Remission by Ofelia Martinez

Chapter 11

The Broken Girl

Valentina’s test results from last week were back, and I called her in for a follow-up appointment.

She waited patiently in exam room five. My face fell when I saw her. She looked better physically. Her hair was growing back into a sort of a pixie cut, and some of her weight was back, though her muscles weren’t yet. But what threw me off was her pale complexion, her tightened lips, and, most of all, her perfectly-shaped eyebrows, almost fully grown in to their previous length, pulled-in, a crinkle forming between them.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her. “Are you not feeling well?”

“You tell me,” she said.

“Nothing’s wrong, Vale. But you look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

Her expression not changing, her gaze fell to the floor.

“I read on the forums,” she said, “that if it’s good news, I get it over the phone. If it’s bad, they call me back in for a follow-up.”

“Oh, Vale, honey—”

“It’s back, isn’t it?” Her breath hitched as she formed the question.

“No!” I hastened to answer. “Valentina, I wanted to give you the good news in person. That’s all. Please stop reading about treatment or procedures online. It’s not the first time it’s gotten you in trouble.” I arched an eyebrow at her.

“Good news?” She looked up, hope misting her eyes.

“Yes, Valentina. Good news.” I grabbed her by the shoulders and squeezed them gently. “Six months remission. It’s a great milestone.”

“Really?” A tear spilled over and ran down all the way to her neck. Something inside me moved. Despite the hell and pain I put her through during her treatment, this was the first time I’d seen her cry.

“Really,” I said. “I thought we should celebrate. I’m actually not working right now. Let’s go across the street to the bar. Champagne. My treat.”

When Sofia askedwhat we were celebrating, I looked at Valentina. It was her choice who she wanted to tell—if she wanted to tell anyone at all. Many of my patients who didn’t want family around for the treatment didn’t tell them unless the treatment failed. I was in awe of Valentina. Not a soul helped her or took care of her, not that I knew of. She had zero support system, but she made it through. It was incredible.

“Six months in remission,” Valentina said fiercely. I imagined this was what she looked like after a fight.

“Wow. Congrats!” Sofia said.

“Thanks,” Valentina said.

“On the house.” Sofia placed two glasses of her best champagne in front of us. “All cancer ass-whipping is rewarded at La Oficina.” Then, she turned to attend to her other customers.

Valentina and I looked at each other, and we started giggling as we grabbed the glasses. I was about to raise my glass to make a toast when Dr. Dennis approached the table.

“Dr. Dennis,” I said.

“Please, Dr. Ramirez, call me Rory outside of work.”

“Okay, then, please call me Carolina.” I smiled at him.

“What are we celebrating?” he asked.

I turned to Valentina who was trying to tame her pixie hair back into place. She is self-conscious all of a sudden, I thought.

“You want to tell him?” I asked her.

“I, um—” the fierceness with which she’d told Sofia was absent from her voice. “Remission. Six months.”

“That’s great!” he blurted a little too enthusiastically for my taste.

Dr. Dennis had never been part of her care team. He was present at one of her rounds, from what I remembered, and I asked him for help maybe one other time. I didn’t think going over a consent form with her counted as being a part of her care team, but he was teetering on crossing a line. I was sure of it. He was still a doctor, and she was still a patient in the same department.

I couldn’t say shit, though. I was in a grey-area myself. Drinking with one’s patients wasn’t precisely in the hospital’s manual, but I couldn’t imagine it being okay with the oncology department leadership.

I rarely broke rules. I was too practical. But fuck it. Valentina had no one. She’d hinted at being estranged from her family, and the fact that no one ever visited or accompanied her to any follow-ups made me think she was alone. This was an important milestone to celebrate, and if she had no one, well, damn it, I was going to celebrate with her. To hell with the rules.

“Rory,” I said. “Why don’t you join us?”

He turned to Valentina, ensuring it was okay with her too. I smiled approvingly at him. Valentina nodded, and he sat across from us.

“Sofia,” I called out. “One more, please?” She tipped her chin, and soon after, a third glass of champagne joined the table.

I raised my glass, and they followed suit. “To kicking the shit out of cancer,” I said.

“To kicking the shit out of cancer,” they both sing-songed after me, and we all took a sip.

Rory had started asking Valentina about a fight she had won prior to getting sick when I heard the buzz of my phone coming from my purse.

“Excuse me,” I said, and pulled out the phone.

There was one text waiting to be opened.

Sara: Can you please come to the emergency room?

Something wasn’t right. I wasn’t on call, and this wasn’t an official hospital page. There was no reason Sara would be unofficially paging me to the ER. This wasn’t for a patient.

I had every intention of standing up and running, but the stone in my stomach pulled my center of gravity down.

Valentina must have noticed because she nudged me. “Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know,” I said, with my eyes still glued to the text. “I, uh, have to go.”

“Sure,” Valentina said.

Rory nodded at me, and I felt perfectly comfortable leaving them together.

Her nose was busted—abandage covered it from cheek to cheek. I reached for the computer to look at her chart, but the ER doctor rolled the medical computer cart away from my grasp.

“It’s okay,” Sara said. “She can see my chart.”

He nodded and rolled the small cart back toward me.

Sara grinned at me with her eyes closed.

“She’s had quite a bit of pain meds,” he said. “Someone will come shortly to take her up to X-ray.”

“Thank you,” I said.

Sara was drifting in and out. When her eyes opened, she would look up at me and grin. I schooled my face. I was too angry, and there was no point in arguing with someone that far gone into their morphine. She would likely not remember this anyway.

I scrolled through the chart to avoid looking at her and landed on the physician’s intake note.

Patient presents to the emergency room with blunt force trauma to the nose, left arm, and ribs. Paramedic administered morphine on-site due to patient complaining of severe forearm pain. X-rays of right forearm and ribs have been ordered. Social work consult recommended after patient is admitted. Awaiting patient transfer to x-ray.

I rolledthe computer cart away from me and sat in the only chair in the small exam room. Sara woke up when the x-ray technician walked in, ready to transport her. I followed them to x-ray and waited outside while they completed her scans. This was where Hector and Chief Stuart found me.

“Is it true?” asked the chief. “We just heard—”

I nodded.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Ramirez. I know she is a close friend,” said the chief.

I nodded again. Other than the thank you I’d offered the ER doctor, I hadn’t said a word to anyone since I saw her.

When I thought of the asshole’s name, Brian, a sensation like a thousand tiny snakes slithering through my veins coursed through me. He was a revolting man who did a revolting thing. My fists balled. I wanted to punch something. I’d never punched anything in my life. I am too controlled, and I suddenly understood the allure of Valentina’s profession. I never so much as punched a pillow in anger. Yet, here I was, the eternal pacifist, ready to punch something, if not someone.

“Do you know who it was?” Hector asked.

I nodded.

“That’s good. I’ll call the police,” said the chief.

“No,” I protested, finding my voice.

“Excuse me?” said the chief.

“You can’t take that away from her. Let her be in control of something. When the medication wears off, I’ll let her tell me what happened. It’s up to her if she wants to press charges. Believe me, chief,” I added at his expression of horror, “it kills me not to call the cops right this second.”

“She’s right,” Hector said. “We can’t be the ones to take more power away from her.”

I stared at him, surprised he would agree with me. Most men in my life would go in search of the guilty party and serve their own justice. His cool head gave me comfort—a comfort that was a constant recurrence whenever Hector was around.

Think positively,I told myself. She’s alive. She likely had some broken bones, but she would live. I hoped this was her rock bottom—the catalyst she needed to leave him once and for all.

“Can you do me a favor?” I asked the two men, and they both nodded.

“Don’t be here when she comes out.” Before they could protest, I provided the reason. “She will be embarrassed enough as it is. Oh, and Dr. Medina? Do you mind finding me a hospital computer? I want to see the X-rays when they are up.”

Both men nodded and left me standing there. Not long after Hector brought me a laptop, Sara was rolled out in her wheelchair. An admitting nurse came to the exam room to process paperwork, and we were taken to a patient room while we awaited Sara’s doctor.

It was bizarre entering the hospital via the path patients typically took. There was endless waiting. Empty moments of time in which we, the loved ones, could only worry and imagine the worst.

My work life in this hospital was always rushed. I pushed on from patient to patient and from chart to chart. There was never enough time, and the hours flew by.

Now, a single hour turned into a day. I drummed my fingers on the laptop and refreshed the page every five minutes or so. Finally, the X-rays were available. I looked at the images closely.

She had a Monteggia fracture. The ulnar bone was fractured, and the head of the radial bone was dislocated by the elbow joint. Her ribs were only bruised.

A different doctor walked into the room, and he introduced himself as Dr. Morgan. I’d seen him around the hospital and knew he was the chief of ortho, but I rarely interacted with the orthopedic surgeons—all except one. I shared my findings with him to get confirmation.

“You are oncology, right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And how long has it been since your radiology or ortho rotations?”

“A while.”

He studied me. “You are spot-on about her fractures. If you ever want to change fields to ortho, we’d be happy to have you.”

“Thanks, but I’ve found my calling.” I smiled weakly at him. Any other day, I would have jumped with joy at being on his radar. Already, I was thinking of ways to include the ortho department on future grant proposals, but Sara groaned, and my attention drifted back to her.

“What about her nose?” I asked.

“We’ll wait a few days until the swelling goes down, and I’ll do another exam. It looks like a minor fracture with no major misalignment, but I’ll reassess in three days.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” I said.

“I’ll need consent for surgery to repair the forearm. I’ll be back in an hour to chat about it with her when she is more awake.”

“No need,” I said. “I’m her emergency contact and have power of attorney. I can consent on her behalf.”

“Great. I’ll have someone bring the consent forms in a bit, and I can do the surgery tonight.”

He smiled at me suggestively. I didn’t care if he thought Sara and I were a couple. Right now, the only thing on my mind was getting her better and past this, so I didn’t correct him.

The fact was that even though Dad and I had adopted Sara into our family as an adult, I still wanted to make it official. One year for my birthday, she gave me legal documents, including power of attorney. It would have seemed morbid to an outsider, but to us, it was a binding contract that made us family—officially.

Finding myself in this situation, I couldn’t think of a better birthday gift that I had ever gotten.

Sara’s surgery was a success,and I got to take her home the next day. They’d made two incisions, so she’d end up with two badass scars—the scars of a survivor.

I called Dad and told him what happened.

“Pedaso de mierda,” said Dad—the man who never cursed. I didn’t have the heart to comment about it. He was right. Brian was a piece of shit. But Dad agreed to get my room ready for her. I wanted her safe, and I knew Brian would never show his face at Dad’s.

I was helping her out of the car when I heard a thump from the driveway next door. I turned, and Ramiro was jogging to us, several grocery bags abandoned on the pavement behind him.

“Is she okay? Let me help you.”

“Here, take this.” I handed him the duffle bag I had put together with clothes from her apartment. Brian was one lucky slime ball to not have been there when I showed up to get her things. They didn’t live together, but Sara’s apartment was nicer, so he spent a lot of time there.

Ramiro took the bag and was doing his best trying to help but was unable to grab Sara’s arm in a splint. He helped me get her upstairs, and I asked him to leave so I could help her change into pajamas. I gave her two more pain pills and went back downstairs.

“You’re back,” I said to Ramiro who was pacing in the living room.

“Who was it?” he asked, nostrils flaring. A vein in his forehead made its way to the surface of his skin.

“Why’d you stay away so long?”

“Stop dodging!” he growled.

Ramiro had never grown as close to Sara as I had, but they were still friends, and he treasured her as part of my family. There was no way I was going to tell Ramiro, temperamental fool that he was, anything about the person who had hurt Sara. Not until he calmed down.

“I’m not dodging. I’ll tell you, but not until you calm down.”

“I’m calm,” he said, but he was gritting his teeth, and his jaw was set.

I snorted.

“I am,” he repeated.

“First, tell me why you stayed away so long. We missed you—”

“You know why,” he said, interrupting me. “Now, please, tell me what happened.”

“It’s not my place, Ramiro. I’ll give you the gist, but you’ll have to talk with her yourself if you want to know more. Okay?”

“That’s fair.”

“She’s been dating this guy—”

“How come she didn’t tell us . . .?” He narrowed his eyes at me as he trailed off on his question. “Wait, you knew she was seeing someone?”

I nodded. “Yes. It’s been just over six months.”

“How come she never told your dad or me?”

“I think she was a bit embarrassed by him. As you can see, he’s not a great guy.”

He sat down on Dad’s enormous recliner. He bowed down and rubbed both hands over his short, military-style buzz-cut.

“He did this to her,” he said, but it wasn’t a question.

“Yeah.”

“His name.”

“I can’t do that.”

“His name, Carolina.”

“I can’t. Ramiro, don’t do anything stupid.”

“You want us to all continue to be family . . . even after everything? Families talk, don’t they? I want a name.”

I sighed. He’d get it out of me, or he’d get it out of Sara, and I couldn’t have him go upstairs and try to intimidate her right now.

“Fine. His name is Brian.”

“Brian what?”

I shrugged. “I never knew his last name.”

“Where does he work?”

“Ramiro—don’t. Don’t go there.”

“Where?” he hissed.

I sighed. “I don’t know that he has a real steady job. He sounds like a bit of a deadbeat, but I remember her saying something about him doing maintenance work at an apartment building near the hospital. That’s all I know.”

He sprang up from the chair and left before I could protest again.

The next day,I went to Dad’s to check in on Sara. She was still in my old room, and I knocked softly on the door in case she was sleeping.

“Come in,” she said.

She smiled up at me as I walked in. She had removed the bandage from her nose, so the wreckage of her body was exemplified by her face. My jaw clenched at the sight of the deep purple and green nebulas stretching over her nose from cheek to cheek.

“Hi. How are you doing?”

“I’m good,” she said, though her words were garbled by something in her mouth. She swallowed the bite. “The splint is super itchy. It’s so tempting to shove a pencil in there and scratch.”

“You know that’s a bad idea.”

Sara sighed. “I know.”

“What are you eating?”

She pulled a box from the other side of the bed and offered it to me like a platter. “You want one?”

I looked down at the box filled with artisan chocolates painted so beautifully it seemed a sin to eat them. “Those are gorgeous,” I said.

“I know,” said Sara. “I stopped myself from eating them as long as I could. But you know—chocolate.”

“That was nice of Ramiro,” I said.

Sara cocked her head to the side. “Ramiro didn’t bring these.”

“Oh. Dad, then?” I didn’t think Dad would bring Sara something so decadent and fancy. If anything, he would bring her favorite Mexican candy: Mazapánes.

She shook her head. “No. Dr. Medina stopped by to check on me. You just missed him.” She pointed with her chin to my dresser, where a vase contained a spectacular arrangement of yellow tulips, alien-like purple plants, and tiny little baby pineapples that could fit on the palm of my hand. Next to it sat an enormous card, flipped open to reveal signatures and well-wishes from nearly everyone on the oncology floor.

“Dr. Medina?” It made more sense to me that one of Sara’s nurse friends would have dropped off a collective card and flowers. Though the signature chocolates and the extravagance of the selected flowers—that had ‘Hector’ written all over it.

“Yep,” she said as she shoved another chocolate in her mouth.

“What did he say?”

“Oh, he asked how I was doing. If I was in any pain. And since your dad was at work, he offered to help if I needed to get up or go anywhere.”

“Wow,” was all I could say.

Sara eyed me with a glint in her eye. “Yeah,” she said. “Wow.”

There was something so incredibly sweet about him checking in on my friend and trying to cheer her up. He remembered when she had stolen my chocolate. He was observant even about my friends and always thoughtful about what he did.

I snapped out of it. “Well, that was nice of him,” I clipped, and changed the subject. “Have you moved from the bed at all, missy?”

“I got up to open the door when he showed up.” She shot me a toothy grin half-smeared with chocolate.

I laughed. “That doesn’t count,” I said.

Sara was wallowing, but two days of it was more than enough. I told her to go for a walk. She needed to get moving and get under the sun a bit. In the meantime, I could get some work done around the house for Dad.

I was mowing Dad’s front yard when the familiar black pickup truck pulled into the driveway next door.

I took my earbuds out and stopped the music on my phone so I could say hi to Ramiro. I hadn’t seen him since he’d left Dad’s after seeing Sara a few days ago. My lips tightened when I heard him slam the door to his truck. He sped to his front door, but not fast enough for me to miss the slight glint of red rolling down one side of his face.

“Ramiro?” I said as I started walking toward him.

“Not now, Caro.”

“What did you do?”

“Not now, Caro!” He slammed the front door of his house—like that would stop me.

He groaned when the door creaked open. He was lying on the couch when I walked in. I got close enough to him to see the line of blood starting at his forehead and dripping down to his jaw. It had started to congeal, and some of it was smudged, probably from his attempts to clean it up on the drive back home.

I ran to Dad’s to pick up a clean towel and my first aid kit, then went back to Ramiro’s house. He didn’t protest the second time I entered. I wet the towel and set the supplies on the floor next to the couch where he was still lying, looking at the ceiling.

He didn’t wince when I cleaned up the blood. His eyebrow was busted, but he wouldn’t need stitches.

“You found him.” I wasn’t asking.

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

It was no coincidence that on learning Sara’s boyfriend’s name, he’d disappeared for a day and came back home with blood on his face.

“But you should see the other guy,” he said, one side of his mouth quirking upward.

“Thank you,” I said. I knew he had executed the task I had so wanted to do myself. He wanted to give me plausible deniability in case the little shit pressed charges against him, so I didn’t ask him any more questions. I knew he would always protect me—us: Sara and me.

Neither of us told Sara what Ramiro did, but I knew we both had the satisfaction of knowing that justice had been served, whatever happened next.