Returning home from a shopping trip, of all things, is what nearly cost her her life. Of course, if God had wanted to knock her off the face of the planet, he would have had to choose between home, shopping or out with Armando. And she just knew that God wouldn't dare do anything against Armando. So, since she rarely did anything else these days, shopping would have been the obvious choice, the only choice.
She was told that a reckless driver ran a red light and straight into her car. Of all the clichés that could have happened this one was the one that made the least sense to her. But then, little in her life made sense these days. Why should her impending death be any different?
Once she remembered enough to remember the accident, it replayed in her mind constantly. She saw the car coming towards them, her driver saw the car coming towards them, but there wasn't enough time to do anything. They couldn't react in time, couldn't change the outcome at all. The accident happened, and they hadn't done anything wrong and couldn't have done anything to prevent it.
Her driver didn't survive. She mourned him, though hadn't known him very well. Actually, she hadn't known him at all. Ramon, her regular driver, had been out with the flu so he stayed in Dallas when they went to Mexico City. Armando had found someone to take his place while Ramon got better.
As awful as it sounded, she was glad it was the replacement who had died and not Ramon. She knew Ramon's wife and children, had had him driving her around for almost two years and couldn't bear the thought that he'd be dead just because Armando was so stubborn about having someone drive her around when she could do it for herself. Ramon she would miss.
She never asked if her temporary driver had a family, wife or children. She didn't want to know, didn't want to think about it, didn't want to regret that too. And she woke up from the coma too late to do anything about the funeral. She just hoped that Armando was kind enough to send flowers or something.
The other driver, the one that caused the accident, suffered permanent injuries that would leave him in a wheelchair for what was left of his life. And, on top of that, he would probably spend several years in prison. At least that's what was going to happen if Armando got his way. And Diana had learned a long time ago that Armando usually got his way.
She had been in a coma for 72 days, in addition to the injuries she suffered - injuries that included a collapsed lung, kidney and liver damage and so much blood loss that brain damage was suspected. Recovery was going to be painstaking and difficult, she was told. There were moments when she would wish for oblivion, mostly because of the memory loss and the physical therapy. And because of the damage to her internal organs, she was probably never going to be completely healthy again.
But she was alive. And she was going to stay that way, if she followed instructions and behaved herself. The good thing was that Armando had already trained her to follow instructions, so paying attention to the doctor's orders should be a breeze in comparison.
Armando was, of course, hovering like a worried husband. He cancelled his business trips and only stayed away from the hospital for the barest of time, visiting her before work, at lunch and after work for several hours. She hadn't seen this much of him in the entire time they were together, and, sick as she was, it was starting to get on her nerves.
The nurses told her that he had hardly left her side for the entire time she was in a coma. They were all in awe of the caring and commitment he had showered on her in her unconscious state. Of course, cynic that she was, Diana believed that the fact that he was gorgeous and so obviously rich helped somewhat in their romantic notions. And she wondered, briefly, what they would have said if she had told them the truth about their relationship. Not that she ever would, but it might be fun to watch their faces as the truth sank in. Or maybe they wouldn't care.
But Armando's brief foray into the caring male routine wasn't the worst part. Diana knew that that would go away as soon as she was better. And they would go back to the relationship where he had a life and every once in a while remembered that he had her in tow. Or maybe, since she was now practically disabled, he would want to cancel that arrangement and find a newer model of live-in decorative female. Either way, the attentive male routine wasn't going to last much longer, so it didn't bother her all that much. That wasn't the part that worried her. Of course Armando was hovering, he considered her his property and nothing happened to his property without his permission. It was a control thing. He didn't like to think that she could have died and there wasn't a thing he could do about it.
No. That wasn't what made waking up after a 72-day coma so damned weird. It was seeing Alicia Alvarado sitting in one of the hospital chairs next to her bed that freaked her out. Because that told her better than anything the doctors or Armando could have said to her just how close to death she had been. Why else would her sister come visiting after a lifetime of a failed relationship? Why else would Alicia deign to sit in the hospital room of the sister born to her father with one of his many mistresses?
Posted by dosvoces at June 24, 2007 09:34 AM