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Santos
I don’t get much sleep after that and morning comes too soon, bringing with it a headache of my own. I clean up the mess she made of my room, irritated that the kitchen staff had sent up the bottle of wine when I’d only ordered the meal but let it go. I’ll just be sure to be more specific next time.
I noticed when getting dressed this morning that she’d also been through the closet. I double check that the locked box I keep in a drawer hasn’t been disturbed. Taking the key out of its hiding place in one of the cabinets, I unlock the drawer and open it. The bundle of Madelena’s sketches from her time in college are on top, including the one I took from her wall. I wonder if she ever noticed it was gone.
Beneath them are Alexia’s letters, and at the bottom of that stack is the little folder. My smile fades as I pick it up and open it. Inside is a photograph of Alexia and me. We had just left the doctor’s office, and she’d wanted to snap the selfie. It’s the last photo of her alive. On the opposite side, tucked into the little flap, is a sonogram image. The baby was almost eight weeks old. Our baby.
There were a series of images as the technician took various measurements. I shouldn’t have let her take them home. If I hadn’t let her take them, her father wouldn’t have found them. But she’d insisted, although she’d promised she’d wait to tell him when I was with her. I knew how he could get, especially if he’d had a few drinks in him. But he must have found them and confronted her.
I was at home when she was killed. I’d told Caius about the surprise pregnancy, about our intention to get married. He’d been supportive, if cautious. I’d been naïve. Stupid, actually. Neither her father nor mine would have let us marry. Hers for who I was; mine for who she wasn’t. I think my father’s plans for me were cemented years before I heard the first whisper about them.
I’d gone up to bed after my talk with Caius, after deciding to go to her the next day. But the next day was too late for Alexia and our baby. She’d been killed long before I got there.
I force a deep breath in then out. Putting everything back into the box, I lock it and set it back into the drawer. Now isn’t the time to think about Alexia, about the accidental baby that never had a chance to live. Because that story leads to an even darker one—to the reason my body is carved up the way it is.
Because irony of ironies, what I did after Alexia’s murder was what led to the years I spent doing the Commander’s bidding, and those were the very same events that eventually led us Augustines climb to the top of the food chain.
I need to focus on the next few days now. The next few days with my wife.
Last night’s storm has passed, and the sun is breaking the horizon. I go to the window to watch it rise. It is magnificent.
After a shower, I go into the kitchen, where coffee has already been made and breakfast has been set up on the bar, buffet style. I don’t know what she likes just yet, so I’ve arranged to have some of everything.
I pour two mugs of coffee and head to her bedroom. Val has been relieved by another soldier, whom I recognize although I can’t remember his name.
“Morning,” I say in greeting, to which he nods and opens the door. Madelena is already up and fresh from a shower. She has a towel wrapped around herself, and her hair is twisted into a bun at the top of her head. She’s standing at the unmade bed where the contents of her bag have been dumped and she’s searching inside it. She’s so focused on her task that she barely spares me a glance. I have a feeling I know exactly what she’s looking for.
I set her coffee mug down on the dresser and reach into my pocket.
“I’m guessing you’re looking for this?” I ask, taking out one of the three containers of birth control pills my mother had confiscated.
She looks at the little plastic blue compact then up at me. Her mouth opens, but before saying anything, she closes the space between us and tries to grab them out of my hand.
“Give those to me!” she demands.
“Patience. I didn’t come here for a fight.”
“Where are the others? I had three months’ worth. How dare you go through my things?”
“Sit.”
“Get a dog.”
“Don’t you remember? I prefer little kitties.”
“This isn’t funny.” She bites her lip, eyeing the pills. She looks more worried than angry. I get it. “Give those back, please.”
“Better.” I hold out the pills.
She snatches them. “The rest?”
“You get one month.”
“What?” she asks, panicked.
I decide I’m not having this conversation now. “I don’t know the doctor who prescribed those. Once you finish this cycle, we’ll arrange for the next one.” It’s not quite a lie.
She studies me, opens the little compact, and inspects it before popping the next pill in the rotation into her mouth and swallowing it dry.
