Chapter 42A Message from the Woman with the Soft Eyes
A Message from the Woman with the Soft Eyes
Isabella
The house is warm, wrapped in the scent of something sweet and nostalgic, vanilla and cinnamon, maybe. Ada must have lit one of her candles before she left, the ones she buys in bulk because they remind her of childhood kitchens and safety.
I sink deeper into the couch, cocooned in a thick pink blanket that smells faintly of detergent and home.
A heavy ceramic pitcher rests on my stomach, its warmth seeping into my skin, dulling the lingering ache of cramps.
Physically, I am fine now. The bruises have begun to fade, my body no longer feels like a battlefield, and yet—
Mentally, I am still fighting.
The war rages in the quiet spaces, in the solitude of my own mind where thoughts unravel like frayed threads, each one tugging at something raw. I had stopped taking the Prozac since my conversation with Sawyer, and now everything is too sharp. Too vivid. Too real.
I rub my stomach absentmindedly, tracing slow, soothing circles over the space where it had been—where we had been.
There is nothing left now. Only the ghost of something that could have been, a hollow ache inside me where life had once begun to bloom.
The weight of that loss settles deep, coiling around my ribs like a vine, tightening with each breath.
The doctors said it was a miracle I got pregnant.
My cycle had never been regular, not since I was a child.
The kind of childhood that strips you down to bone and silence, where your body goes into survival mode and forgets what it means to grow, to thrive.
Back then, I never had enough energy, never enough safety or food or rest for my body to do what it was meant to.
My period came late, sporadic, then vanished altogether for years.
As I got older, things started to change.
Stability, however fragile, stitched itself into my life piece by piece.
With it came more consistency, my body slowly remembering how to function like it was meant to.
But even then, the odds stayed stacked against me.
When I turned sixteen, I was diagnosed with Graves-Hughes Syndrome; a rare autoimmune disorder that causes chronic inflammation and hormonal imbalance.
It attacks the reproductive system like it’s something foreign.
The chances of conception? Less than 5%, they said.
It’s something I rarely talk about with anyone.
‘‘It doesn’t mean your body failed, it just means it tried, against every odd.’’ Her words spiral over and over in my brain.
They gave me birth control before I was discharged.
Low-dose, hormonal. A neat, blister-packed reminder of what was and what might never be again.
‘‘It’ll help regulate things,’’ the doctor said, her voice clinical, but not unkind.
“Protect your body while it recovers. Give you time.” So now I pop one pill a day.
Ada didn’t want to leave today. She lingered in the doorway, keys in hand, hesitating the way she always does when she’s worried about me.
But I told her I wanted some time alone.
Needed it. Even if I didn’t know what to do with it.
She finally relented, going to the clinic for a short shift, just to check in, to see how things had been going in our absence.
She had been hesitant, her brows pinched together in that way they do when she wants to argue but knows she won’t win.
I promised her I’d be okay. I’m not sure I believe it myself, but she needed to hear it.
The house is silent now, save for the occasional creak of settling wood and the faint hum of the heater.
I pull out my phone, unlocking it with muscle memory, and let my thumb hover over the messages app.
It opens without me really thinking about it, and suddenly, I’m staring at old text messages from my mother.
My fingers brush across the screen, lingering on her name.
I don’t know what I’m looking for. Comfort? Understanding? A lifeline to something maternal, something that should have been there all along but never quite was?
A mother’s love is supposed to be unwavering, isn’t it?
Something steadfast, something that holds you even when you’re crumbling.
But that has never been the case with us.
My mother is a storm—unpredictable, distant, cold.
There is love there, but it is buried, suppressed beneath years of silence and absence, tucked away where neither of us can reach it.
It is not the kind of love that soothes. Not the kind of love I need right now.
Still, I feel the pull. The quiet, aching desire to hear her voice, to feel something motherly wrap around me in this moment of unraveling.
But I relent.
She can’t fulfill that void. Not now. Not ever in the way I need her to. And I am too raw, too fractured to open that door right now. If I do, I will crumble.
I exhale shakily, my fingers tightening around the phone before I press the lock button, letting the screen go dark.
Now is not the time, and it might never be.
I lay there, staring at the ceiling for a period of time. I try to focus on my breathing, to ground myself to earth instead of the Hell inside my head.
After a while, the stillness is broken by the sudden glow of my phone screen. The light cuts through the dim room, casting shifting shadows against the walls. I blink, dragging myself out of the haze of my thoughts and glance down.
An unknown number.
At first, I don’t react. Spam, probably. A telemarketer. Some automated message trying to pull me into a scam. But then my eyes catch on the country code, and all the air in my lungs seems to vanish at once.
+7
Russia.
My fingers tighten around the phone. My body reacts before my mind catches up, sitting up too fast, the ceramic pitcher slipping from my stomach and onto the carpet.
The warmth it had given me is gone now, replaced by something cold curling at the base of my spine.
I swallow hard, my heart hammering against my ribs as I unlock the screen.
The message is short. Precise. But it hits like a gunshot.
Dominik is flying into New York for a meeting.
Below that, an address:
The Astoria Grand, 768 Park Avenue. Thursday, 8 PM.
At the bottom of the message, a name.
-Sasha.