But I will tell you what I told your brother once, and what I wish someone had told me before I lost Paulette.Miguel's voice was even, but beneath it was the bedrock of a man who had buried a wife and rebuilt a life and nearly lost his son to the same grief that had nearly destroyed him.Do not wait until she is gone to understand what you have.
Olivio looked through the glass, toward the dining room where Chelsea was laughing at something Sienah had said, her chin in her hand, her whole face open and unguarded in the way it was when she forgot anyone was watching.
Which was always.
I appreciate the concern, Father.
It is not concern.Miguel's dark eyes gleamed with something that was warm and knowing and, beneath it, the faintest edge of the old authority he had learned to hold in check.It is experience.
He took his glass and returned to the table, and Olivio stood at the bar alone for a moment, his father's words settling over him like something he would need to carry whether he wanted to or not.
Aivan had found him on the balcony.
He'd gone out for air he didn't need, because what he needed was two minutes without Chelsea in his eyeline so he could think without the thinking being contaminated by the fact of her. The city spread below, all glass and distance and cold certainty, and he'd put his hands on the railing and breathed.
His brother had come to stand beside him with the quiet of a man whose body had survived four hundred kilometers per hour and had opinions about how to wait.
What's wrong?
Nothing is wrong.
A pause. Aivan looked through the glass, toward the dining table where Chelsea was covering her mouth with both hands at something Shayla had said, her whole body shaking with a laughter so uncontained it was visible even through the glass. Which was always.
Nothing is wrong,Olivio said again, hearing himself,and that is not a problem.
You've been watching her all night.
She's my wife.
You've been watching her like you're afraid she's going to disappear.
He had no answer for that. He watched the city instead.
I destroyed everything,Aivan said. Not as confession. Aivan had done his confessing, and the patience of Sienah Posada had survived it, and his brother wore that survival the way he wore everything now: simply, without looking away from it.Do you remember what I told you, when Sienah finally left?
I remember.
You told me I was a fool who had been handed something extraordinary and had spent a decade treating it like furniture.
That is what happened.
Yes.Aivan turned to look at him.You look at her like a man who can't breathe without her.
The words sat between them.
And it terrifies you,his brother said.So you're already building the door.
I don't know what you're talking about.
I invented what I'm talking about.No sympathy in his voice. Just the flat certainty of a man reading a map he'd already walked, backwards, in the dark.I spent ten years with one foot out the door while my wife broke herself trying to keep me in the room. She kept trying.A pause.Don't make her keep trying.
I am not you.
Aivan was quiet for a moment. Inside, through the glass, Miguel had said something that made Chelsea cover her mouth with both hands, her whole body shaking with laughter, and the sight of it hit Olivio below the sternum with a force entirely inconsistent with the distance.
No,Aivan said.You're worse.He adjusted his cuff with the unconscious economy of a man who noticed everything and showed nothing.I was cruel because I didn't understand what I had. You understand exactly what you have. And you are going to ruin it anyway, because knowing frightens you more than not knowing ever frightened me.
Adriano's voice carried from inside, calling them back.
