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“Such as?” She teased, trying to lighten the mood.
“Exploring,” he responded in kind. “The whole island was my oyster.”
“It must have been like catnip to a curious kid. I would have loved it.”
“The homestead was hardly small. I imagine you did plenty of exploring of your own?”
“Not as much as you’d think. Not as much as Sophia,” she added. “She was always the adventurer. One time, mom locked us in our bedroom – I can’t even remember what we’d done now. Something she obviously didn’t approve of, though for the life of me, I can’t imagine what. We were pretty good kids. Anyway, she’d locked us in our rooms. I went to the bookshelf and pulled out The Secret Garden – one of my favourites, as a child – and curled up in bed, determined to wait it out. Mom’s tempers never lasted long. But not Sophia! She wasn’t going to be punished for something we hadn’t done – Sophia abhors injustice and always has done. So she climbed out of the windows and onto the roof.”
He laughed. “Seriously?”
“I know, right? That place was three stories off the ground.”
“What did she do up there?”
“She sat there and she stewed and I’m absolutely sure she plotted mom’s demise. And I stood at the window ledge and did everything I could to cajole her in, half-terrified she’d fall to her death and half-terrified mom would come in and find her gone, and not knowing which would be worse…”
She had expected him to laugh, but when she flicked her gaze to him he was watching her intently. “You sound as though you were afraid of her?”
“Mom?” She clarified, lifting a hand and toying with her dark hair. His eyes followed the gesture and after a beat, he nodded.
“I guess you could say I had a healthy degree of respect for her,” Bella agreed, diplomatically.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” he murmured.
“No.” Bella’s lips tugged downwards at the corner. “But I wouldn’t want the same relationship with my child that mom has with me.”
He nodded slowly. “In what way?”
“We’re just very different. And not at all close. Before I found out I was pregnant, I asked her what she wanted to do for Christmas. It’s never been important to her but after daddy died, I always feel like we should do something to mark the occasion. Do you… did you ever see my father at Christmas?” She prompted, stopping walking and looking up at him, her eyes assuming a faraway sheen.
“No,” he shook his head. “I haven’t.”
“He loved it.” Bella sighed. “He was like a child, every December. He’d go out and buy the biggest tree he could find and we’d spend all afternoon decorating it, using heirloom pieces that had been handed down his family. And he’d sing Christmas carols – his voice was so beautiful, like Frank Sinatra, all smooth and jazzy. Sophia and I would give him requests and he’d make up silly words that would have us in fits of giggles. And when we’d finished the tree, we’d sit down and look at the twinkling lights, drinking eggnog and eating brandy biscuits.” She sighed again. “Dad made Christmas so magical. It’s never been the same.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, honestly, and then his hand lifted and his fingertips ran over her cheeks, and he cupped it and without her realizing it, her face leaned into his palm.
“My mom doesn’t share his affinity for all things festive,” she continued. “When I asked about Christmas, she told me she and Lorenzo planned to be somewhere tropical.” Bella laughed, but it was a husky, uneven sound. “It’s typical mom. It doesn’t matter, really. I don’t even know why I’m mentioning it. Only, I never want my child to feel like I don’t want…” her voice was thick with emotion and she had to swallow, to wipe away the tears that were suddenly threatening to cloy at her throat. “Christmas is a time for family,” she said, finally.
He was very quiet, and the longer the silence stretched between them, the more she felt like an idiot. An overly-sentimental fool, for waffling on about the importance of Christmas time and family to a man who had married her just because of the baby she was carrying.
“Your hair used to be blonde.”
She blinked, the observation completely out of left field. She nodded, slowly.
“Why did you colour it?”
“You don’t like it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Were you thinking it?”
His laugh was a harsh sound of impatience. “Believe me to be a man who will always, without fail, say what he truly feels.”
Heat suffused her cheeks.
“I only wonder why you would have darkened your hair.”
