04-03-2014, 09:12 PM
Connor's first sentence shot an arrow through Jensen's heart. Sympathy blazed afterward, but to hear the child's death was extended over two weeks wreaked torment all the hotter.
Jensen, across the island from Connor, found himself glued in place. The man put his face to his arms, and every muscle in Jensen's body ached to provide some sort of comfort. But he couldn't. Not because the child was already gone, his soul in divine hands, but because somewhere far to the west, two small boys were living out their lives thinking their father was gone instead. It was all one big, hypocritical lie. How could he offer the presence of comfort for a man that was broken by the death of a child, when Jensen had two of his own, and willingly stayed away from them. The emotion thickened the air like humidity, and his own eyes ringed with wetness.
Jensen was fiddling with a hand towel, strewing it through his hands over and over again, when Connor fixed his gaze upon him.
What I want to know...what I have to know, is why I didn't take him to the hospital. What was I protecting him from?"
Aria offered an answer first with conviction that spoke of experience. Giovanni agreed. The punctate question that emerged in the midst of all the morbidity was out of place, but while the word sounded familiar, its meaning drifted.
Connor was still waiting for his answer. Jensen was the one to offer explanation in the first place, but to make good on that promise, he needed to swallow his own pride and focus on the brother in pain.
Jensen began quietly, but he spoke without stumbling. From experience only, melodrama and eloquence draped themselves on him like a veil, but the profound meaning to what he would say was diminished by the stooped posture and fiddling hands of guilt.
"I was on a bus in the middle of Mexico for my first time with the Sickness. I knew enough of the language to ask for a hospital, but there was nothing for 200 miles but a run-down clinic in the next town. I wouldn't have even gone but for the driver kicking me off. Apparently we do look that bad,"
he said. "Luckily, a man who got off at the same town told me how to find it."
Taking a breath, he continued. "By the time I dragged myself there, the clinic was closed. So I stumbled off in search of a hotel or something, and the man from the bus, there he was again, like some guardian angel, he told me where to find a hotel."
Jensen shook his head, "I was well the next day, and continued my journey south, but so did this new friend. I thought he was a reporter at first, and he was following me, but not for a story,"
he said, voice darkening. He had been so confused then, panicked and disbelieving. Had the man come for him a few months later, Jensen would have happily helped him carry out the task he set out to do, but Mexico City was a hectic place, and Jensen made things happen that were more than sheer luck. He outran the stalker in a way, but the next time the Sickness came, he knew to not seek refuge in a hospital.
Jensen, across the island from Connor, found himself glued in place. The man put his face to his arms, and every muscle in Jensen's body ached to provide some sort of comfort. But he couldn't. Not because the child was already gone, his soul in divine hands, but because somewhere far to the west, two small boys were living out their lives thinking their father was gone instead. It was all one big, hypocritical lie. How could he offer the presence of comfort for a man that was broken by the death of a child, when Jensen had two of his own, and willingly stayed away from them. The emotion thickened the air like humidity, and his own eyes ringed with wetness.
Jensen was fiddling with a hand towel, strewing it through his hands over and over again, when Connor fixed his gaze upon him.
What I want to know...what I have to know, is why I didn't take him to the hospital. What was I protecting him from?"
Aria offered an answer first with conviction that spoke of experience. Giovanni agreed. The punctate question that emerged in the midst of all the morbidity was out of place, but while the word sounded familiar, its meaning drifted.
Connor was still waiting for his answer. Jensen was the one to offer explanation in the first place, but to make good on that promise, he needed to swallow his own pride and focus on the brother in pain.
Jensen began quietly, but he spoke without stumbling. From experience only, melodrama and eloquence draped themselves on him like a veil, but the profound meaning to what he would say was diminished by the stooped posture and fiddling hands of guilt.
"I was on a bus in the middle of Mexico for my first time with the Sickness. I knew enough of the language to ask for a hospital, but there was nothing for 200 miles but a run-down clinic in the next town. I wouldn't have even gone but for the driver kicking me off. Apparently we do look that bad,"
he said. "Luckily, a man who got off at the same town told me how to find it."
Taking a breath, he continued. "By the time I dragged myself there, the clinic was closed. So I stumbled off in search of a hotel or something, and the man from the bus, there he was again, like some guardian angel, he told me where to find a hotel."
Jensen shook his head, "I was well the next day, and continued my journey south, but so did this new friend. I thought he was a reporter at first, and he was following me, but not for a story,"
he said, voice darkening. He had been so confused then, panicked and disbelieving. Had the man come for him a few months later, Jensen would have happily helped him carry out the task he set out to do, but Mexico City was a hectic place, and Jensen made things happen that were more than sheer luck. He outran the stalker in a way, but the next time the Sickness came, he knew to not seek refuge in a hospital.