39. Ariel
39
ARIEL
No one told me the third trimester came with superpowers.
As we approach the two-week mark until the twins make their debut, I feel like I’m hyper-aware of everyone’s movements. Maybe it’s some primitive maternal instinct kicking in, this constant tracking of where bodies are in space.
Right now, I can’t stop watching how Jasmine keeps drifting backward whenever someone steps closer to her, maintaining this precise bubble around her that no one else seems to notice. She’s been weird all night—quiet, shy, face drawn and shadowed. The longer we all hang out after dinner, the more she keeps turning in toward herself.
I frown and file it away to ask about later.
The garden smells incredible tonight. The day’s heat is dissipating as the sun sets. I breathe in deep, letting the mingled scents of oregano and mint wash over me as I waddle around with the wine bottle.
“More?” I offer, holding up the Chianti that Marco brought over.
Lora accepts with a smile, but Gina waves me off. “None for me, thanks.”
My brain takes a second to process what I’m seeing: Gina’s hand protectively curved over her still-flat stomach, that telltale glow in her cheeks that I recognize from my own mirror.
I almost drop the bottle.
“Oh my God.” The words come out as a Calvin everyone will settle in; life will be okay.
I notice the exact moment that proves wrong.
“… just so paranoid lately,” Gina is saying, rolling her eyes fondly. “He won’t let me go anywhere without three bodyguards. Says Dragan’s men could be anywhere, watching, waiting…”
The wine glass slips from Jasmine’s fingers.
She catches it before it can shatter, but not before deep red splashes across the flagstones like blood. Her eyes are staring at something in the distance that no one but her can see.
I know that look. God, how could I ever forget it? It’s the same vacant stare she wore at fourteen, when Papa came home with blood on his shoes. At sixteen, when his “business associates” would linger too long at dinner, their eyes crawling over her like insects. At nineteen, when… When everything happened.
My hand instinctively covers my stomach as nausea rises that has nothing to do with pregnancy. I thought I’d buried those memories deep enough that they couldn’t touch us anymore.
“Jas?” I keep my voice soft, gentle, like how she used to speak to me when I was little and scared. “You okay?”
“Fine!” Her laugh is brittle. “Just clumsy. Two left feet and two left thumbs to match!”
But she’s angled her body away from us, creating distance. Her eyes keep darting to the villa’s doors and windows, like she’s wondering how hard it would be to run for cover.
Gina and Lora exchange confused glances, but they don’t understand. They didn’t grow up learning to read the silent language of fear.
I try to steer the conversation somewhere safer. “Hey, Jas, tell Gina about the?—”
But Jasmine is already on her feet, moving awkwardly, too sharp and too fumbling at the same time. “I just remembered,” she mumbles, her voice pitched too high. “I need to… water the herbs. And check on the… The basil needs pruning.”
It’s been raining for weeks. The herbs are drowning, not thirsty. But I don’t point that out. I just watch her walk away, my heart clenching at how wrong it looks. My sister used to move like music. But right now, she might as well be made of sugar glass and chicken wire.
Gina leans toward me. “Is she okay? That was kind of…”
“Weird,” Lora finishes, twirling her wine glass nervously.
They don’t get it. How could they? They weren’t there when Dragan’s name first entered our lives. They didn’t see what his “courtship” did to her. They didn’t hear her crying herself to sleep every night, didn’t watch her slowly fade away until she was nothing but a shadow wearing my sister’s face.
“She’s fine,” I tell them. “Probably just tired.”
I sit with Gina and Lora until they finish their wine. Then I pin blame on the babies and slink upstairs for an early bedtime.
I don’t go straight to my room, though. I hear music, and I know even before I go to Jasmine what I’ll find.
Sure enough, when I peek through the crack in her door, she’s got the secondhand violin she bought from a shop in the village tucked underneath her chin. Her face is screwed up with concentration and she’s sawing at the strings like the bow is a blade held to Dragan’s throat instead.
It’s Tchaikovsky, I think, though that’s her area of expertise, not mine. But I’ve never heard her play it quite like this before.
Every note bleeds raw emotion—anger, fear, grief, defiance. All the darkness she keeps locked away behind her perfect smile and carefully measured movements comes pouring out through her fingers.
I feel so stupid. How long has she been hiding this? How much haven’t I seen? How much weight is the music carrying for her, and how much more can it take until both she and it collapse? Every perfectly executed phrase contains echoes of old screams. Every crescendo carries the weight of tears she never let fall.
When she’s done, the final notes hang in the air like bonfire smoke. Jasmine’s bow arm drops, and her shoulders slump. For a moment, neither of us moves.
Then I cross the room and wrap my arms around her from behind, as best I can with my belly between us. She lets out a shuddering breath and leans back against me.
We don’t speak. We don’t need to.
I just hold her and say with my touch that she’s loved.