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My hand rests on the curve of her belly, and beneath my palm, I sense a flutter, faint as a moth’s wing and gone before I’m sure it was real.
“Did you feel that?” She keeps her tone so soft, it’s barely audible.
“Yeah.” My throat closes around the word. “I did.”
We watch the light dance across the water in slow, rippling patterns, and neither of us says anything more. Nothing to say that the flutter hasn’t already said.
Instead, she makes a request. “Sing to me. I heard some sweet tunes coming from you this morning, before the sun came up.” She winks. “You thought I was asleep, didn’t you?”
I laugh, and an embarrassed heat creeps up my neck. “I’m not a singer, woman.”
“Please.” She stares at me while fluttering her lashes and biting her lower lip. “I want to hear you and remember this.”
I could never say no to that face.
I clear my throat and start singing an old Italian tune my father used to hum when he thought no one was listening. The words are rusty in my mouth, and the melody is imperfect, but she’s regarding me like I’m precious. By the time I reach the last verse, her eyes are closed, her breathing is even, and her hand is curled over my heart like she’s holding it steady.
We stay like this in the quiet of the Italian morning and fantasize about the life ahead of us. Our daughter will have my stubbornness and her mother’s courage and will grow up knowing she’s loved. Lucia’s clinic will heal the wounds our world has inflicted, and my gym will teach children that there’s another way to be strong and become a good adult.
When she wakes hours later, the light has moved. The evening sun warms the terrace, casting the space in deep gold. I’m still watching her.
“What?” she asks in her beautiful, sleep-rough state, her hair tangled across the pillow.
“Nothing.” I pull her close and kiss her forehead. “I’m just thinking about the future.”
She smiles against my chest, and the warmth of it spreads through my whole body. “A good future?”
“The best.” I gaze out at the sea. The sun is setting over water that’s been here since the planet coalesced and took form. The woman who saved me is by my side, carrying the child we’re bringing into the world. “We’ll have the best future I could have ever imagined. The one I never let myself want.”
She falls asleep again, her body molding to mine. I stare at the stars as they come out one by one and ponder the life I’ve been given.
This is another chance for a family. A reason to be good.
When she stirs and reaches for me, I vow to always be here.
Chapter 39
Lucia
Seven months later
The old brick building that houses the Santori Community Center sits proudly on the corner of a block that’s been fighting gentrification for fifteen years. Just down the street, there’s a Dominican hair salon next to a new coffee shop with a fourteen-dollar latte. The church on the south end has been around since 1897, but the mural on the east wall was painted by community kids in 2019.
I love how our center now appears as though it’s always belonged here, as if the bones of this place were waiting for us to find them.
I stand at the entrance, nine months pregnant, one hand pressed to my lower back where the ache has become permanent as the other waves at the crowd gathered to celebrate. The afternoon sun catches the gold lettering of the new sign above the doors, which glitters against the brick.
Somewhere behind me, Marco, a man trained to handle violence yet utterly unsure what to do with impending fatherhood, hovers.
“You should be sitting down.” His tone is low and urgent, the same one he uses when talking someone out of a reckless decision. “You’ve been on your feet for hours. Your doctor said you should rest.”
“I’m fine.” I lean into him and let him take some of my weight. He wraps his arm around my waist automatically. “I’m not missing the opening of our center just because my husband is being overprotective. I didn’t leave Ashford and convince Jenna to come with me just to observe from a window.”
“Overprotective is a strong word. I’m showing an appropriate level of concern.” He shifts, his hand traveling to the small of my back, his palm warm through the thin cotton of my dress. “There’s a significant difference.”
I laugh at his minor panic. “Is there? You’ve been hovering since we got here. Jenna asked if you’d been surgically attached.”
“Lucia.” When he catches my chin and tilts my face up to his, I glimpse the fear living underneath the calm. It’s the same fear that’s been in his eyes since we found out about Elena. “You’re supposed to be resting. The baby could come any day. Any minute! And you’re moving around!”
