Turning from him, I padded to the expanse of glass, gazing out. It took me a minute to find the right words to explain this to him, or to try.
“When a baby is inside, the baby must be connected to the mother or it will die. My oxygen is his.” I touched my stomach. “But once a child is born, the mother must be connected to her child or die. It's as though they…take a vital piece of you when they go. Perhaps it’s your air, because they can breathe now. Your child's first heartbeat is your last as an independent being. Life, from the moment the baby makes a home in your womb, is irrevocably altered.Mylife has been. That mother is me, Brando.”
A period of time went by that was only measured by the changes in the sky.
“I’ll keep her safe,” I repeated. “Like you’ve always kept me safe. We’ll both keep her safe. She’s ours.”
I waited a forever for the sky to turn a cool blue, snuffing out the stars.
25
Scarlett
It was times such as these that I wished my heart could burn like a great fire, branding memories into my soul.
Brando had gotten dressed at dawn, making me broth and then telling me to stay put while he went to get Mia from his parents’ chalet.
I watched from the window, had been watching and waiting, until the three of them—Brando, Mia, and Eunice—trudged through the snow, getting closer and closer to home.
Brando pulled Mia in a sleigh, and she was holding on tight, her eyes curious about everything around her. But there was something different about her demeanor. I didn’t quite understand it until she turned and lifted her arms for Eunice to pick her up after Brando stopped pulling the sled.
Eunice, not her father.
He noticed. His eyebrows drew down, and his lips pinched.
Had she felt our absence?
She had never woken up to a face that didn’t belong to one of us; most of the time, both of us together. As soon as her eyes drifted to sleep, or lifted from her dreams, there was a connection made at dawn and before twilight—trust earned and kept.
We’re here.
I knew for her it was a matter of security.You are there each night before I close my eyes, and you are there each morning when I open them.Her world revolved around us being her days and nights.
It wasn’t only the one night that had touched her; she had gotten the feeling that we might leave her for longer. Not for the first time, I wondered if she was going to be as peculiar as me.
She was giving her father a taste of her uncertainty. We weren’t there this morning, but Eunice was, and would have been.
Brando breathed heavier, smoke billowing out of his nose and mouth. He was upset that she’d turned from him and gone to Eunice.
He lowered to her level, and she turned her face. He walked on the other side of Eunice, and she blinked at him as he opened his arms. She simply stared at him, not making a move to accept him.
This was a big deal for Brando, and even separated from him by an entire chalet, I could feel his hurt as much as I felt the cold from outside.
I didn’t like the look on his face at all. For a second, I worried for Eunice, that he’d blame her for Mia’s rejection. The next second everything shifted, though, and I knew he blamed himself.
He tried again. This time he took his head and put it to her stomach, moving it back and forth, probably making growling noises. She shoved at him with her palm, turning her face. When she did, he went over backwards, pretending to have fallen in the snow.
An unbidden smile came to my face.
The noise had made her curious enough to peek. Her eyes grew wide, and she tilted in Eunice’s arms to see her father better. From the looks of it, he had also pretended to cry. His arms covered his face.
She squirmed in Eunice’s arm, determined to get down, and as fast as a child in numerous layers could, she ran to him. She fell on his chest, pulling at his arms to see herpapà’s face. When he let his arms down, she poked at his closed eyes with her pointer finger, her mouth moving, probably urging him to look at her.
She screeched when he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight, his eyes still closed. The look on his face was the look of a man who had been lost and was finally found. I noticed how tightly her fingers held on to him, her countenance mirroring his.
After a minute or two, she sat up, and he showed her how to make snow angels. He had her rest her head in the crook of his arm so her head wouldn’t get too cold. Snow fell in drifts on their faces. They both stuck their tongues out, catching the pieces.
Infectious laughter seemed to rise straight to me, collecting in the chambers of my heart. Tears slipped down my cheeks in quiet anguish that was made up of two parts.
