Page 144 of The Final Cut

“Cal loved you,” I say.

Marisol’s fingers twist together. “And I loved him.”

The past tense is a wound. I hear it. She hears it too.

“He is not dead yet.”

“No.” She wipes beneath one eye with her fingertip. “He’s not; you’re right.”

A phone vibrates in her coat pocket. The change is immediate.

Her shoulders go tight. Her face wipes clean. In the space of a breath, Reva’s mother disappears behind the woman Isabel trained to survive being watched. She takes the phone, checks the screen, and stands.

“I have to go before they know I’m gone.”

I step into the aisle. “Will you be safe?”

“No one’s safe.”

“That’s a dodge.”

“It’s the only answer I have.”

I move closer, lowering my voice. “She’s angry now. Reva. Angry enough to burn the whole city down and stubborn enough to bring the matches to do it.” My throat tightens. “But if she loses you twice, it will break something I don’t know how to fix.”

Marisol closes her eyes.

When she opens them, tears shine but don’t fall. “I’ll be okay.”

“That sounds like a lie.”

“It’s a promise to do my best.”

I can accept that because I’ve made worse promises with less truth in them.

She slips the phone into her pocket and looks toward the door, then back at me. “I would like to see them. Both of them. When they’re ready.”

“They decide when that is.”

She gives a short nod. “I understand.”

“I’ll make sure the door exists,” I say. “I won’t shove either one of them through it.”

Her face softens with such raw gratitude that I have to look away for a second.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Delia may throw a knife, and Reva has men who will help her hide the body.”

For the first time, a fragile smile touches her mouth.

Marisol moves past me toward the chapel door. At the threshold, she stops without turning. “Tell Cal I came.”

“I will.”

“And tell him…” Her voice fails. She steadies it. “Tell him I am holding him to his promise.”

Then she leaves.