Chapter 3
The world was still reverberating with the attack on the Brussels airport when Véronique underwent her second surgery, and then her third and a fourth. She had held up so far, and after the third surgery, her internal organs were less compromised. The areas near her arteries had been cleared, her liver had suffered the greatest damage but could regenerate in time. The wounds on her body were deep, but she had lost no limbs, unlike many of the victims, both in Brussels and in Paris, who had lost arms and legs and hands and feet, either in the blast, or from gangrene in the days immediately after.
Marie-Helene’s law partner continued to get daily reports, which were not encouraging. Marie-Helene’s remains were in a military morgue in Brussels, with so many others waiting for instructions from the families. Bernard did not want to make any decisions about Marie-Helene’s interment until Véronique was conscious and could make those decisions herself, if she was alive to do so. And if not, he would bury them together.
* * *
—
In June, three months almost to the day after the bomb explosion at Zaventem Airport, the surgeons at the military hospital made the decision to take Véronique out of the medically induced coma, take her off the respirator, and let her breathe on her own. She was very foggy at first, and didn’t understand where she was or why she was there, and by the next day, she remembered the blast and where they had been going. She was still in ICU where she could be observed by a team of nurses, with immediate help available if she suffered an unexpected complication, which was still a possibility. She wasn’t fully out of the woods yet, and wouldn’t be for some time.
One of the nurses came to move her in her bed, and Véronique looked at her with wide eyes, her face still heavily bandaged. She looked like a mummy, with the bandages covering her head as well, and an eye patch over her injured eye. They had saved the eye in one of her many surgeries, but did not know yet if she would lose her sight in it.
“How’s my mother?” she whispered to the nurse who was gently shifting her position. She had not been out of bed in three months, and was even thinner and light as a feather. The one eye she could see out of looked anxious, as the nurse said something reassuring, and called the doctor when she left Véronique’s cubicle. This was the moment they had already discussed with a team of psychiatrists. A psychiatrist appeared in her room an hour later. She was a woman in her early fifties. She had a motherly style with her patients. They had been facing new challenges with more than a hundred civilian patients to deal with, which was very different from treating war-torn soldiers, injured in military action.
“How are you feeling, Véronique?” the psychiatrist asked her. She nodded and didn’t answer. She hadn’t talked in a long time, her voice was a croak when she tried to speak, and her throat still felt raw from the respirator. “Are you in pain?” the doctor asked her, and she shook her head. Her hands were bandaged too, from the wounds she had sustained on her hands and arms.
“How is my mother?” she asked again. It was the most pressing question on her mind. The doctor looked at her quietly, and as gently as possible explained that Marie-Helene had not survived the bomb. Véronique began gasping for air as soon as she said it. She couldn’t breathe and couldn’t speak. The psychiatrist stayed with her, speaking calmly to her for two hours, and they finally sedated her. It was a fact that had to be faced and they thought she was well enough to hear it now. But they had no way of knowing how close Véronique had been to her mother and all that she meant to her.
Bernard Aubert came from Paris the next day, and they cried together. Véronique couldn’t believe what had happened. She was willing to have sustained all the damage she had, if only her mother were still alive. Véronique couldn’t imagine her life without her. She was decimated by grief. She was able to speak in a stronger voice by the next day.
“And Cyril?” she asked Bernard, and he looked blank. “Cyril Buxton, he was with us. He’s a friend of mine. He spent the night with us in Brussels, and he was flying back to London as soon as we took off. He was standing with us when it…happened.” She faltered on the last word and couldn’t make herself say the word “bomb.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll look into it. I didn’t know anyone else was with you.” He was surprised. After he left her, he checked the official list of casualties they had at the hospital, and found that Cyril was on it. When he inquired, he was told that like Véronique’s mother, he had died in the initial explosion. His family had already claimed his remains. Bernard spent the night in Brussels, and told Véronique the next morning. She was shocked and saddened, and couldn’t understand why she had survived and they hadn’t. Bernard explained it as the hand of destiny, not having any better answer. She was deeply depressed about all of it, understandably, especially her mother, but she was sad about Cyril too. He was such a sweet, innocent, fun-loving boy, and didn’t deserve to have his life cut short. None of them did, and she felt terrible for his parents, losing their only child.