10. Valentina #2
The same low rolling weight, the same sensation of something being wrong that I can’t locate.
Nothing important.
But it’s the way he said it. It wasn’t a fast or guilty-quick answer of someone caught off guard.
It was like he’d already thought about what he’d say if I saw him.
I close my eyes.
Stop it.
I breathe and I stare at the inside of my eyelids.
I keep tell myself to stop it, but I don’t stop it, and eventually I fall into a shallow unsatisfying sleep that fixes nothing.
It gets worse.
Not all at once.
There’s no single thing I can point to, no moment where I could say: there, that’s it, that’s proof. It’s more like—one Wednesday he takes a call and steps out to the balcony instead of the study, sliding the door shut behind him.
I’m in the kitchen making tea and I can see him through the glass. His back is to me, one hand braced flat on the railing, shoulders up around his ears.
He’s not pacing, instead he’s very still, which with Cillian is worse than pacing.
He stays out there for eleven minutes, which I know because I watch the clock on the oven.
He comes back in and slides the door shut. His face is impassive.
“Tea?” I offer.
“I’m good,” he says and goes to the study.
He does it again two days later and it’s like déjà vu.
He goes out to the balcony, and there’s the same rigid shoulders, same eleven-ish minutes on the phone.
With my tea going cold, I watch him through the glass and he doesn’t turn around once.
A day later, he texts at two in the afternoon: handling something for Connor, don’t wait up.
I try to, since I don’t like taking orders from anyone.
Unfortunately for me, I fall asleep on the sofa somewhere around ten with a gallery report on my lap.
I wake up at midnight to find the lamp still on and Cillian in the armchair across from me.
He’s still in his jacket and his elbows are on his knees as he leans forward slightly.
He’s looking at me with an expression that I catch for maybe one full second before his eyes register that mine are open and his face closes off. But I see it.
He looked—wrecked.
He looks tired in a way that goes past physical tired, something tight and worn around his eyes and his mouth.
There’s also something that looks like guilt, too. But then it’s gone and he looks impassive again.
“When did you get back?” My voice comes out thick with sleep.
“About fifteen minutes ago.” He stands up and stretches his neck to one side. “You fell asleep out here.”
I sit up, wincing at the discomfort in my lower back. That’s going to fucking hurt and I make a mental note to see my chiropractor. “What were you handling?”
There’s a pause. “Business,” he says evasively. “Come to bed.”
No, he’s not telling me something. “Cillian—”
“Valentina,” he says firmly and not unkind. “Come to bed.”
I come to bed.
I lie on my side facing the window and I listen to the sounds of him getting undressed.
The rustle of his shirt and jacket as he takes them off, the metallic clinking of his belt as he unbuckles it.
The mattress dips as he gets into bed.
He doesn’t reach for me, and my throat tightens.
He always reaches for me. Every night for weeks it’s been the last thing he does before he goes to sleep.
His arm will either come around me or his hand will find mine.
There’s always some point of contact, something that says: here, still here.
I’ve gotten so used to it that I stopped noticing it happening and now I notice it not happening.
I lie there very still on my side of the bed, and I feel the space between us. It feels enormous.
I can tell from his breathing that he’s not asleep.
He can probably tell from mine that I’m not either.
Neither of us says anything.
The city that never sleeps is doing its thing while I lie in bed, and all I can think about is the expression on his face when he thought I was still asleep.
The worn-out wrecked look of a man sitting alone at midnight watching his pregnant wife sleep and carrying something he’s decided she can’t know about.
I don’t know if that should make me feel better or worse.
I think it makes me feel worse.
Emma is already at the corner table when I push through the door, and I see Seraphina before I see my best friend.
The baby is in the stroller, awake, which still surprises me every time I see her. Not too long ago, she did nothing but sleep and eat and shit. Now she’s got her eyes open, tracking the window light, her dark hair sticking up in every direction like she’s been electrocuted.
I can’t help the smile that tugs at my lips.
My poor baby niece—she has her father’s hair.
The exact same thick unruly dark chaos that my brother has never successfully tamed in his entire life.
She looks like a troll doll, but it’s also the most beautiful hair I have ever seen. I would set myself on fire for this child.
Seraphina’s mouth scrunches and her forehead creases, which means she’s building up to a decision about whether to fuss. Emma’s hand moves to the stroller handle, and I can see her mouth soothing things to the baby.
My friend notices my presence and looks up to greet me. But there must be something on my face because her eyes narrow and she tips her head slightly to the right. I fight the urge to shift uncomfortably.
“Sit down,” she says.
“Well hello to you too.”
“Sit.”
I sit down and busy myself getting comfortable, while being highly aware that Emma is still looking at me.
I glance up to see that her brows are pulled together and her mouth is flat.
She’s reading something in my face that I clearly haven’t managed to hide.
“How bad is the sickness today?” she asks.
“Manageable.” I reach for the menu. “Crackers for breakfast. I need something bland.”
“I would recommend eggs but those made me nauseous. Try some oatmeal.” She pauses. “What happened?”
I blink. “What makes you think something happened?”
Emma blows her bangs out of her face just as Seraphina starts to fuss.
Without taking her eyes off me, she finds the pacifier and sticks it in the baby’s mouth, rocking the stroller slowly.
“You and Leo get the same look on your face when something’s bothering you but you don’t want to say it.
I’ll tell you what I’ve told your brother—tough shit. You’re going to tell me. What’s wrong?”
I put the menu down and sigh heavily. I really need to stop going out with Emma “Really Fucking Perceptive” Santoro.
“Something’s wrong with Cillian,” I confess.
Emma pales, but her hand stays on the stroller handle as she tries to lull Seraphina to sleep.
Her expression doesn’t change dramatically—just a slight drop of the brows and a tightening around her eyes.
“Tell me,” she says.
So I do. I tell her about the calls on the balcony, how he was gone all day and didn’t tell me what he was doing—just saying it was something for Connor.
How affection between us has ceased and how we’re like roommates.
“He came home one night and when I woke up, he was sitting in the armchair watching me sleep. When I opened my eyes he…his face just—” I stop, swallowing painfully. “Whatever he was feeling, he just shut it off.”
Emma watches me but doesn’t say anything yet.
“He’s lying to me,” I admit out loud for the first time and it makes me feel sick. “He’s giving me pieces of the truth and calling it the whole thing. But I’m not stupid. Something’s wrong.” I look down at the table. “There’s no more ginger tea.”
“There’s no more ginger tea?” Emma asks in confusion, fingers quickly putting the pacifier back in Seraphina’s mouth after she spit it out.
“Ever since I told Cillian I’m pregnant, he’s always made me ginger tea because he read it helps with nausea.” My eyes burn but I refuse to let the tears fall. “He stopped doing so.”
Emma’s mouth softens and her brows come together differently. “Val,” she says quietly.
“I know how it sounds.” I hear the edge in my voice and I can’t help it.
“I’m not upset about tea. It’s just—everything felt real.
It was real. And now he’s—” I press my lips together.
Stop. There are people having normal lunches eight inches away from me and my eyes are stinging.
I will not cry in public. “I don’t know what’s happening. ”
Seraphina spits out her pacifier and makes a sound.
It’s not quite a cry, but it definitely sounds like she’s warning us that she will.
Emma glances at her and once she’s satisfied she’s not in distress, she puts the pacifier back in the baby’s mouth and looks at me.
“What are you thinking about?” Emma asks in a low voice, green eyes tracking my every facial expression. “Worst thoughts.”
I look at the table. “That the pregnancy was too much,” I say flatly. “That he actually looked at everything properly and decided he doesn’t want this.” I pause. “Or maybe there’s someone else. I don’t think it’s someone else, but at three in the morning I can’t stop my brain from—”
“There is no one else,” Emma says sharply and with authority. She says it the way you state a fact, not the way you offer comfort.
I shake my head. “You can’t know that, Em.”
“I can.” Her jaw is set. “I have known him my entire life. He has made choices that destroyed me and I still know who he is. He would not.” She looks at me hard.
“Not with you. Not with the baby. Not after—” She stops and exhales through her nose.
“He’s crazy for you, Valentina. Whatever this is, it’s not that. ”
I want to argue, but another bigger part of me wants to believe her.
“Then what is it?” I ask her desperately, as if she knows Cillian’s inner mind.
Emma is quiet as she watches Seraphina.
The baby has a pissed off look on her face and Emma reaches into the stroller and lifts her out.
Seraphina makes a grumbly sound then goes quiet against Emma’s shoulder, her small fist closing in the fabric of Emma’s shirt.
I smile at her. The ridiculous hair. Leo’s exact hairline on a tiny furious face.
“She really does look exactly like her father,” I marvel.
“I know. It’s a kick in the teeth,” Emma sighs, rubbing Seraphina’s small back in slow circles.