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A baby of our own again. In good time. When she’s ready.
I tighten my arms around her, careful not to hurt her. Since I slipped into bed next to her, I held onto her as if she’d burst like a bubble and escape my hold, as if she was a fragile glass bauble that would crack under my grip.
There’s a ton of shit between us. I’m not optimistic enough to believe she’ll forgive me. I don’t mind her blame and grudges. I deserve those sentiments. But we are moving on, already carving a new future from the ashes of yesterday, and that’s a lot more than I could’ve hoped for. That’s enough for me, enough to make this work.
Closing my eyes, I tune everything out, all the darkness and pain and bitter regret, and breathe her in. I drag the scent of her cherry blossom shampoo and clean skin into my lungs. She didn’t want me to help her in the shower. I understood she needed to do that alone. So I lurked in the shadows of the bathroom, feeling as if a beast had stuck his claws into my chest and ripped out my heart as I watched her scrub her skin raw. I died again like I did there in the mountains when I took a stranger’s call. Over and over, I die when I relive that scene. I die every time I look at Sabella’s face. I die every time I see her pain. But that’s a good thing. Every time my soul dies, the monster rises a little stronger from death. And that’s what Sabella needs. A monster who’ll slaughter anyone who threatens her. A man who can protect her. A husband worthy of her.
I home in on her, on her even breathing and the warmth of her skin. On the miracle of having her back. Alive.
God.
How easily it could’ve been different. If Sabella wasn’t as strong as she is, I could’ve stood next to her grave this very moment, pressing a kiss on the cold wood of a coffin instead of on her neck. I’ve been so self-absorbed, so consumed with my hatred and vengeance that I couldn’t see the truth even if it stared me right in the face.
I would never have been able to banish her to a corner of the graveyard to rest there on her own. I’d sooner climb into that coffin with her and kill myself, because God knows, I can’t bear the thought of being separated from her. Not in life. Not in death. Not fucking ever. The bonds that tie us are too strong. Our bond was cast with tears and blood and sealed with hatred. It was nurtured with obsession and flogged with love. Those bonds are the strongest. The bonds forged in fire are unbreakable. It binds souls for eternity. It carves a single destiny into two hearts. I’ve been running in circles, going nowhere, but my path brought me back to where I was always supposed to be. Back to the beginning. To her.
She’s my destiny.
Sabella stirs. She exhales laboriously. The tightening of her muscles tells me she’s back in that dark place in her dreams. When she starts fighting my hold, I loosen my arms lest I injure her.
“Cara.” I kiss her temple. “Wake up. You’re safe. You’re here with me.”
She stills. Goes quiet. Her body turns slack.
I whisper a promise in her hair. “It’ll get better.”
It’s all I have to give her, all I can offer. A dead man’s hand on a sparkling bed of crushed ice. A feeble promise.
Fuck.
I wish I could take this away for her.
She turns and winces. “It was just a dream.”
For her benefit, I smile. “I know.”
Lifting her hand, she cups my cheek as she looks deep into my eyes. “Do you dream?”
Like this? “No.”
Her reply is wistful. “I wish I was more like you.”
I take her wrist and kiss her palm. “You don’t want to be me. You’re perfect.”
A war rages in her eyes. “Am I?”
I know what the life I dragged her into did to her. I know what bothers her. “You’ll always be perfect to me.”
“No matter how I change?”
“No matter how you grow,” I agree.
The answer seems to appease her. She relaxes, her body sinking deeper into the mattress.
The house is still quiet. We have precious little time. Soon, it will be filled with the voices of the children and the preparation for school with Heidi rushing everyone to have breakfast and to get dressed. Yet I don’t resent it. I love it. It’s what I wanted—to fill this old house with the voices of living people again. It’s a gift Sabella gave me for which I’ll always be grateful. I built the new house for my mother, but it was a gift of brick and mortar. Sabella is the one who gave my mother her family back. I think my mother is very pleased as she looks down on us. At peace. That’s why I told Heidi to open all the rooms and air them in preparation for the visit. It’s time to let the ghosts out and to welcome the living.
“Angelo?” Sabella says, sounding uncertain. “What are you thinking? You look far away.”
The sound of my name on her lips tears through me with the force of a grenade. I never knew that joy and pain went hand in hand, that the greatest joy hurt with the deepest pain.
