“You must be Hudson,” she said with a heavy French accent.
He scrambled to his feet. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m Marguerite.” She reached for his hand. “He has told me a lot about you.”
She walked around the bed to stand by her nephew’s side. Hudson watched her face. Her expression moved from horror to heartbreak in a few seconds. He knew the feeling.
“Mon chéri,”she said, stroking Elliot’s chin.
After a moment she sat in the chair on the side of the bed and folded her hands in her lap.
The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It felt, strangely, like the right kind of quiet.
Marguerite's kind eyes never left Elliot. “He looks like his mother. When he sleeps.” She caught a single tear on her cheek with an embroidered handkerchief. “Isabelle was the same—very still. Like she was somewhere else entirely.”
Hudson wondered if Elliot was. Somewhere else entirely. He pushed the thought away.
“Were you close?” Hudson asked.
“She was my sister.” Marguerite’s voice was even, but a slight tremor moved underneath it. “I knew her very well. Not well enough, maybe, at the end. But… that's the thing with people you love. You always think you have more time.”
Hudson’s gaze was fixed on Elliot. “He didn’t talk about her much. To me, anyway. But when he did—” His eyes darted to her. “You could tell.”
“Oui.”Marguerite seemed to weigh her words. “He protected her. Even as a child. Too much responsibility for a small boy.” She shook her head. “He was always so serious.Even before things became—” She searched for the word. “Difficult. With The General.”
“Why did it get difficult?”
“His father—he is not a bad man, I think. But he does not know how to love without trying to own it.” She glanced at Hudson. “You understand what I mean, yes?”
“Yeah,” Hudson said. “I do.”
She nodded. “Elliot—he tried so hard to be what his father wanted. Too hard. I watched it happen and I did not know how to stop it.” Her mouth curved up slightly, revealing deep lines around her eyes. “There was a summer—he was maybe eight, nine years old—his mother sent him to me in Lyon. He found my kitchen radio, old thing, very bad reception. He took it apart completely.” A breath that was almost a laugh escaped her. “I was very mad. I told him, ‘you put this back before dinner or I will call your father.’”
“Did he?”
“Bien sûr.Every piece. And better than before. The reception was perfect.” She smiled. “He was—how do you say—pleased with himself. I could see.” She touched the side of her mouth. “He had this way of almost smiling.”
“I know that almost smile,” Hudson said.
Her gaze darted from him, to Elliot, and back again. “He loves you, you know?” Marguerite said. It was not a question.“C’est certain.”
“I know.” Hudson’s voice came out strangled. “I love him too.”
Marguerite reached over Elliot to put her hand on top of Hudson’s. Just briefly.“Bien,”she said. Like something she had needed to know was now confirmed.
Later that day,when Marguerite had left to settle in at her hotel, a doctor entered the room. Hudson hadn't seen him before. He was young, serious-faced, his English laced with a slight German accent. Dr. Bauer—his name tag read.
He went through the latest scans. The swelling had reduced but not as quickly as they’d hoped. Elliot remained unresponsive to external stimuli. They were adjusting the medication. He was no longer intubated, because he was breathing fine on his own. Still, he didn’t wake. It was like his body wasn’t ready. Bauer said these things took time—sometimes days, sometimes longer. There was no way to predict the outcome.
“What’s the worst case?” Hudson asked.
“We don’t anticipate?—”
“I know you don’t anticipate it. I’m asking what it is.”
There was a long pause, then Bauer exhaled. This was definitely not his first time with military patients and their next of kin. “Prolonged unconsciousness. Potential cognitive deficits depending on the extent of damage we haven’t been able to fully assess.” He stopped there, but the rest of it didn’t need to be said.
“Thank you.” Hudson nodded. “I appreciate you being straight with me.”
