His eyes search my face, wild and desperate. “Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“Promiseme, Mina. Stay.”
“I promise.”
My breath catches as I realize what I’m saying. How he might be interpreting my words. I quickly reframe my promise.
“I promise I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Some of the tension drains out of him. His grip on my hand loosens slightly, though he doesn’t let go.
“Okay,” he mumbles. “You promised.”
His eyes close. For a moment I think he’s drifted off again, but then his lips move.
“Love you.”
The words are barely a breath. I’m not even sure he knows he said them.
But I heard.
My head drops onto our intertwined hands. I should correct him and make it clear that I’m grateful for what he’s doing, but this doesn’t mean what he thinks it means, that we’re not—that I’m not—
But there’s a warmth spreading through my chest that has nothing to do with the relief that he made it through the surgery. His hand in mine. His barely conscious confession. The way he fought through the haze of morphine just to make sure I wouldn’t be alone.
“Rest now. I’ll be here.”
He sleeps, and I don’t let go of his hand.
The minutes stretch into hours. Cristiano drifts in and out, sometimes murmuring things that don’t make sense, sometimes surfacing enough to ask about Leon. Each time I tell him the same thing. Leon’s still in surgery, it’s going well, there are no complications.
Each time, he nods and slips back under.
Mom brings me water. Adora brings me a sandwich I can’t eat. They talk quietly in the corner, leaving me in my vigil at Cristiano’s bedside.
I watch his face in the gray afternoon light. The sharp lines of his jaw. The lashes against his pale skin. The slight furrow between his brows, even in sleep.
He did this for Leon.
The thought keeps circling back, impossible to escape. This man I’ve spent five years running from, and telling myself he was too dangerous to let near my son, just let surgeons cut out a piece of his liver to save Leon’s life. He didn’t think twice about it.
I think about what he asked, for me and Leon to come to the mansion after they’re discharged. To comehome.
I close my eyes and let myself imagine it. Just for a moment. Leon in the beautiful garden I’ve always loved, chasing butterflies. Leon in the big kitchen, sitting at the counter while Mom makes him hot chocolate. Leon curled up in Cristiano’s lap in front of a fire, being read a bedtime story, his small head tucked under his father’s chin.
Home.
Not a place.
A feeling.
Could we be a family?
The thought is terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure. The idea of sharing the weight of being a parent, of having someone beside me and Leon having a father, seems like a wonderful dream.
But Leon is still in surgery. The fantasy dissolves and cold fear rushes back in. Six hours now. Nearly seven. The nurse said recipient surgeries take longer, but how much longer? How much more can I take?
