“Perhaps I should lay off the baked cheese crackers you bought me. They’re full of preservatives,” she joked, but her breathing had picked up, and her heart was beating hard against mine. Her nails clung to my skin, biting flesh with a desperation of a woman slipping off some slippery slope, me the rock she needed to keep from pummeling.
“No,” I said, resting my forehead against hers. “It’s something more. Something internal.”
“Oh.” She breathed in and then released it in a soft sigh.
Opening my eyes, I met her direct gaze, and she kissed my nose.
“This is—this is the first time you’ve really looked at me since…”
“I—”
“Don’t say it. You don’t have to.”
“I want to. It bleeds me dry to see—” I came down and kissed the cut he’d made on her delicate skin, feeling the cold fire of it as if it were my own.
A silent roar echoed inside of my mind. She gasped but tried to hide it. I hadn’t meant to, but I had squeezed her. She breathed more easily when I loosened my hold.
“Tell me,” I barely got out. “Tell me I’m not going to lose you, or this,ours.Nostro.” Opening my palm, I laid it flat against her womb, wishing I could feel the heartbeat of my son through the thin veil of her skin, somehow making him stay with will alone.
“Look at me,” she said in Italian, her voice full of conviction. “You’re not losing either of us. He’s a part of you too. Keep your hand close, let him feel you too. He’ll stay. I won’t lose him, and I won’t lose you either.”
I hadn’t even realized my eyes were closed, or that she’d placed her hand over mine, pressing even harder.
“Tell me,” I demanded, my voice bloodied but fierce in its reflected battle.
“You want surety,” she said, almost to herself. “Do you have faith in me,mio angelo?”
“All of what is mine to give.”The words slipped out, but the truth was ready on my tongue.
There were times she couldn’t grip whatever was going on. Couldn’t predict her own outcome. She didn’t have a clue what was going to happen this time, but even though the doctor gave her the odds, she refused to believe them. Instead, she chose to have faith in whatever promise was made to her that cold morning in church.
She nodded, kissing my eyes. “I have faith too. Believe in me, if you believe in nothing else,mio angelo.Use me tofind your way back. Once you do, hold on. All is well. Rest yourself.”
I fell asleep holding on to her.
* * *
I hadn’t been in the deep realm of sleep since Switzerland. In her arms, I fell into an oblivion too dark for me to even conquer.
Somewhere in the conscious part of my mind, I knew that I was submerged in a dream but couldn’t reach the surface to save myself.
Every limb felt like it was submerged in water as thick as quicksand, the sediment itself invading blood and bone, and somewhere in the darkness, a heart beat in a deep, slow cadence.
The beat of a drummer whose arm had grown tired and was lost somewhere deep inside of a cave rising with water.
It was faint, but there.
There was something else in the darkness with me. Something apart from the drummer. This thing seemed to breathe in cool, even breaths.
Then it was on me, without so much as a sound, powerful enough to make me gasp, like I’d gone under for too long and hadn’t resurfaced long enough to take in a breath.
We grappled; the thing was slippery and slick, as cold as its breath.
It was trying to kill me.
In the strange fucking timing of dreams, I had no idea how long the battle raged on, only that it came down to me, it, me, and then it again.
We struggled for power. It was one of the most consuming fights of my life.
