Thief .(74)

Claribel shakes her head. I hand her my phone. “It’s under in-law.”

She takes it and walks me to the elevator.

“You might want to call Sam Foster. If anyone knows where she is, he does.”

She nods and steps inside with me. We take the elevator to the critical care unit. I watch the floors light up as we pass them. When we reach the fifth floor, Claribel steps out first and swipes an access card through a keypad next to the door. It smells like antiseptic, though the walls are painted a warm tan color. It does little to lighten the mood, and somewhere off in the distance, I can hear crying. We walk briskly to room 549. The door is closed. She pauses outside and places a small hand on my arm.

“It’s going to be hard to see her. Just keep in mind there is still a lot of swelling on her face.”

I breathe deeply as she opens the door, and I step inside. The light is dim and a symphony of medical equipment is playing around the room. I approach her bed slowly. She is a tiny lump under the covers. When I stand above her, I start crying. A tiny piece of red hair sticks out from the bandages on her head. That is the only way I can identify her. Her face is so swollen that even if she were awake, she wouldn’t be able to open her eyes. There are tubes everywhere — up her nose, down her throat, snaking into her tiny, bruised arms. How did she survive this? How is her heart still beating?

Claribel stands at the window and politely looks away while I cry over my daughter. I am too afraid to touch her, so I run my pinkie over her pinkie, the only part of her that isn’t bruised.



After a few minutes, the doctors come in to speak to me. Doctors. She has multiple because of all the injuries she sustained. By the time the 747 touched down on American soil with me in its belly, my three-year-old daughter had survived surgery on hers. I listen to them talk about her organs, her chances of recovery, the months of rehabilitation she’s facing. I watch the back of their white coats as they’re leaving the room and I hate them. Claribel, who had slipped out a few minutes earlier, comes back into the room with her phone in her hand.

“I spoke with Sam,” she says softly. “Leah is in Thailand. It’s why no one has been able to reach her.”

My eyes narrow. It’s almost second nature when Leah’s name is mentioned.

“Why?”

Claribel clears her throat. It’s a tiny, chirping sound.

“It’s all right,” I tell her. “I don’t have ties to her emotionally.”

“She went with her boyfriend. Since you were supposed to have Estella for Christmas.”

“God, and she just didn’t tell anyone? Was he able to contact her?”

She pulls on her necklace and frowns. “He’s trying.”

I cover my eyes with the heels of my hands. I haven’t eaten or slept in thirty hours. I glance at Estella.

“Her mother should be here. Let me know as soon as you hear something.”

“I’ll get them to send a cot up. You should eat. You need to be strong for Estella,” she says.

I nod.

I don’t eat. But, I do fall asleep in the chair next to her bed. When I wake, there is a nurse in the room checking her vitals. I rub a hand across my face, my vision blurry.

“How is she?” I ask. My voice is hoarse.

“Vitals are stable.” She smiles when she sees me rubbing the back of my neck. “Your wife went to get a cot sent over.”

“I’m sorry. Who?” Had Leah made it back that quickly?

“Estella’s mother,” she says. “She was just here.”

I nod and start walking toward the door. I want to know where the hell she was while our daughter almost lost her life. You don’t just leave the country without telling anyone when you had a child. She could have made it here before I did if anyone had been able to contact her. Why she didn’t bother leaving a number with my parents … I stop walking. Maybe she had. They weren’t here to confirm it. Maybe that’s why my mother had sounded so strange on the phone. Or maybe my mother had known who Leah left the country with, and that’s what made her upset. My mother. Think about that later, I tell myself for the thousandth time today. My feet kick-start and I’m walking again. Around the corner, into the main corridor where the nurses’ station is. Beeping … beeping … the smell of antiseptic … I can hear muffled footsteps and hushed voices, a doctor’s pager going off. I think about the crying I heard earlier and wonder what happened to the patient. Had it been tears of fear or mourning or regret? I could cry the trifecta of those emotions right now. I look for red hair and see none. Rubbing my hand across the back of my neck, I stand in the middle of the corridor, not sure where to go. I feel detached, as if I’m floating above my body instead of being inside of it. A balloon on a string, I think. Is this what exhaustion looks like, everything muted and blurry? Suddenly, I’m not sure what I came out here to do. I turn around to go back to Estella’s room and that’s when I see her. No more than a few yards away, we’re both still, watching each other, surprised — and yet, not — to have fallen into this same corridor together. I feel the balloon pop and suddenly, I’m being pulled back into my body. My thoughts regain their sharpness. Sounds, smells, colors — they all come into focus. I am living in high definition again.