Chapter 102 - The Impossible Burden (1/2)
As Claire sleeps, Miguel takes out his phone and dials a number.
”Jean, please call up this hospital and ask if they have an available room where a guest can safely sleep.”
”Yes, sir, give me a sec,” Jean says. She has been Miguel's personal ȧssistant for years. ”Let me trace my contacts and call you.”
”Sure,” Miguel says and hangs up.
He paces the waiting area, now darkened as the hospital turned off the lights in the hallway. The only light they get is what streams out of the little glass windows of the ICU rooms. And this he cannot accept; Claire sitting it out here depresses him. She deserves a lot better. He's trying to decide whether to bring Claire back to her place, or find an available room in this hospital where she can sleep.
He stops by Gabriel's room and peers through the window. His brother is still peacefully asleep. Miguel is not worried, not at all. It would take a lot more than this to put a member of his family out of commission. Gabriel will be fine, he's sure of that. He feels it. Call it a brotherly sixth sense. But you can't say that to Claire; she follows her own feelings, and he cannot say her feelings are not valid. If she's worried, then so be it. The only thing he can do now is to ensure her comfort.
The phone vibrates in his pocket. It's Jean.
”Sir,” she says, ”I'm sorry, but it seems we're in the middle of flu season. Even the extra rooms usually reserved for guests of patients are occupied, with a waiting list. I can have a room vacated by ejecting some of the guests, but I will have to use your family's influence to do that. Half the board members of the hospital are friends of Mrs. Tan, and they can make this happen.” A pause. ”Shall I go ahead and do it, sir?”
Miguel thinks about it. He looks at Claire, who is sound asleep on a steel chair. If he says yes, some unknown family will be thrown out of the hospital in the middle of the night. Perhaps they're here to be with a seriously sick loved one. Does he have the heart to do that? Sometimes, these choices, thanks to his family's invisible power, seduce him to make heartless decisions, and he has always balked at that. They had come from nothing; he can still remember a childhood when they had nothing but scraps to eat. Their rise from rags to riches is one for the books, yet despite the heights of financial success they have achieved, Miguel has held on to his own sense of integrity. Maybe his only flaw is he tends to fall in love too easily.
He sighs. ”Never mind, Jean. Let it be.”
”Are you sure, sir? All it takes is one easy phone call.”
”No, don't do that. We don't do that to people,” he says. ”Good night and thank you.”
”You're welcome, sir. Just call me if you need me.”
”Sure.”
He hangs up before Jean could say anything else. That last line, ”just call me if you need me,” drips with double-meaning. Jean has worked for him for a long time, and he has noticed the double meaning in her words, the sėxuȧŀ innuendos, the unspoken invitation to ”play” with her. Sometimes, he's asked himself, why not? Jean's not bad-looking; she has killer curves and those legs can go all the way to heaven. But Miguel never forgets what his brother, Gabriel, has always told him: ”Never throw dirt in your own backyard.” So he tries his best never to return whatever Jean feels for him.
Miguel stands there thinking for a moment. Then he approaches Claire, making quick mental calculations. From here to the elevator lobby, then down to the parking area, would take about ten minutes, tops. He can borrow a wheelchair to wheel her out without having to wake her up, but that would be so ungentlemanly. He looks at her and figures out maybe he can easily carry her in his arms. If she wakes up, then that's good, too. But one thing he can't allow to happen is Claire spending the night here; she should be sleeping in the comfort of her own bed. And even as he thinks this, a mosquito bites him in the neck; he slaps it hard. Fuck it, we're leaving.
Miguel stoops down and carefully snuggles Claire in his arms, letting her head rest on his ċhėst. He expects her to wake up at any moment, but she seems so deep in her slumber. He ambles toward the elevator lobby, and asks the nurse who is standing there to press the buŧŧon for the basement parking area. The nurse gives him an odd look.
”She's my sister,” he says. ”Had too much to drink.”