“Plenty of them,” I finally managed. “Some of them have no idea until the very last month. Tito told me. Given the circumstances, you couldn’t have known.”
Her fists tightened and I heard her take a deep breath. “I should have felt him! I—I feel it now. The emptiness. The awful, awful emptiness.” She put her free hand to her stomach, and it trembled against her skin. “If I can feelthat, why didn’t I feel life?”
It wasn’t meant to be, and not because of you, but because of me,I stopped myself from saying.The sins of the father haunt the son.In this case, both seemed accurate. His punishment for his nature, who he is and what he’s done.
“I’m—faulty,” she said, true hatred in her voice. “This—it’s my fault.”
The water started to turn cold, so I adjusted the nob, turning it warmer. I needed to hear her say it before I went any further, maybe to quell the fear, or maybe to reassure myself later that she had said it and meant it. “Do you love me, Scarlett?”
As still as she had been, she became even more still. Unnervingly quiet. Finally she nodded, and then she whispered, “God only knows how much I do.”
The showerhead sprayed water like rain, a constant, reassuring noise, something to fill the silence.
“None of this is your fault. It’s mine. I should have never left you—”
“No!” She brought up a hand, but then she let it fall. “This is his fault!Hisfault!”
I knew she meant Nemours, but it went deeper than that. That was the beginning, or the end, depending on the timing. “That’s true. He’ll get his day. But it’s my fault. I didn’t want—I didn’t want him to begin with.” How miserable I had made her when we didn’t know for sure, because I couldn’t deal with the possibility. And what I had done—who I came from. But unless she saw the truth of that in my eyes, I’d never burden her with it. “I’m being punished—”
“You think God is punishing you?”
I would have never wished for this to happen, but she had no idea how much I didn’t want it. I never wanted the situation to exist. So many realizations hit me at once, and from them, an awful amount of punishment.
When she knew that I wasn’t going to answer, she shook her head. “God wouldn’t do this,” she said, her voice firm. “Not even to the worst of sinners.”
Her voice had changed though. She had started to think over the time when she was uncertain whether she was pregnant. Maybe wishing she would have enjoyed the possibility of it being true instead of worrying about how I felt. Regardless of the reason she would find to blame me, she wouldn’t blame herself. That was my intention. Even if it meant that she would hate or resent me.
“I’m tired,” she whispered. “I don’t think I can keep my eyes open.”
She slipped again, blinking at me when I steadied her. I went to pick her up, to take her out, but she shook her head. Her answer was firm. No. She wanted to sleep while the water washed her clean.
I removed my clothes, throwing them on the floor with a sticky splat—they were wet from being in and out of the shower with her—and then stepped in. I took her in my arms, sitting on the bench.
She curled against me with a sigh. “You’re going to get—” she nodded to the watery ribbons of pink and red swirling with the pull of the drain.
“Your blood is my blood,” I said in Italian, using my hand to collect the blood before it disappeared. She tried to move my hand, but I refused to let her. I let the red saturate my palm before I put it against my heart, letting part of our life escape. “I’m wounded too, even if you can’t see it.”
She tucked her head under my chin, my face blocking the spray of water from her eyes.
“Scarlett.”
“Hmm?”
“Tell me what Eva told you. What I am to you. In her dream.”
“Eva?” She repeated the name as if she had never heard it before. I felt her lashes against my chin, soft and wet, blinking. “Oh,” she said softly a moment later, hardly audible over the falling water. “Yes. But I—I can’t hold on to you right now. I’m too tired.”
“I know, baby,” I pulled her closer. “But you don’t have to. I’ll keep you above the water while you rest.”
* * *
A week later, a storm was coming. It had been brewing throughout the day, clouds low and dark, the air filled with the scent of cold moisture and the remnants of tree resin. Fog drifted low to the ground, so thick that, when I looked down the hill, we seemed to be floating above the world. Lightning pitchforked across the sky, thunder rumbled, shaking the villa, but no rain touched down yet.
Somehow our home had become the heart of our group. Everyone gravitated back to it. Scarlett’s parents, along with Eunice, were the first to arrive. Eunice brought with her enough rations to feed a small army. Not ten minutes after she came through the door, the click of the stove could be heard, and suddenly the air was laced with the smells of food.
Tito and Lola arrived next. Tito met me upstairs while Lola chatted with Everett, Pnina, and Eunice. I heard Lola mention minestrone soup being one of Scarlett’s favorites, and it seemed to be decided that a pot would be put on.
“Nephew,” Tito said, a glass of tea in his hand. Tea—I sniffed—and whiskey. He produced another glass filled with straight whiskey and handed it to me. He pulled a chair by the window closer to mine, taking a seat.
