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I turn my gaze back up to the mirror, brush the hair back from the stenciled side of my face and touch the single dot of black ink high on my cheekbone. I won’t be able to wash that off. And I’m glad.
But there are other, more pressing matters to consider now. I don’t have the luxury of time to ruminate. To romanticize. Maybe that’s a gift. A smack to the back of my head to remind me where I am. Who I am dealing with. And I don’t only mean my husband.
I scrub my face and return to my bedroom, to the window. The boards have been removed. Doctor’s orders. I need sunlight. I push the curtain back and look out into the distance, to the still dark night. I don’t have much time.
My bedroom door isn’t locked but I’ve been waiting until I’m sure Antonia and the others have gone to bed.
Mercedes is gone. I overheard Antonia telling Santiago that Mercedes would be spending the night with a friend. Santiago seemed less than pleased when he found out which friend even though Antonia made a point of the fact that it’s a female friend. I guess the same rules apply to Mercedes even considering her rank. She needs to remain a virgin until marriage.
Santiago has been gone since walking me back to my room hours ago. Whatever called him away seemed somewhat urgent or at least important enough to distract him. I wonder if it has to do with the calls he kept dismissing when we were talking in his bedroom.
But now that I’m sure I’m alone, I walk out into the hallway and down the stairs. I need to find a phone. I need to call Abel. Because when that doctor examines me tomorrow—today—if he were to take a blood test or look for any abnormality in my hormone levels, he will figure out why I’m not getting pregnant.
I can’t think about what Santiago will do then.
Could I tell him the truth? He wouldn’t be angry with me then. He couldn’t be. Well, he could. I knew even if it was after the fact. But what would he do to Abel?
I’m barefoot and dressed in a bikini with a plush robe on top. My closet has been unlocked. If anyone happens to come upon me, I will let them know I am going to use the pool. Again, doctor’s orders.
The first place I go to search is the kitchen hoping one of the housekeepers left their cell phone there. I’ve seen them use their phones around the house, both the ones who live on-site and the others.
The lamp over the stove is on and between that and the filtered light coming in through the large window from the garden I go through each of the drawers, check every possible place but find nothing. I go into the living room. Check there. I never searched for one before, so it’s possible there’s a landline I just haven’t come across. I look in the armoire, the drawers of the antique side tables, pause to take in the ornate gilded piano that I’ve never heard anyone play.
I leave that room behind, my gaze moving toward the corridor that leads to the library, to his study. I hadn’t seen a phone there and if he catches me in there again, he’ll kill me. I search the other downstairs rooms and the dining room, the smaller sitting room and the large one I had been in with the doctor but find nothing.
I walk back into the center of the large hall and turn a circle to see if there is any place I’ve missed. The bedrooms upstairs are locked and if any are open, they’re not in use. I went through every unlocked room when I first had permission to roam.
I walk into the dining room and remember the night we ate in here. I stand at the window in exactly the place he’d stood, where he’d looked so solemn, so lost in thought staring out into the garden. I wonder now if it was his own reflection he had been studying in the glass and not the garden at all.
Walking to the liquor cabinet, I open the doors and move bottles around, not even sure what I’m hoping to find anymore. When I see his brand of scotch, I open it, sniff the contents. This scent lingers in his office, too.
I put it back then bend to open the drawer.
“What are you doing?”
I jump hitting my head on the shelf above before straightening and spinning to face Santiago. How did I not hear him?
“I…nothing.” I close the drawer then the doors of the cabinet before hiding my hands behind my back as if to hide my guilt. I struggle to hold his gaze.
