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“Mago, Lucía, my sister,” Santiago said, waving a hand between us both. Victoria was standing right next to him, adding on to the comment and moving her mouth, possibly saying words out loud. Maybe something about watering the plants while they were gone because according to them—allegedly—I had a green thumb. I didn’t, but I wasn’t going to blurt that out now.
“Hi,” I said weakly, my words (what even were those?) barely a whisper. I thought I gave him a weak wave, but my brain was reeling. “Nice to meet you.”
What? No. No, this couldn’t be happening. How? What? When? I?—
Santiago moved towards his wife, standing behind herand putting his arm around her shoulders, tugging her close to him.
“She’s going to be around this summer,” Victoria said. “She lives at the big house and will probably stop by to take a look at things, water the plants, whatever you need.”
I nodded and kept that smile on my face. Did he not recognize me? He was doing the same thing, looking between Victoria, Santiago, and me, following the conversation. He looked good.So good.Better than what I remembered. His hair was longer, and his brown eyes were softer, somehow. Maybe he was tired, but it worked for him. The lines around them were much more pronounced. Like he'd spent the past few years just laughing wildly at life. He had a smile on his face too. It didn’t make sense compared to my grief. Why would he look better? The time after Jazmín’s death was rough for everyone, and I would imagine it was especially hard for him too.
“Lu, this is my friend from the firm I told you about that’s going to be staying through the end of January and house-sitting for us.”
More nodding.
“Francisco,” he said. And he took a few steps and leaned forward to kiss my cheek. I blinked again, incredulous at what was happening, hoping to god everyone here was none the wiser. And his smell.Jesus, I had forgotten exactly what he smelled like. My nose tickled, and my eyes watered a little at the memories of the past. The last time I saw him. The last time I saw her, his sister.
“Anyway, what were you just saying about a cat?” Victoria asked, taking a step away from my brother and sitting back down where she was when I first came in. “Is this one of Jacinto’s antics?” Her lips kicked up, and I responded with a similar expression, one I reserved for my patients’ parents. Tight and fake. I huffed a laugh. Also fake. There was no joy in that moment, and I needed to get out of there, fast.
“Yeah, they guilt-tripped me into it.” I shook my head and smiled again. “I actually have to get going because I have to check in on her.” I looked up at them, moving my eyes back and forth between the three of them. “I’ll see you later, Vee?”
Santiago and Victoria nodded in response, and I turned on my heel, not daring to linger or look back at him.
I walked through their house, straight for the front door, and closed it behind me with a little more force than I wanted. I beelined it for my parents’ house, straight into the large entryway, up the stairs, and into my room.
Because I wasn’tseeingghosts. I was actually living among them.
I paced my room for what felt like hours. It was probably hours because by the time I looked up and was out of my daze, it was dusk, the sky a bright purple and a few stars blinking back at me, not a single worry on their metaphoricalshoulders. The cat sat perched on the bed, a glare on her face as she tracked every single one of my movements inside my room.
Back and forth, back and forth. Like I’d seen him do so many times during those long hours we had been confined in the same space years ago. Sometimes he did it out of boredom, I’d learned after a few of his visits. Others, it was stress-induced. But every single time he did it, the pacing stopped as soon as his sister woke up.On.
Once she was awake, his eyes were on her. That was why when she died, his light probably died with her.
That one particular night, the night I figured out his pattern, was a happy one. He had been sneaking into her room to see her for a while. She was in with a nasty infection, and she knew it.
Nurses would move in and out of rooms, checking patient vitals. I would do a few rounds, but in the early morning hours, my body would complain and take me to the on-call room for a much-needed nap. The nights he was there, my body gravitated towards him, feeding off his light.
Mago. I’d never heard my brother talk about this friend. In fact, when we discussed the possibility of them having someone over to house-sit, Santiago had mentionedFran, his best friend from work. I always thought he meant Franco,notFrancisco.
Mago. That was what she called him too. She said his friends started calling him that when she was in the hospital the first time because he was alwaysdoing disappearing acts on them to sneak into the hospital to see her. She laughed and thought it was so amusing. So she kept it up, and he loved it. On some of her rougher days, he would show up in all-black clothing, doing stealthy moves like a ninja just to get a chuckle out of her. Too bad he only showed up at night, in the dark, because the other patients in the ward would have probably gotten a kick out of it. Of trying to make light of a situation that was as dark as could be.
The first time I’d ever seen him was on one of those nights. He was wearing all-black clothing and trying to sneak into the room. I had heard mumbling coming from the hallway, followed by a light click of the door. He stood there, taking in the room and his sister asleep in the middle of the bed, the IV drip hanging from a pole right behind the headboard. He stood there for a moment, looking at me with curious eyes, his gaze burning a hole in the side of my face. And then I looked up from my notes and beamed at him.
“Mago,” he said as he approached. His mouth opened and closed a few times, like he wanted to ask a question but couldn’t quite verbalize it.
I lifted my hand. “Lucía,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”
We stood in silence in her room, the beeping of the machines taking over any conversation we could potentially have. He looked like he wanted to ask me questions about her but was still feeling me out. I was only a resident, and we’d never met before, so he had no reason to trust me beyond the care I was administering to his relative.
He turned, his body slumping on the companion’s chair right next to the bed, his backpack discarded by the door.
“Are you staying over tonight?” I asked, his gaze bouncing from me to his sister. He grinned, focusing on me. She almost never had people stay over with her, so we took turns with the nurses to wait until she fell asleep and hung out with her in between rounds. His reaction surprised me, a big smile pointed my way.
“I’m…” he said, his words cautious out of his mouth. “I’m not really allowed to be here,” he whispered, looking over at his sister to make sure she was still asleep. “But I’ll stay for a bit.”
I nodded, tucking my notebook inside my scrubs pocket and shoving the pen into my messy bun. The nurses had mentioned this particular case. A high-profile family that was messy. Messy with their secrets and their stories. But it was none of my business because I was there to take care of a patient, so he stayed and came back consistently to see her. His light in the dark of the hospital.
The cat jumped off the bed abruptly and sauntered over to me. She rubbed her lithe body between my legs. The movement relaxed me, bringing me back to the present, shaking off those memories.
