The rest of the week somehow passes. Santiago is absent from the house. I don’t know where he is. Not in his office. Not home for dinner. And definitely not sleeping in our bed. Eva has noticed his absence too but is careful what she says. I get the feeling she can see I’m upset. But today is the day Santiago or Marco take me to see my father. It’s always either one of them, never anyone else.
Eva is at school and I am dressed and waiting and both relieved and disappointed when Marco comes around the corner at exactly ten o’clock, keys in hand.
“Ready?” he asks.
I nod, my heart in my throat. I was hoping it would be Santiago. But this is okay, isn’t it? Because after the other morning, a part of me thought he’d maybe go through with it after all. Kill my father. What does that say about how well I know my husband? I’ve never pretended to know him though, have I? Maybe a little. I was wrong mostly. No, that’s not it. I wasn’t wrong exactly.
I just fell in love with him. He’s not to blame for that. And he’s told me he can’t love me even if it wasn’t in so many words. Even if he could never bring himself to say those words.
It's not anyone's fault how I feel about him and how he doesn’t feel about me. If anything, I should have kept my mouth shut. We were in a good place. Now, he’s absent again.
“Mrs. De La Rosa?”
I shake my head to find Marco staring at me, eyebrows raised. “Sorry. What did you say?”
“It’s a bit cooler out today, and a rainstorm is expected. You might want to grab a jacket.”
“Oh. Okay. Thanks. And can you please just call me Ivy?”
He nods but I’ve asked him before, and I have a feeling to him it’s a show of respect for Santiago.
“Is Santiago at the hospital?” I ask when we get into the car.
“No, ma’am.”
I bite the inside of my lip and turn to look out the window as we drive in silence. I wonder what Marco thinks. What he knows.
When we get to the hospital, Marco takes me up to my father’s floor and stands just outside, as usual, as I walk into the small room. My father is getting stronger and stronger. Every time I visit, I see the man he once was slowly returning as he puts on weight and regains his stolen strength.
“Dad, you look good,” I say, walking to where he’s sitting behind a table, working on a laptop. I hug him, and he hugs me back. “This is new.” The desk is sturdy and the chair a comfortable-looking office chair. Not his wheelchair, which is good to see, but I don’t miss the furrow between his brows. His mind is on something else even while I visit.
“How are you, Ivy? How’s Eva?”
“We’re both good. Eva’s annoyed about school again so that’s a good sign of life going back to normal, right?”
“That is a good sign.” He says the words absently.
“Do you think we’ll ever get to normal, Dad?”
He blinks, then smiles at me. “Sorry, what?”
“Do you think we’ll ever get to normal? Eva and I? And the baby when he or she comes.” I pause. “And Santiago?” I add. Although what is his normal? Maybe this is it.
“I hope so, sweetheart.”
“What are you doing with the computer? Why does he have you working when you should just be focused on getting better?”
“Ivy, your husband is a complicated man.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?”
“He has demons, and I know he’s trying to banish them. If my work helps—”
“He’s set on revenge, dad. That’s how he’ll banish them. By killing them.” By killing you. I don’t say it. He knows this better than I.
“We had a hand in what happened to him and his family.”
“What do you mean we?”
He shakes his head. “Not you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“I know about Abel, but you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I can’t go back in time and fix what I didn’t do either, so there’s no sense in talking about it. He has a right, is all I’m saying.”
“No, he doesn’t. Not anymore. Not since he married me and since we’re bringing a baby into the world. He gave up that right when he decided those things,” I say, the words coming out of a place of hurt. I clear my throat and swallow back tears. “You should get some rest. Work after. When you’re home.”
“It’s important work, Ivy. Something he needs—”
“What about what you need?”
“Something I need. I was going to say something I need as much.”
The rain that had been a sprinkle on our drive now picks up hammering against the hospital window. The door opens. Marco clears his throat as another man, someone I don’t know, stands just outside.
I stand. “I guess that’s my cue.” It’s a short visit, and I wonder if it was Santiago’s way of showing me he hadn’t hurt my father. Yet.
Without a word, I walk out of the room and let Marco take me back home in silence. It’s still late morning when I’m back, and the house is quiet except for the housekeepers doing their work. I go upstairs to change into a bathing suit and put on a robe, but rather than going straight down to the pool, I walk through the secret entrance to the nursery. I haven’t been back here since the other morning, and many more boxes, presents from The Society and friends of Santiago’s family, are stacked and waiting to be unwrapped. I don’t have the heart for it right now, though, so I make my way to the glassed-in swimming pool attached to the house. I haven’t been swimming much, mostly because he doesn’t want me doing it alone, but it helps me expend some energy and clear my head. Besides, he has nothing to worry about. I am a fine swimmer, and I have never had any episodes while in the water.
I pad barefoot through the house and pass by the corridor that leads to his study, thinking about how he’d said I needed to stop hovering. I’d come to talk to him about what Colette told me when I’d overheard him speaking to Angelo, the friend who only seems to come at odd hours.
The sky is a deep, cloudy gray with rain coming down hard. It’s perfect for my mood.
I close the door behind me and stand in the warm, humid room. It’s pretty with plants hanging from the glass walls and the small squares of turquoise tiles making the water a gorgeous, vibrant blue. I strip off my robe and dip my toe in before walking into the warm water, extending my arms and going under. Holding my breath to swim the length of it, I love the sensation of water running through my hair, through my fingers as I glide. I swim a few slow laps before turning over onto my back, arms and legs stretched out like a star, the sound of the rain distant with my ears beneath the surface. I close my eyes and lay there, letting the water carry me, floating as I empty my mind and try to forget that morning. Forget my embarrassment at having said those words out loud. My embarrassment at his rejection.
Because that’s what all this comes down to.
He rejected me.
I take a deep breath in and finally open my eyes and startle the instant I do because there, watching me, is a dark figure sitting in the shadow of a pillar at the opposite end of the pool, legs wide, elbows on knees, face dark. Not angry. Something else.
I gasp, my heart thudding.
“I don’t want you swimming alone,” Santiago says, his voice sounding strange.
“You haven’t been here,” I remind him.
“I’m here now,” he says somberly. And I know something’s wrong.
I swim to the edge, and he stands up, gathers my robe, and wraps it around me as I step out, eyes lingering momentarily on my rounded stomach. When he lifts his gaze up to mine, I think I know what it is I see on his face, and it twists my own heart.
It's pain. He’s suffering.
“What’s happened?” I ask, feeling my eyes fill up.
He tugs the robe closed, fingers warm when they touch my skin, and I miss him. I miss his touch. I miss him so much. I want him to hold me. I want to lean into him.
He cups my cheek, runs his thumb over the dot of ink, the start of something that could have gone so wrong.
“Santiago? What is it?”
“I have men picking Eva up. You’ll both stay in the house for the foreseeable future.”
“What?”
“No more hospital visits.”
“Is it my father? What’s happened?” I pull out of his grasp. “What did you do?”
“It’s—”
“If you hurt him…if you…I’ll never forgive you. I swear it. I will never forgive you!” I spin to get away, but he catches me.
“Ivy.” His voice is hoarse, and when I look at him, my own lip trembles with the pain I see on his face. “Your father is fine. I’ve increased his security, too.”
“Security? What is it?”
His forehead furrows, eyes distant momentarily. “Colette and the baby—”
My stomach lurches. “Oh my god!”
“They’re fine. Now. Someone took them. Someone walked into the café she’d gone to and took them.”
“W…what? What do you mean someone took them?”
“She doesn’t know who it was. The person said Jackson had sent him, that something had happened and he needed her back home and she went with him and…well, Jackson hadn’t sent anyone. He had no idea. There was a second man in the vehicle once she got to it and she said she knew something was wrong but couldn’t do anything about it then, not with the baby. They apparently drove them around then took them to the end of their street a few hours later.”
“Are they okay?”
“They’re unharmed. They’re home and unharmed. IVI is protecting them.”
“Oh, god.” My hand trembles as I lay it over my stomach. Someone took Colette and her baby? Holton had been threatening Jackson.
“And I spoke with Jackson,” he says, eyes far away. “About…” he trails off, takes a deep breath in, then sets both hands at my arms and looks at me for a long, long minute before pulling me in to hold me.
I wrap my arms around his middle.
“I know you deserve better and more than I am capable of giving and I’m sorry for my failing, but I will protect you. I will keep you safe. I swear that on my own life, Ivy. I swear it.”