Chapter 19 - Clay

I detest hospitals. They are up there with spiders on my do not like list. Hospitals make me think of death and the memory of visiting vózinho Thiago when he had that heart attack during his last visit to NYC. He wasn’t a larger-than-life-size man like dedushka Ares, but he was to a kid like me. I still didn’t think there would come a day he wasn’t around.

I remember being fifteen and coming to the hospital with the rest of my family and seeing him in that bed hooked up to all those machines looking so frail. After he died, I couldn’t stand even looking at a hospital.

I didn’t even visit Reese in the hospital when she had the babies. I waited till they were home to meet my niece and nephew. I love my sister, but I couldn’t cross the threshold. I’d gone to the hospital full of intentions to meet the babies but couldn’t.

Everyone had finally left my room. But now my mind didn’t have the distractions from all the sounds and smells of a hospital. And now I’m in a hospital. I suppose I s