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When he does, Isabella wholeheartedly laughs.
I have missed that sound these past couple of days.
Isabella gives Andres a hearty hug before stretching up onto her toes to kiss his jaw, “Thank you.”
Not knowing how to respond, he dips his head.
Holding Isabella’s small hand in mine, I lead her down the hallway toward the master bedroom. Closing the door, I head to the bathroom and turn on the shower.
“Make sure it’s hot,” she calls from the doorway, and I smile back at her.
She pulls off my shirt and steps into the shower as I rest against the counter.
“Are you going to stand out there and gawk at me,” she eyes me through the glass, “or are you going to come help me wash the blood out of my hair?”
Removing my boots and pants, I step into the shower with her, and she immediately wraps her arms around me. Holding her, I delicately wash her hair and carefully clean her bruised body.
As I do, she tells me everything she remembers about the time Eduardo held her captive. When I bend to wash her stomach, I notice the bruise running across it.
“He kicked me,” she swallows hard as I stand to hug her tightly.
“It’s early,” I hold her against me under the spray of the water, “I’m sure everything is fine.”
I feel her nod her head against my chest.
“I’ll get the hospital to send over a doctor, just to be sure,” I squeeze her tighter, “Okay?”
“Yes,” she nods her head faster, “Please.”
Stepping from the shower, I grab a towel and wrap it around my waist, leaving Isabella in the shower as I go to grab my phone.
Within the hour, the local hospital has a doctor at our villa with a portable ultrasound machine. Sitting on the bed next to Isabella, I hold her hand, both of us waiting impatiently for the doctor to get started.
He squeezes a cold gel onto her stomach and smears it around with the ultrasound probe. Moving it around, he looks at Isabella, “How far along are you?”
“About ten weeks?”
Continuing to move the probe around her stomach, he eventually stops and presses a button on the machine. The rapid sound of the baby’s heartbeat fills the room.
“Everything looks perfectly fine,” the doctor responds, before turning off the machine and wiping the gel from her stomach.
He looks her over a little more and let us know that the bruises and cuts on her face appear to be superficial. It doesn’t look as though anything is broken and she should be pretty healed up physically in about a week, but mentally it might take a little longer.
* * *
Figuring there was no better place to recuperate than in paradise, I forced Isabella to stay in Mexico for the week.
Her face still has some remnants of the bruises from Eduardo, but he didn’t manage to affect her smile at all. I’ve seen it plenty this week, most of all when I agreed to her request.
“Really?” She seems almost giddy, “Considering what happened to you there too, I didn’t know if you would go for it.”
“Absolutely, yes.”
“I was lucky enough that you and Andres got to me in time, but that isn’t the case for so many other women and children. I was reading and it affects almost five million women a year.”
“I think it’s an amazing idea,cerecita.”
“A shelter for women and children affected by sex trafficking. Where they can heal. Where they can help each other.”
