Chapter 71 CHAPTER 72

Chapter 71 CHAPTER 72

The doctor arrived forty minutes later.
He put Vladimir through every test that needed to be done. Pupil responses, reflexes, pain response. He spoke into his ear. Pinched the sole of his foot. Brushed his cheek with a cotton swab. Vladimir responded to some things. Not to others. The doctor neither got excited nor discouraged. He made notes in his notebook with the calm of a man who knew this would take time.
“He’s coming back,” he finally told Julieta and Ana in the hallway. “Don’t ask me how long it’ll take for him to be fully himself again, because I don’t know. It could be today. It could be a week. It could be a month. Brains move at their own pace. What matters is that he’s making the journey.”
“Doctor.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“When he wakes up completely... will he be the same as before? Will he know who he is?”
“Probably. Probably. But he’ll be missing memories. Days. Weeks. Sometimes months. That’s what happens with injuries like this. The older memories usually come back. The recent ones return in pieces. I’m not telling you this to frighten you. I’m telling you so you understand what comes next.”
Julieta nodded. Ana squeezed her arm.

Three days later, Vladimir opened his eyes.
It happened in the afternoon, without drama, without alarms. He simply opened them for a moment, closed them, opened them again, and the fourth time they stayed open.
Julieta was sitting on the edge of the bed, feeding Lucio, when she saw them.
“Vladimir.”
He looked at her.
Slowly.
His face didn’t respond the way it used to.
His eyes did. They moved just fine.
Julieta placed Lucio in the bassinet beside the bed and leaned forward.
“Vladimir. It’s me.”
She took his hand. He didn’t squeeze hers, but he let her hold it.
That was already something.
“Can you see me?”
Vladimir blinked.
Twice.
“That means yes, right? Two blinks for yes.”
Another blink.
“Good. I’m making this up, and you’re confirming it.”
The corner of Vladimir’s mouth moved slightly. It wasn’t a smile, but it was the outline of something that once would have been one.
Lina came in immediately, alerted by the change on the monitor. She did the usual tests—the light, the reflexes, the questions.
Vladimir answered some of them with blinks.
The breathing tube was still in place. He couldn’t speak.
“We’ll start weaning him off the ventilator tomorrow,” Lina said. “If he responds well today, we’ll remove the tube first thing in the morning. He’ll be able to talk.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow, Julieta.”

That night, Julieta didn’t sleep.
She stayed beside the bed, with Lucio in the bassinet.
She spoke to Vladimir only a little, just enough. She didn’t want to tire him out.
She stroked his hand.
When Lina allowed it, she dabbed water onto his dry lips.
Every so often she looked at his face and always found him looking back at her, those green eyes moving slowly, following her without blinking.
At three in the morning she leaned close and whispered in his ear.
“Don’t rush. Tomorrow you can talk. Rest now.”
Vladimir moved a finger.

The next morning they removed the tube.
He coughed hard.
They gave him water.
The first person he spoke to was the doctor.
His voice was broken, rough, nothing like his own.
A voice made of sand.
“How long?”
“Four months, Vladimir. Four months and a few days.”
He closed his eyes.
Nodded.
He asked nothing else.
It was all his body could process.
The doctor explained the basics: the memory gaps, the slow recovery, the muscle atrophy, the therapy that would begin soon.
He told him it would be at least two weeks before he could even think about standing.
Vladimir listened with his eyes closed.
When the doctor finished, he opened them again and said a single word.
“Julieta.”
She was already beside him.
“I’m here.”
He moved his hand.
He wanted hers.
Julieta gave it to him.
She ran her thumb gently across his fingers.
“Julieta.”
“Yes?”
“Mario?”
“He’s alive. He’s here. In the house. He limps, but he’s alive.”
Vladimir closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them again, he looked relieved.
“Gabriela.”
“She’s okay too. She’s missed you terribly, but she’s okay. I’ll bring her up later.”
“What happened?”
“An attack. At a traffic light. Four men.”
“Andrés.”
“Andrés.”
Vladimir closed his eyes again.
His fingers tightened around Julieta’s.
That was the first conscious squeeze.
A tiny one.
But a squeeze.
“And...?”
“He’s still free. But Ernesto is closing in. It won’t be long. A matter of weeks.”
Vladimir nodded slowly.

Later, when Lina stepped out to eat, Vladimir opened his eyes again.
He was more awake now than he had been that morning.
His voice was still rough, but steadier.
And then he looked at the bassinet.
Julieta noticed.
She followed his gaze.
Vladimir was staring at the bassinet beside the bed, on the left side, where Lucio slept.
He was looking at it with a new expression.
Not affection.
Not surprise.
The expression of a man seeing something he couldn’t name.
“Julieta.”
“Yes?”
“Whose is it?”
Both of Julieta’s hands went cold.
“Vladimir.”
“Ana’s?”
There was no hidden meaning in the question.
No trap.
He asked because it was the only explanation his mind could find.
His cousin Ana had children.
There was a baby in the house.
For a brain that had been asleep for four months, it was the simplest conclusion.
Julieta remained perfectly still for a second.
Then she breathed.
And in that very moment, without overthinking it, decided not to tell him yet.
“Vladimir.”
“Yes?”
“It’s a baby. He’s here because my sister spent a lot of time with us these past months. Is it okay if I don’t explain everything today?”
“Why?”
“Because today you woke up. Because your brain needs to go slowly. Because the doctor told me to save the big things until you’re stronger. I’ll tell you everything. But not all today. Do you understand?”
Vladimir looked at her.
It took him a second to process it.
Then he nodded.
“All right.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then when you’re stronger, I’ll tell you everything. And there are going to be strange things, Vladimir. Things you won’t remember and that won’t make sense at first. I’ll explain them. One by one. No rush. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Do you trust me?”
“I trust you.”
He squeezed her hand again.
This time a little harder.
Just enough for her to feel it.

Julieta leaned forward.
She kissed his forehead.
She kissed the side without the scar.
“Rest.”
Vladimir closed his eyes.
“One more thing, Julieta.”
“Yes?”
“You left.”
He said it quietly.
A statement.
Not a question.
“Yes.”
“You came back.”
“I came back.”
“Why?”
“For you.”
Vladimir opened his eyes a fraction.
Looked at her.
Then closed them again.
“Stay.”
“I’m here.”
“Stay when you tell me the rest. About the...”
“I will. I’ll stay.”
“Good.”
Exhausted by three complete sentences, he drifted back to sleep with her hand in his.

Julieta sat on the edge of the bed for a long time.
She watched his face.
The rhythm of his breathing.
No tube now.
His mouth closed for the first time in four months.
She looked at his index finger, the first one that had moved.
She looked at the bassinet.
Lucio stirred inside it, made the small sounds newborns make when settling into sleep, and did not wake.
“Your father woke up,” Julieta whispered. “I need a favor from you, little one. Give me two days. Just two. Let him settle first. Then we’ll tell him together.”
The baby breathed softly against his blanket.
Julieta straightened.
Ran a hand over her face.
Stepped into the hallway.
Mario was making his rounds with his cane.
Ana stood at the far end, waiting with a cup of coffee in her hands, watching Julieta emerge.
“How is he?”
“Awake.”
“And?”
“He doesn’t remember Lucio. He thinks he’s yours.”
“Juli.”
“I didn’t tell him. Not today. I asked for two days. He told me he trusts me. That’s enough for today.”
Ana placed the cup in her hands.
“Drink that. You’re shaking.”
Julieta drank the entire coffee.
Cold.
She didn’t care.
She remained standing in the hallway, holding the empty cup, looking toward the closed door of the master bedroom.
Inside, her man slept, breathing on his own for the first time in four months.
Beside him, her son slept, still unknown to his father.
Two days.
That was the grace she had given herself.
After that, she would tell him everything.
Looking him in the eyes.
Slowly.
Just as she had been promising Lucio for months.
But not today.