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“Ivy.”
“Baby,” I croak, my voice sounding broken and foreign.
“Our little girl is right there,” he says, pointing at a small bassinette I can just make out the outline of in the dark corner. “She’s okay. Healthy and beautiful and perfect.”
I try to nod but only manage a small one. I wonder if he sees it.
“How long?”
As I ask the question, I start to remember. We were at my father’s funeral. But that’s not possible. I heard him. I swear I heard him. Was I dreaming?
“A few months.”
Months?
“Three, to be exact,” he says as if he hears my confusion.
Three months? I’ve lost three months?
I see the nervous girl who handed me Abel’s letter. I see his words again, his threats. See Hazel and Michael’s terrified faces in the back of that car. And then out in the parking lot. Abel trying to get me into the car. Santiago speeding toward us. And Abel driving toward me…
“Shh.” Santiago coaxes when the beeping sound picks up as my anxiety does. “You’re safe. Our baby is safe. Your father and Eva are safe. Hazel and Michael and everyone you care about are safe.”
He touches my cheek, and I put my hand over his as he wipes a tear away with his thumb and then gets up, moves the blankets, and very carefully nudges me over a little, just enough that he can lie on the bed beside me. This is better, I think. Much better. Now we’re face-to-face on the same pillow, and he’s warm and solid. His arm is around me, and I can feel his heartbeat under my hand before I move it to touch his face, to trace the lines of his mouth, the ink of his tattoo.
“I am sorry,” he says after a very long time. He brings his mouth to my forehead and kisses it, one big hand never leaving my cheek. “I am sorry for everything that’s happened to you because of me.”
“No.” It’s another croak. My throat almost hurts with the effort.
“Shh. Just rest.”
Again, I try to nod. Again, I’m not sure I succeed.
“I love you, Ivy. I know that now. I’ve known it on some level for a while, I think. Or at least I’ve felt it even if I couldn’t or wouldn’t put words to it. I love you.”
I smile, open my mouth to tell him I love him, too, but he puts a finger to my lips when I try but struggle to form the words.
“I know, angel. Shh. You deserve so much better than me, but you’re stuck with me because I can’t be without you again. I can’t live without you, Ivy. I won’t.” His voice breaks. He kisses my mouth, and I close my eyes. It’s a chaste kiss. Lips touching lips. And my heart flutters at the sensation. At this thing I have missed. Santiago kissing me. Santiago holding me. I missed it. Even as I have lain here these months—months—in this strange sleep, I have missed him.
“And I will do right by you. I will make you happy. I will be worthy of you. Of your love. I swear it. I swear it on my life, my angel.”
40
Ivy
Several weeks pass before I am released from the hospital, and Santiago helps settle me in the wheelchair I must be rolled out in before setting our little bundle in my arms.
Elena De La Rosa. I chose it because it means bright, shining light. That’s what she is for me. For us.
Santiago has yet to decide on her middle name, but she’s gone without a first name for the first weeks of her life, so this is a start. He apparently refused to choose a name without me.
He closes one hand over my shoulder and squeezes as he leans close to kiss my cheek. “Are you sure she’s not too heavy?”
“I’m sure,” I tell him. “She barely weighs nine pounds.”
“All right. If she gets too heavy—”
“I know. I’ll tell you.”
He nods, runs a knuckle over Elena’s cheek as she smiles up at us before closing her eyes and nuzzling into her blanket.
I’ve been in a coma for three months. Elena somehow survived the accident. No. Not accident. It makes me sick to think of it. Of Abel, my own brother, willing to run me down to wound Santiago.
I wipe my eye, and Santiago squeezes my shoulder again.
In those months, Elena grew strong inside me for as long as she could or as long as my body could manage it. She was early but not so early that she couldn’t survive.
Eva showed me all the videos she’d made of Elena moving in my belly while I lay still. It’s eerie to see it, see myself like that, see my stomach move with this human being inside it. And I have decided in the weeks that I’ve been back that Eva’s a lot like my husband. Obsessive and a little crazy in the best way.
