Page 82 of The Last Sunrise

“I’m not going anywhere. Neither is she. I will never leave her side. If something goes wrong, you can blame me for the rest of my life. You can take my life; I’ll gladly trade it for hers.” I swallow, meaning every word.

“I will never forgive you if my daughter doesn’t come back. I will spend my life making sure you suffer,” Isolde promises, and I hope she keeps her word if that were to happen.

Grief can make people lose all sense of grounding, of their tempers and reality. I know the cold touch of grief all too well, and Isolde may hate me now, but when her daughter wakes up with her memory, everything will be fine. She finally nods to the waiting surgeon, and they rush to get to work. The room is spinning; the relief of Isolde changing her mind has me nearly jumping up and down.

I don’t care how long it takes, but I know Ry will be okay. She has to be. Life can’t be this unfair, not to her. Not to that warm heart and kind soul. It’s taken too much from her already; it cannot claim her memories or her life.

Once Ry and the medical staff are out of our vision, Isolde pivots to me. “She will hate both of us if this goes wrong! You must know what happened to Audra after her surgery, and Ry was never the same. I swore to her I would never allow that to happen to her! What will we do if it doesn’t work? What willwe do?” Isolde repeats as she collapses, and I hold on to her this time, knowing she doesn’t want a response, and let her curse me in both languages and sob until she has no tears left.

My father takes over holding her, and shocking us both, she allows him to comfort her until she falls asleep, half in his arms, and half of on the cold hospital floor. She’s terrified, her heart is worried and nearly shattered, and I would feel guilty for convincing her if I didn’t know I was doing the right thing. Hours later, I ask the nurse again for an update, and she tells me Ry will be moved to recovery soon. My heart is a heavy anchor as I hear that word—recovery. So she made it through the surgery. Relief, like the waves of the sea, washes over me, and I take one look at Isolde and know to keep quiet until we know what state Ry is in before speaking to her again. I wait, trying to distract myself with crossword puzzles, but every thought goes back to Ry. The day I met her, her sarcasm and attitude immediately drawing me in. Her reluctance to admit she was wrong and her stubbornness were so intense, I knew I had met my match. She’s my other and better half; she’s all that’s right in this cruel world, and I may be a poor fisherman’s son, but I will scour this entire fucking planet to find a better surgeon, another surgery, some kind of cure, if anything goes wrong.

The hours feel like years until the doctor comes out to us. Isolde is asleep, her body resting against my pare as he strokes her hair. Maybe they are soulmates, I realize. He’s loved her his whole life, and she didn’t make it easy, yet here he is, comforting her in the most important moment of her life. The surgeon, who came from Madrid on an emergency flight, comes to me first, and I hold my breath, trying not to vomit up my empty stomach as he speaks. He tells me the surgery wastechnically a success, but she hasn’t regained consciousness yet. Both good and uneasy news.

He tells me that we can go see her, but to allow her to wake up on her own. Even though it’s hard as hell, I have Isolde go into the small room first to see her daughter alone, but she comes out rather quickly and rushes back to my pare’s side, sobbing again.

When I enter the room, the beeping and the smell of stale saline remind me of when my mare was dying. I gag a little but swallow it down and approach Ry in the bed. The sight of her like this is devastating, even though the machines tell me she’s stable, the steady beeping is a positive thing, but saints, seeing her this way, I pray to a god I’ve never believed in that she’s going to be okay. I will pray and worship for the rest of my life if she’s okay. And if not, I will wreak havoc on this world, unlike anything anyone’s ever seen. If I somehow manage to survive it, I simply won’t accept it. I sit down next to her still body, counting the movements of her chest as she breathes in and out, in and out.

My lids are heavy, but I refuse to sleep until she wakes up. I attempt again to do a crossword but fail. I turn the page to a new puzzle and notice scratchy handwriting. Ry’s scribbling in random boxes that, as I read, spell:I LOVE YOU JULIEN. In the margin, her scribbles appear again: “Sorry they didn’t have the boxes for the right way to spell your name, so I had to use an E.”

Smiling for the first time since we got here, I take the pen and write back,I love you, Oriah, then reach for Ry’s hand. I drag the tip of it down her palm, extending her lifeline, willing it to be.

Chapter Thirty-SevenRY

There’s a hammer racking against the side of my brain. It’s constant, along with a voice in the distance… it’s familiar, my mother. Through the heavy throbbing, I listen to her.

“I tried everything to be a good mother to you, but I ended up being the worst person for you,” my mom says through her tears. The medicine in my IV bag fills my veins so much that I can taste it, but I can barely keep my eyes open. My mom’s voice is soft but desperate as she begins to speak into the empty room. I wish I could open my eyes, my mouth, move my hand to tell her I’m okay.

“Please save my daughter. If there’s anyone up there,” she begs. I’ve never heard my mom pray or even mention god or saints in my life, but many people search for meaning or help from the sky during grief.

“Please—” she continues. “If I ever get to be your mother again in another life, I will do better. I will cherish you with every part of me. I will hug you and kiss you. I will only encourage you to live. I will be a better mom, a better person.I promise, Oriah. I swear I will let you dance, god, you can dance all day long and I will never stop you. I will only turn the music up and even dance with you. You deserved a better mother, a better life than this. I will tell you I love you every day and show up to your recitals. I will walk you down the aisle on your wedding day and always allow you to make your own choices. I won’t suffocate or abandon you. I will do anything for you. Anything you ask of me, Oriah. I’m so sorry I was such a horrible mom. I’m sorry I didn’t hug you or tell you how brilliant and vibrant you are. I tried to protect you, to make sure you didn’t suffer the way my own mother did, but I erased your sense of self in the process.” Her voice is barely recognizable as I try to stay alert, letting her words and wishes soak into me.

I would have given anything to live a life with a mother like the one she’s promising: hugs and kisses, hair braids while we talk about boys and school and life, a home full of laughter instead of silence. Words of encouragement and not judgment. She’s squeezing my hand, and I can hear the machine next to my bed beeping as she continues. The pad of her thumb is running over my palm in one of the most affectionate ways she’s ever touched me.

“I will do anything, please don’t take her away from me, not yet. I wasted my life and hers, please take mine, please. I was such an awful mother, please give me another chance, in another life, and I will do better. I will do better; I will do better. I hope you can forgive me if… when… you wake up… forgive the teenage girl who fled this place after watching her mother die at seventeen, who always wanted to be a mom, your mom, and was awful at it. The first thingI failed was you, the most important part of my entire life. I didn’t know… I couldn’t have known, but my guilt has been eating me alive since your diagnosis.” I feel the gentle pressure of her head falling onto my arm, and my hospital bed rocks as her body collapses, breaking down, still repeating her plea.

I try to lift my hand to pet her hair or squeeze her hand to tell her it’s okay, that I know she tried her best and that I don’t resent her. But I don’t have the strength. The medicine is stronger than me. The only thing I can feel is the warmth of the tears rolling down my cheeks and the bed shaking from my mother’s heartbreak.

When I wake up, my mom is asleep on the chair close to my bed. My vision is so blurry, like my eyes have been painted with some sort of gray coating. I try to move my hands, but they’re as heavy as cement.

Julián! Oh god, where is he? Does he know where I am? I frantically try to will my eyes to work better, for my mouth to open to yell his name. I need him. I need to see him like I need air. I try so damn hard to open my mouth, but I can’t. A movement in the corner of the room catches my eye. It’s Julián. He’s pushing himself up from the couch in the corner and walking toward me. God, I wish I could speak. I know they’re both probably frantic, heartbroken, unsure if I will remember them or not. If I’ll still be me, or not.

“Jesus, Ry. Oh my…” He begins to sob, falling to his knees.

This wakes my mother up. She blinks and stands from the chair. Her eyes are swollen nearly shut. The stack ofphotographs of her as a teenager falls from her lap. He must have given them to her, along with the ones of me. Julián bends down to pick them up for her on his way to the other side of the bed to be close to me, but out of her way. She doesn’t thank him, but her eyes are softer than they’ve ever been when directed at him.

“Oriah.” Her voice is a whimper, barely there and in desperate need of water. Julián, my intuition-filled Julián, is always able to read my mind, and hands her a small bottle from my bedside as she moves closer to my hospital bed, leaning over me.

I try to tell them that I remember everything, that I’m so glad they didn’t listen to me when it came to getting surgery, that I’m sorry for causing them worry and pain. But I can’t… I can feel myself drifting away again, and no matter how hard I hold on… I can’t.

JULIÁN

Ry’s mom and my pare convince me to leave the room for a few minutes. I do so only to give her mom time with her without me, but I find myself pacing back and forth in the hallway, brushing off concerned nurses every time they dare to approach me. I’m aware that my expression is not a welcoming one and they’re trying to help, but this is the most devastated, helpless, miserable… Even my crossword books don’t haveenough words to describe this dread clouding my mind. I find an empty spot on the floor, near Ry’s room, in case anything happens, but far enough to give Isolde a little space. Pulling out my hand phone, I realize it’s turned off. Makes sense, given that I haven’t looked at it, let alone charged it since I got to the hospital. If I didn’t have so many pictures and videos of Ry, I wouldn’t care if my phone stayed dead, broken, lost at sea, but right now, outside of her lying there, in and out of consciousness, all I have is the content on my shitty phone. Flagging down a nurse, I ask for a charger, showing her the input cable so she’s aware not to bring me some fancy Apple charger. She nods, glad to help, and as a caregiver for a living, I’m sure her empathetic nature can sense my extreme distress. Leaning my back against the cool plaster wall, I plug the device in and wait for it to power on.

Quickly tapping and swiping, I open my photos, to relive the moments we’ve had together. Her scrunched-up nose when she tried to play it cool and have raw sashimi for the first time, her eyes growing wide in delight as she actually enjoyed it. Her head floating above the water as she waved for me to join her in the sea. The candid moments are my favorite, the sparkle in her that is glimmering even through my cracked screen, the bewitching way she smiles and rolls her eyes at the same time. The natural curve of her neck when she laughs so hard that she can’t hold it up straight.

I scroll and tap, scroll and tap, and something unusual catches my eye. The thumbnail doesn’t match anything I’ve taken. I click it, and Ry’s face appears on the screen. Confusion, excitement, and a dash of fear have my hands shaking, barely able to hold my phone as I press play on the video.

The sound of the waves rolls softly in the background and the flash of the phone camera is bright on her face in the darkness. “You’re asleep, obviously, and here’s proof that you do snore, even though you always deny it.” Her eyes draw into thin lines, and she smiles, so wide, so full of life that I don’t know if I can handle continuing to watch, but I do.

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