“Your guess is as good as mine.”
One fist was balled at her side. Close to losing it. “You know who did this!” She whirled on me, her finger from the other hand pointed in accusation, right at my chest. “You just don’t want to admit it!”
That was true. Her mother would be the only one who’d take the liberties to do it, like she had probably emptied the cabinet filled with chocolate cakes. She’d been itching to do it since she arrived.
“All of your—” She went to the stone wall, running her hands along it, searching frantically.
I put my hands on her arms, trying to calm her down. “All my what, baby?”
“Your blood!” She started to sob. “It’s gone!”
“I have more.”
“No!” She tried to shrug me off, but that wasn’t going to happen. “No! That’s not the point. You don’t understand.” Her voice matched her pace—she started to sweat and mumble, her tears falling in a flooding rush.
“Tell me what I’m missing, Scarlett.”
“You did that for me! You bled for me. And she—wiped it all clean.Oh God.Why does she always hurt me? She doesn’t care what I want! She never even asks! It was supposed to be here, a part of our history.Ours!Oh. I wanted to keep it. It’smine.”
She rested her head against the wall, her hands against it, truly sobbing. Her heartbreak did something to me. It set off the beast. I could take the teeth of the world sunk into my back, but not her crying, not this way. I knew it wasn’t my actual blood that she was referring to—she was talking about the son we would never get to know.
“No!” She turned around, just in time to catch me from slamming my fist into the wall again. “Please. Brando. I can’t see that again. I—” Her hand came to my arm, my fist balled against the stone, next to her, and she brought her head to my chest. “I can’t believe what I did. I shouldn’t have walked away from you. I feel so guilty about that! I’m a terrible wife,” she wailed. “I should have told you about Taylor’s awful proposition and about Nemours hitting me. I’m afraid that you’ll stop loving me. I’m terrified that I’m not going to be able to survive losing the baby. Being here—”
She couldn’t even finish. She had become hysterical. I took her in my arms, lowering her to the floor. I rocked her until she settled a little, but then she took my shirt in her hands, holding on like a woman about to slip off the ledge.
“I’m dying.” She lost her breath. “I’m dying. I don’t want to lose you. I love you too much to be away from you.” She started to hyperventilate.
“Listen to me. Listen. Take deep breaths. You’re not dying. You’re having a panic attack.”
“H-how do you know?”
“There’s no fear when you die.”
“I-is t-that w-what I d-did b-before?”
“Yeah.” I kissed her head. “Come now. Listen to the beats of my heart. Remember what Tito said. Slow your breathing. Do you want me to get him?”
“No.” She held on even tighter.
“Being home hit me hard too. We need to learn how to adjust, like we did in Fiji. It’s you and me. We’re together. I’m not leaving you—not even if you’d walk away from me every day. Do you understand me? You can’t lose me. I’m too stubborn. I’d just throw you over my shoulder and we’d fight it out.”
“A-all right.” She sniffled. “It feels…nothing is the same.”
There was nothing I could say to that. She was right. Nothing was the same. I massaged the back of her neck until her eyes blinked and her breath came steady again. “How about dinner. You want to make me dinner? I’ll help.” She loved cooking for me, and I thought some normalcy might do us some good.
“You want me to cook for you?” she asked in a small voice.
“You’re my favorite cook.”
She smiled against my chest. “And a movie?”
“Yeah, a movie sounds good,” I said. “A date.”
She picked at something on my shirt, examining it like it might come to life. “You’ve evolved, Fausti,” she said quietly, and then she hesitated for the span of seven breaths. “You’re the only one keeping me together. I think that’s what they really mean when they say two halves to a whole. One can shatter, or even both, and they will still feel complete, even when something is missing. Neither half is empty, as long as they have the other. One is always there to pick up the slack or fill in the voids. Perhaps one side exceeds in strength and passion, while the other in empathy and mercy. You add in a third strength, the ring around the whole, to keep the two together—even better. Even stronger.”
She stole the words right out of my mouth—the little thief. She was the one exception to my every rule.
* * *
