Keep Cool, Stay Tough

I always hated the way hospitals smelled. It was almost as if it smelled too clean; suspiciously clean; as if there was a certain desperation to disguise the grimy stench of vomit and blood with artificial lemons and lilacs. I sat on a plastic chair, trying not to think about what was going on behind all the closed doors around me. I gripped onto a takeaway cup of stale coffee that was really more water than coffee, and watched a portly handyman with a nearly perfect round bald spot at the back of his head attempt to fix the flickering fluorescent light panel that was outside my father’s hospital room.

I took a sip and grimaced from the horrid taste and took yet another larger sip as the portly man almost fell off the ladder he was standing on.

“Senna, you’re here,” Joie greeted in surprise.

“Yes well my father is in the hospital, isn’t he?” I pointed out in a monotone and didn’t bother to get out of my chair. I just continued to sip the terrible coffee and observe the portly man.

She gave me a strange look as she pulled me into an awkward hug, “Right, well, he’s alright now. I mean things were touch and go for a little while, but the doctor says he’s recuperating quite well for a man his age.”

I spread my chapped lips and exposed my teeth in an attempt to smile, “That’s wonderful, Joie. I am so relieved.”

She arched a brow, and pointed her thumb towards the door she had just come from, “He’s sleeping right now. The doctors say the more he sleeps, the better his recovery will go.”

“That’s wonderful,” I repeated.

“Do you want to go home with me in the meantime?”

That house felt about as much my home as the hospital did at this point, but I shrugged and allowed her to lead me outside towards the parking garage, “Sure, I could use a shower.”

“And better coffee,” She gave a pointed glance at the cup in my hand.

“Sure.”

They had done the operation while I had been watching a fucking football game. While I had been dancing on tabletops, drinking excessive amounts of expensive champagne, and singing to Taylor Swift, my father had been recuperating in a hospital bed. I was still so furious I needed to keep my long sleeves tucked over my hands to hide the bruises on my palms from where my nails had dug in. My nerves were so frayed I kept thinking I was going to go mental at the next slightest misunderstanding.

Once we got home I took a hot shower, brewed myself a fresh pot of coffee, grabbed my book bag, and went outside on the patio to study and wait until we could go back to the hospital. I assumed Joie had immediately gone to bed, making me wonder when the last time was she had gotten a decent rest. I checked my phone habitually only to find the same unread texts from Mina and missed calls from Martha waiting to be replied to. There were no missed texts or calls from Cristiano.

After we had driven around the outskirts of Madrid, Cristiano took me to Martha’s place where I packed a bag without really paying attention to what I was throwing in, and we went to the train station. We ordered breakfast at the diner across the station, but neither of us touched anything beside our cups of coffee. Conversation had been sparse, and looks exchanged even more so.

The storm had finally thundered down on Madrid when we were at the station, leaving everything damp, gloomy, and grey in its wake. The last thing I told Cristiano was to drive safe, to which he nodded and immediately accelerated his Lamborghini to sixty kilometers in roughly about five seconds.

“Are you ready to go?”

Joie was standing over me dressed in dark sweats, her hair pulled up in a messy bun, and my dad’s car keys in her hand. Bleary eyed, I glanced at my phone and saw that it was nearly nine in the morning.

“Five minutes, give me five minutes to wash up,” I grumbled, “I must have fallen asleep.”

She nodded, “I’ll wait out here.”

Once at the hospital, I had Joie go on ahead, and I went to the Starbucks across the road to get decent coffee for myself and her. I managed to find the hospital room again without too much trouble, mostly because Joie had been sitting outside on the plastic chair under the flickering fluorescent light I had been sitting at the day before.

“He would love to see you,” She hedged as soon as she came to her feet, “They’re running an EKG, right now, I think, but after...”

I sucked in a breath, and handed her one of the cups, “And I would love to see him.”

I didn’t know who I was expecting to see sitting on the hospital bed after the male nurse rolled out the massive machine and allowed us access. I had worried that the time he had spent in the hospital would have left visible marks on him, turning him into a stranger, but to my everlasting relief he looked almost nearly the same as when he’d come to visit me in Madrid. Maybe just a tad bit thinner and paler.

“You look like shit, kid,” He greeted, his voice low and hoarse.

“Yeah, you too,” I replied, my lips twitching to a frown as I rushed towards him to give him a hug.

He lifted his hands to my shoulders and gave me another curious look. I couldn’t fathom for the life of me what he was thinking. I was too preoccupied with my own thoughts that all centered around keeping a level head.

“You know, I’m not surprised you found out,” He announced conversationally. He smiled up at me as if he was talking about the weather.

I pressed my lips together and shrugged, he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

“Please, don’t act all serene and sweet now, you’ve been nothing but a ball of petulance and caffeine,” Joie turned to our dad, “You know she hasn’t eaten a decent meal or had a decent night’s sleep since she got here.”

I rolled my eyes, and took up the chair beside the bed, “I’m fine.”

“You look like shit,” He reaffirmed, “Worse than me, I’d wager.”

I spotted a half unwrapped box of cologne sitting on the table under the television and actually cracked a genuine smile.

“Geri’s been here, hasn’t he?” I asked.

My dad nodded, “How’d you know?”

“Only he would think expensive cologne would make a good get-well present,” I explained without taking my eyes off of the box that was sitting amongst flamboyant floral bouquets and overly-sentimental greeting cards. It certainly was the most useful amongst all that riffraff.

“This is it,” I heard a strangely familiar outside the hospital room practically shout.
I whirled around just in time to catch Mina walking inside accompanied with yet another bouquet and card.

“Mina, darling, you shouldn’t have gone to the trouble,” My dad greeted.

Mina was blushing as she rearranged the table of sentiment to include her new addition, “It’s nothing, I would have come sooner, but…”

She trailed off, and I was pretty confident she was about to refer to the half dozen text messages asking me when I was going to come to Barcelona so that we could go together.

“I didn’t have a charger handy,” I answered her unasked question without taking my eyes off the floor.

“It’s no problem, I’m here now,” Mina assured.

I just barely held back an eye roll. I mean I knew it wasn’t her fault, but I just couldn’t help holding her just as accountable as them for keeping me in the dark for so long. I hoped this feeling of resentment would pass because I really did enjoy having Mina apart of my life.

We spent the rest of the day and most of the evening cooped up in the tiny but private hospital room playing cards, arguing football, and eating crappy hospital food until the third time the nurse came by to kick us out. We managed to stick around until a quarter to ten in the evening which we considered quite the achievement since we were the only visitors left.

Once back at the house, I took another hot shower, locked myself in my room, and tried to sleep. I managed a few hours, but restlessness eventually won out and I was up and out the door for a morning run by half past six.

I knew Cristiano was going to have busy press days ahead of him because he had been such an integral part to Real Madrid advancing to the semis, but I realized that a part of me had hoped he would have found a few minutes to put aside to call or text me. But he hadn’t, and I decided to text him as soon as I returned back to the house.

My phone rang while we were on our way back to the hospital, and my thoughts immediately latched onto Cristiano, but somehow Cecs’s sister had found out that I was in town even though she was out of town; well according to Joie she was out of town. I hated thinking that she had known about my father’s surgery before I did, and for that reason amongst a few others, I played up the family only rule at the hospital when she had called me. She got off the phone quickly after that and I was all
the more grateful.

Saturday night we were all huddled in front of Joie’s laptop watching Barcelona come out on top at the Catalan Derby to maintain their tiny, two point lead. This was after our crummy cafeteria food dinner. I was cradling a hot cup of coffee from Starbucks in my hands as was Mina while my dad was dozing off in his bed and Joie was curled in a corner reading a book.

The doctor came by on Sunday morning to announce my dad was going to get discharged on Monday morning. My phone started buzzing when the doctor began to explain all the potential side effects of the medications that were being prescribed and I couldn’t be bothered to check my phone then.

Sunday night was an exact continuation of Saturday night; only my dad was able to be wheeled out of his room so we had dinner in the cafeteria and went back to his room to watch the match on Joie’s laptop. The main event of the evening had changed to Real Madrid playing away against Celta Vigo.

All throughout the first half of the match, I felt Mina’s eyes on me, assessing every twitch of my lips, my brows, every movement I made she observed, when Cristiano happened to be on the tiny computer screen. Finally when the first half ended 3-2, Mina and Joie disappeared down the corridor in search of the good vending machine with the non-healthy food. A nurse came by to administer pain meds, and finally after three days of a level head the cracks in my façade were unveiled.
I looked at my dad; his eyes were glazed and glued to the halftime show depicting highlights from yesterday’s derby. I maybe had two minutes before he was fast asleep.

“All those texts, emails, phone calls, face time chats, all of that time, every second wasted on such stupid, insipid things, how did you do it?”

“Do what, Senna?”

“How could you look me in the eye, how could you type out all those words, and not spare a word about what was really going on? I’m hurt, and I’m relieved that you’re doing great, but that doesn’t get rid of the hurt.”

“I did what I believe I needed to do, Senna,” His eyes were just barely half open now as I rubbed a stray tear off my cheek.

I kissed my dad’s cheek, my hand resting on his shoulder, “You’re getting released in the morning, I’m sorry I can’t stick it out for a couple more hours to see you settled at home, but I got to get out of here.”

“Come back as soon as you can, alright? Promise me?” His eyes were shut and I could barely discern his mumbling words.

“I promise,” I whispered nonetheless.

Joie and Mina hadn’t made it back, even after the game was well into the second half, and Chicharito managed to all but confirm three points with a brace. Weird thoughts and lack of sleep eventually led me to a website informing me there was a seat left on a redeye flight to Heathrow airport. I had a bag of clothes at my side and an inclination to leave. That was more than enough.

I called Cesc.

“Senna,” He answered on the first ring.

I interrupted him before he could complete his thought.

“Cesc I’m coming to London unless you tell me not to. There’s a redeye flight, and-”

“I’ll meet you at the airport,” He answered, “Give me a time.”

I didn’t even bother to say goodbye to any of them. I ripped a page out of my notebook and left a note on Joie’s laptop’s keyboard as my father snored softly. I grabbed my bag, hailed a taxi, and didn’t even think twice about any of it.

And maybe if it had taken me another hour to make this realization I would have seen the familiar face jogging down the hospital hall with a bouquet of colorful ‘get well soon’ balloons bouncing after him. I would have heard the chaos that his footsteps caused as he passed nurses, doctors, patients all craning their necks to do a double-take at the superstar footballer. I would have seen the brief disappointment flash across his face before he slipped on his trademark impassive smile when Mina showed him my note and told him that I was already gone.