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When I stood to clean up the supplies and throw out the used cotton balls, I took in the room. Two of the dining room chairs I had helped him pick out were on their backs. The coffee table, too, was upturned, and on the other side of the kitchen island, by the sink, shards of glass glittered on the floor.
“Why don’t I clean this up?” I offered.
“Thanks.”
Hector went to the living room and laid on the couch while I worked. I tidied up the place and went over to sit on the chair next to him.
He looked at his bandaged hand. “Glad I’m not a surgeon,” he said.
“You still need it for other important doctorly things,” I teased.
“Yeah . . .”
“What’s going on, Hector?”
He looked at me with glassy eyes. “This is a bad day for me. I’m sorry. I’m not at my best.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. We all have our bad days.”
He nodded. We sat in silence for a while, and it suddenly dawned on me that this was about the same time of year when I had to pick him up drunk from the bar a few years back.
I couldn’t remember the exact date, but it was definitely the same week. I’d bet my medical license it was the exact same day.
“What’s today, Hector?”
He sat up, pressing his elbows to his thighs. He buried his head in his hands for a few breaths before looking up at me. “It’s the worst goddamn day of the year, Carolina. I’m sorry you have to see me like this.”
I nodded. Something inside me moved. I wanted to leach this pain from his body and absorb it into my own so he wouldn’t feel it—whatever it was.
I moved next to him on the couch now that he was sitting. I placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
It was probably the worst thing I could have done to ask him for details, but I had to know. I repeated my question. “What’s today, Hector?”
His eyes met mine, and he could no longer contain the sob. “It’s my son’s birthday,” he said. I nodded, swallowing hard as I tried to push down the lump that had formed in my throat.
“He’s gone,” I said, but it wasn’t a question.
“He’d be ten today,” he said. “Jake. He was the best thing I have ever done, and he is gone.”
My chin quivered at the sight of his pain. “I’m so sorry, Hector,” I said, but they felt like the weakest words in the English language.
He patted my hand still on his shoulder. “Me too. Oh, Carolina, you would have loved him.”
“I’m sure I would have. Do you want to tell me about him?”
“He was perfect,” Hector said. “He didn’t care about science or what I did. He said he was going to be a soccer player and play forReal Madridsomeday. He was a good player too, for a six-year-old.”
“I bet he was. What did he look like?”
“Like me. And like Andrea. He had my black, wavy hair and my deep, tanned skin, but he had her body type. All legs and arms—tall and gangly. If you can imagine, the brightest green eyes on that dark skin . . . he was beautiful.”
“Perfect,” I repeated.
“Perfect.”
A long moment of silence followed before he pulled out his phone and handed it to me. On the screen was a school picture of a little boy precisely as he had described him. He was smiling wide—a gap in the center of his mouth from the missing two front teeth.
I smiled. “He was beautiful,” I said. He took the phone back and put it in his pocket.
