Chapter 62: Chapter 62
"Christmas is the one day of the year when it's most obvious someone's missing. It had to become less about the presents."
-Jeff Brazier-
***
"Tomorrow is Christmas's Eve, Raphael. You need to come, we could hire someone and pay them extra to look after Clara. Everyone in the family would be there, You don't want to miss our annual Christmas Eve's dinner party, please, just come." Celine was on the phone with Raphael. She was dressed in a casual black winter gown which she loved to wear during at home during the season. Meanwhile, Eduard was in the background trying his best to keep the children from interrupting their mother because he knew Celine hated to be distracted when she is talking to somebody.
"I have told you I can't. I need to watch over Clara." He insisted.
"No, you have to come. Someone will pick you up at the hospital two hours before the party start. We would be waiting for you. If you don't come, you are going to disappoint the entire family and that would be the last thing you want." With that last statement, she turned off the phone and turned to Eduard who was holding their daughter in his arms while his son was tugging on his pants. She smiled at the sight of her devoted husband being a good father to their children. Standing up, she approached him and gave him a kiss on the lips.
"So, will your brother come tomorrow?" he asked her as he put their daughter down. He whispered to her to go play with her brother and they stormed off to their room with the nanny walking behind them.
"I don't know, I just hope he does. The past week has not been easy for him. My brother is enduring a lot. Let's just pray a miracle happens." All they wanted was for Clara to wake up, it was the only way her brother could retain his sanity. Had something terrible happened to her, she was not sure he would be able to remain the way he is.
Clara, please. Just wake up.
***
Raphael was working when Celine decided to give him a call to discuss about their annual Christmas' Eve dinner celebration where the extended family would come and celebrate. Of course, as a member of the Desroches family, he was obliged to come and usually you would not need to tell him twice. However, that year was slightly different, he had told his family he wanted to look over Clara on Christmas' eve, because the hospital would be short on staff during the time.
But of course, they would not allow him and he knew he would be risking his own image in the family if he did not come. It was a really tough decision. He was brainstorming on decision. His employees were noticing some changes in him lately, he was easily distracted and appeared to have a lot of things on his mind. His performance at work was nearly the same but there was definitely something noticeably different about him.
Employees would whisper about their own assumptions of what might be going on in his life during the lunch break. While he would lock himself in his office room all day with the exceptions of meetings and accepting clients. Raphael was visibly different.
His routine had completely shifted as well, before he would spend overtime hours on work because he was an over achiever, however during that period, Raphael could not even sit still without having his mind clouded with the thought of her. As soon as work hours were done, he would immediately go to the hospital, it had been going on for quite a while. It was like he formed a new habit, but it was not a pleasant one. The hospital employees were starting to get familiar with him, and people started noticing too, which was the reason why he needed to have a bodyguard on him at all time to prevent any unwanted incident that might taint his name.
In short, it was pure chaos.
On the other hand, Corentin was not in a better state as well. He had also been thinking about her nearly all time every day. Yes, he had wished that Clara would not end up with Raphael before out of his own self-interest, but he had never imagined that in reality his wish was far more dangerous. Instead of having her, he was on the verge of losing her completely. His mind had been a complete mess as well.
He would visit Clara at least three to four times during the past weeks. Even when she could not see it, he would buy her bouquets of flowers and spoke his prayer to her, wishing she would just wake up and play tennis with him again, although the next day his flower always disappeared, which he assumed must be Raphael's work, he did not care. He just wanted to make sure she understood his feelings for her, even when she was unconscious.
That day was no different than any other day. Raphael had only gotten from work and when he did enter the room, everyone else must leave immediately except for the doctor and the nurse. Like usual he walked over to her side and took her hand in his. His eyes were always wet from unshed tears. He knew he would stay up late again that night because he was scared something would happen to her when he was asleep. Because of this, he was losing a bit of his muscle mass and one could see from his face that he was tired.
"You need to take a break. I'll watch over her tonight." Corentin walked over to him and put a palm on his shoulder, these two enemies had to compromise and acted as friends for her sake, but Raphael did not listen of course. How could he possibly let another man watch over his Clara It was not that he did not trust Corentin, but he wanted to be by her side when she woke up, he wanted to be the first one she saw when she got to open her eyes again.