Beautiful(51)

“Not really. I’ve been so busy with the TV show, I haven’t had time to think, but I’d like to come.” He had spent the month of February there, and had come back to New York to work in March, and was leaving again from mid-April to mid-June. “You could come in April when I go back,” he suggested. “I’d like to be there to show you around. Or you could come in May, whatever works for you.” She had nothing to do now that she’d finished working on the TV show. “You’re welcome to come whenever you like. Where we are is pretty remote, and we don’t get many visitors. Injured children are hard to look at, and some people can’t handle it,” he said simply. He had already shown her which of her scars he would be working on next. Dr. Talbot had explained to her his part of the procedure, on her face. She was pleased with the results so far, and the makeup for the show had worked well, making her face easier to look at for viewers.

She thought about it that night, and told Dick Dennis the next day that she would go in April, a few days after he arrived there himself. He said the timing worked well for him.

Her surgery was the next day, the anniversary of the attack on Zaventem, and of her mother’s death as well, and Cyril’s. She hadn’t heard from his mother again, and didn’t expect to. They had lost their only child, and she didn’t sound as though she was doing well when she responded to Véronique’s sympathy letter, nor was she warm toward Véronique, as though she had led him to his death. His mother needed someone to blame. Many of the survivors did, or some anyway. For the most part they were compassionate, but some of the parents were very bitter, which Véronique could understand.



* * *



—

She had a hard night that night, remembering the little she did. Still being conscious and waiting to be rescued, while they thought that she was dead and kept running past her, and not having the strength to call out to them, and the endless surgeries once she was out of the coma. She could still smell the odor of the explosion. Sometimes it filled her nostrils in nightmares. Others had mentioned it too, and the smell of blood and torn flesh all around them. She was wide awake when she had to leave for the hospital, and looked serious when her doctors saw her before the surgery.

“Hard night?” Dick Dennis asked her. He suspected it would be, and she nodded.

“Sometimes it still seems like it was yesterday.”

“A year isn’t a long time,” he said gently. “You’ve come a long way, Véronique. You’re doing really well. I’m sorry we have to put you through another surgery. I hope this will be the last one.” She wasn’t determined to remove every scar, just the worst ones. Both he and Phillip Talbot wanted to give her the best result they could, but didn’t want to go to extremes. The scars on her face were the most important ones to work on, because they affected how she felt about herself, and how she interacted with others. She was still very young and had many years ahead of her. They wanted her to have the best life she could, with as few remnants of the explosion as possible. And she had been reclusive in the past year, which seemed a shame at her age.

“We’re going to have a good time in Africa,” Dick Dennis said to distract her when they put in the IV. There was some sedation in it, and she would begin to relax and get drowsy soon. She wasn’t as frightened as she had been the first time. She knew what to expect now, and she trusted both her surgeons implicitly.

“You’re going to Africa with Dick?” Phillip Talbot asked her, and she nodded with a sleepy smile.

“Oh God, bugs and snakes and creepy-crawlies,” he said, and they all laughed. “He dragged me there once. I’m a city boy, although it’s a noble cause.”

“Véronique is gutsier than you are,” Dick said, and his colleague laughed.

The attendants rolled her to the operating room a few minutes later, and she was fully unconscious shortly after. Both doctors looked at each other over her sleeping form. They wanted the very best for her, she was a great girl and she deserved it. They didn’t see the supermodel as she lay there. They saw the brave young woman she had become in the past year, and they had come to admire and respect so much. She had become a favorite patient for both of them, and they wanted to give her the best future they could, and that she deserved.



* * *



—

She went through the same process as three months before, and she was back in the guest apartment three days later, and was recovering even faster this time.

Four days after the anniversary, she checked her computer and saw that they had sent her the digital video of the show. She couldn’t wait to see it, and asked Doug if he wanted to watch it with her. His French was good enough to understand most of it, and she could translate the rest for him.

He came with a pizza, and she downloaded it on her laptop. It was a two-hour show, and neither of them said a word for the entire two hours. She saw him wipe his eyes several times, and she cried, even though she had done the interviews and knew the content. But the interviews were so moving that they made her cry every time. They couldn’t even finish their pizza, they just sat listening to the people speaking. Everything they said was so heart wrenching, especially the parents of people who had died, and the victims who had been so badly maimed they were unrecognizable. The film had been beautifully edited, and there were no editorial comments. It was all spoken by the subjects, which made it more powerful. Véronique had been respectful with her questions. She looked beautiful on camera most of the time, and at times her own scars were shocking when the camera caught her from certain angles. She winced when she saw her own images and Doug squeezed her hand.