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She was losing parts of herself. Every miscarriage robbed her of something.
I worried that, one day, she’d have no more parts left to give.
“Are you sure you want to be alone right now?”
My eyes flicker open as the rest of the memory hacks its way into my subconsciousness. I can see Rose standing in front of my bed, her jaw made of granite and her expression made of steel as she snapped at me, “Yes, I want to be alone. I just said I wanted to be alone. Jesus Christ, Wren—we can’t be joined at the hip our entire lives. I’m married. I have my own family. It’s time you found yours and let me live my life in peace!”
There’s nothing like a long-repressed, traumatic memory to wake you up at night. Personally, I’d have preferred a bucket of ice-cold water.
I blink a couple of times and run my hands over my face, just to make sure I’m really awake. As sleep starts to fade, the memory becomes clearer, undeniable.
Yes, it really happened.
Yes, Rose had really said that to me.
And yes, it really fucking hurt.
“Call me if you need anything.” That’s all I said before I left her that night.
I cried as I walked back to my apartment, which happened to be only a stone’s throw away. For the first time ever, I felt embarrassed by that. Can’t be joined at the hip our entire lives.
“God,” I whisper into my palms. It hurts like it just happened.
I never understood why she said what she’d said to me that night. Especially because she called two days later and asked me out to lunch. She sounded like her old self when she told me she missed me and she’d been craving sushi and that she was buying.
Except the lunch never happened.
Because the next time I saw Rose, she was lying on a metal tray like a slab of meat with a sterile blue cloth covering the length of her body. I was told I couldn’t actually see her—the body was unrecognizable, anyway.
That was what the graying, middle-aged cop said as he explained what had happened. “Fire, you know. Car went boom.” He was nice, sympathetic; he took his time when he broke the news to me. I guess I was just distracted by the fact that he looked a little like my dad. Or at least, what my dad looked like fifteen years ago.
Thud.
Bang.
I drop my hands from my face as I jerk in place and raise my eyes to the ceiling. There’s no chance that Dmitri’s construction crew are still up there working. What would be the point of getting them to work through the night?
Thud. Bang.
Dust falls from the rafters, shaken loose by either ghosts or contractors punching in some extreme overtime.
“Ghosts,” I whisper decisively to myself. “The lack of sleep is getting to you.”
I force myself out of bed, my mind still throwing up possibilities like darts at a dartboard. Maybe Dmitri has a woman up there. Maybe he met someone while I was in captivity. Maybe he moved her in there and he just didn’t want to tell me yet.
Every suggestion makes my stomach churn harder.
I shuffle to the door in the corner. It’s supposed to connect straight to the nursery. I’ve never used it before—but then, I’ve never needed to. Right now feels like as good a time as any. Witching hours are good for doing things you’d never do in the light of day.
The door is huge and bulky, but it barely makes a sound when I shove it open. That was probably Dmitri’s doing. I can see him standing over some hapless construction worker, supervising application of oil to the joints.
I don’t want it to make a fucking sound, he’d snarl. If it wakes up my family even once, I’ll know who to blame.
Speaking of Dmitri…
To my surprise, he’s here. He’s standing at the opposite corner of the nursery with his back to me, wearing black briefs that cling to his sculpted ass and nothing else. The moonlight makes his skin glow silver.
It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust, but when they do, I see that he’s painting. It’s the color we chose yesterday from a catalog. Azure blue for the back wall, because I wanted my baby to be surrounded by nature’s colors. He’d told me that he’d get a team in to paint the wall as soon as he could.
