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“I’m sorry—”
“It’s okay. Really. If you need permission to accept your husband’s demand on it—you have it. Will they feel like you lied to them? Yeah. Will they resent you for it? Probably. Or maybe they won’t. There’s no telling. I know my stepmom loves me. I also know I’ve hurt her because of my own inner fight with this. I can say I’m sorry a thousand times. Those apologies never really take away the pain. You don’t realize when you hurt someone you love that you hurt too. I’m sorry if I made your decision harder.” The pain she feels is in every word.
I don’t want my kids to feel her pain. “You didn’t. You made it clearer. Thank you. And I’m sorry if I brought up a lot of pain.”
“I’m glad if my trauma can help somebody else, I’m all for it. And Nicolette?”
“Yes?”
Her laugh is soft. “You calling me and asking me this, this is a call a mom makes. A mom who cares more about their child than themselves. You are their real mom.”
* * *
Nicolette
On day four, Elias finally stops fussing and lets me hold him—when I’m feeding him. Luisa bites me when I try to kiss her at bedtime.
On day five, one of the guys doing the updates accidentally breaks the hot water heater. Since the house was built in the last five years, it has a new type of system—only heating water when needed. None of the other houses have a system they can use in our house so we’re moved to Joe’s house.
On day six when I sit down for dinner, I’m handed my mother’s phone. There is a small, polite notification in a respected French news website of the death and funeral of Christabel Rodriguez. Manuel’s mother was buried in Paris…this morning?
Her hands are spread wide. “How can this be? Why was she not buried here? Why are you not there? Have you spoken to him at all?”
I shake my head. My hand goes to my twisting stomach. “I haven’t talked to him since the plane.”
“Why not?”
How can I explain I felt like I was bothering him by calling him? I had no idea what to say to him other than to beg him to come home because I missed him so much I physically ached. Helplessly, I shrug.
Rolling her eyes, she presses a few buttons on her phone. “I’m calling him.” I try to grab her phone. Shaking her head, she gets up. “Manuel, where are you? When are you coming home?” A pause as he tells her. “Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean and tonight. Okay, good. See you tonight. Did you want to talk to Nicolette? No? Okay.”
He didn’t want to talk to me? He’s coming home tonight? I check the time—almost eight o’clock in the evening. A quick search has me guessing another few hours. I’m not able to eat much or focus before I run upstairs to get ready as unease fills me at him not wanting to talk to me.
Entering his childhood bedroom, our room, I’m once again struck by it. It’s nothing how I imagined. At the end of a long hall, it runs from one corner of the home to the next. I’m positive it’s larger than a studio apartment. It could be an apartment with a small half-fridge, a wine fridge fully stocked, and a coffee station complete with a sink. He’s old-school for coffee, using the method of pouring boiling water over the coffee and a filter.
His room at home is pretty but bland. It feels like a hotel room. A lot of beige, and white walls. Clearly interior decorated with, I’m guessing, Blanca’s input—since this room looks nothing like it. I was relieved when Catherine said Manuel wanted me to make his room in our home into ours. Blanca’s room could be whatever I wanted, we would be sharing a room.
If this were our room, I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m surprised by how updated it is. Catherine explains there was a small fire in the room. Manuel fell asleep while reading and smoking a cigar. It wasn’t a bad fire, but enough he decided to gut it.
When we talked about ourselves on the plane, wrapped up in each other, he mentioned he read a lot as a way of learning about the emotions he couldn’t feel. We shared a long list of favorite writers. Yet somehow I’d missed just how much he loved them. Bookshelves line every spare real estate on three walls in the room.
The feeling here isn’t hotel room, it’s more of a mix of an English and Parisian study. A long, oversized rolled arm sofa fills the room with the scent of old leather. It sits on a Persian run I have no doubt costs more than a kidney on the black market. Beside it is an oversized silk wingback chair in a deep blue. Between the sofa and chair is a corner table with a lamp and a stack of books. In front of the sofa is a long leather ottoman used as a coffee table.
In our home, the place could be picked up from a home in Italy with terrazzo flooring that while nice and cool in the heat of the summer wasn’t the most forgiving. I’ve gone through five carpets to soften the room and haven’t found one I like. Here, it’s a home from Paris with parquet flooring throughout.
While browns dominate the room with the leather of the sofa, bound books, and bookshelves, pops of color in gold, red, and blue are everywhere. Peeking out among the shelves and stunning art on the walls is a deep ocean blue. Only three pieces of art are on the one lone wall not covered by books — in between massive floor to ceiling windows.
I’m not an art girlie. I’ve spent a few field trips and one date in the Art Institute of Chicago. While I didn’t hate it, art isn’t my thing. Yet, I could name every artist on the wall and the names of two of the paintings themselves. There’s no doubt they’re real, considering each of them is contained in a glass case. Richer than god.
The day we arrived, I called the designer doing our new room and told her I had changes to make. She came into this room so she could see how I wanted to incorporate some of the elements.
Luckily, it isn’t a drastic change. I brought many of the things I was familiar with from the home I grew up in. What I wanted—but didn’t bring because they were my father’s things—I bought. The homes were pure 1920s Chicago design, which stole many of the elements of style from English drawing rooms.
I went a little more feminine though with dusky pinks instead of red, sky blue rather than ocean blue, and I go with Hunter green to ground the room. I’m grateful Manuel told Catherine I had free rein over the design of our space. At the same time, our tastes are similar I would have happily lived in a room just like this one.
As I undress to take a long soak, I can’t take my eyes off the bed. The bed is a four-poster fit for a king. It’s felt so empty and made me miss Manuel even more. I sigh in relief that he’ll be home soon.
Only Manuel doesn’t come home in a few hours. In fact, he still isn’t home when I fall asleep, unable to keep my eyes open, around midnight.
