leaving her standing exposed in the cool space around her, with nothing to shield her or support her as her gaze connected with the figure that sat only meters away from her, staring at her in an equal state of shock.
Esther.
Maca had known that this might happen sooner or later, that she might run into Esther at some congress or even at the supermarket, and she had secretly hoped for it and dreaded it at the same time. Now that it was happening, she found herself rooted to the spot, unable to do anything. She almost wanted to avert her eyes, afraid that her heart would burst with the sight, but she couldn't turn her gaze away.
It was Esther, her Esther, a little older perhaps, the face thinner and her hair cut shorter, falling around her face in fancy layers. But those hands, now curled around the armrests of the chair in a white-knuckled grip, they were the same hands she had held so often, and her body acutely remembered how they fit against her waist, resting underneath her ribs. Maca took in the solid boots, the comfortable looking skirt and the shirt underneath the jacket that, in bright letters, proclaimed something about doctors doing it with patience, but nurses wearing the better gowns with it, and she had to laugh against tears, a strangled sound, because this was Esther, just like she would have imagined her, and for the first time in two and a half years, she felt her heart begin to beat again.
Right then, Maca didn't understand how she could ever have lived without her, or how she had managed to tell herself that she didn't love Esther quite as much anymore. If she had thought that wedding picture had torn her heart asunder, she hadn't had the slightest idea of what it would do to her to see Esther in person, flesh and warmth and breath.
She had the same intent gaze she had always had and that little twist to the corner of her mouth that Maca loved so much, and suddenly, Maca was angry, angry at all that denied time, at the months of suffering under Cjelko, out of goddamned nowhere on the Tanzanian border, at the long weeks of desperate hope at the rebel camp, at all the time she had spent with Tatyana and Paula, playing cards and drinking sickeningly sweet peach liquor, all to forget this face, and these eyes. It had taken her so damn long to get her feet back under her, to be able to breathe and walk and sleep without every single thought being tinged by the memory of Esther, and now one single glance made her whole constitution crumble into pieces, leaving her bare and loving and reduced to her very essence. This was what she was right now and nothing more: the distance between her and Esther, and the longing to reduce it.
She moved on shaky legs, and then Esther got up from her seat as well, walking towards her. Two and a half endless years, Maca thought, and she wanted to damn Esther for going on without her, for walking towards her so calmly, for building a life for herself that she was not a part of. But then all thoughts were forgotten when she was close enough to Esther to feel the warmth that radiated off her body and to smell the scent of her skin and all Maca wanted to do was to bury her face in Esther's neck and plead with her to never let go of her again. But instead she moved slowly, reveling in the little jolt she felt when Esther had to tilt her head back a little to look at her, and then she was lost in those eyes all over again.
Slowly, with utter care, Maca leaned in to close the last bit of distance between them.