Chapter 27 Tomas
TOMAS
Ihave slept perhaps six hours in total, in intervals, sitting upright in the chair by the window or stretched across the foot of the bed while Santos and Matteo took their turns watching her.
Jennifer moved through her heat, and we helped her as best we could, making sure she was safe, and the baby too.
She is awake now.
I can tell by the change in her breathing and by the shift in her scent, the strawberry coming up warmer as consciousness returns, the rose underneath it brightening.
I am sitting at the window with my book open on my knee, not reading it.
Matteo is at the edge of the bed with water.
Santos is in the kitchen. I can hear the particular sound of him cooking.
I watch Jennifer push herself upright against the pillows and take the glass and I study her carefully. Color in her face. Steady hands. The heat has resolved cleanly and she looks, underneath the tiredness, like herself.
Santos brings the plate. She eats. We give her space. If she wants anything, she asks, and we are there. Once she finishes, then she sets the empty plate aside and looks at all three of us.
"I need to tell you something," she says.
Santos goes still in his chair. Matteo, who is already still, becomes a different quality of still. I set my book down and give her my full attention.
"The baby," she says.
No one says a word, the hairs stand up at the back of my neck. Matteo's eyes widen, for a split second it's as if fear takes over us, wondering if she's going to leave us to be with the father of the baby. We can't blame her, we did her wrong and maybe she still doesn't trust us.
"She's yours," Jennifer says. “One of you, I’m not sure who. She was always yours. I should have told you the moment I arrived on this island and I didn't and I'm sorry for that."
I am aware of Santos's saffron changing in the air, something vivid happening to it, and Matteo has gone entirely motionless by the bed. My own silver musk is doing something I can feel but not fully interpret, a kind of clarifying, the way the air clarifies before weather changes direction.
"So," I say, and my voice comes out with the particular careful evenness I use when I am keeping it level by effort, "when I said the bastard who got you pregnant and left."
"Yes," she says.
"You knew."
"Yes."
A pause.
And then I find the entire situation genuinely funny.
I laugh. Low and a little undone. Santos puts his face in his hands. His shoulders shake.
Matteo stands and goes to the window and stands with his back to the room for a moment.
I can see the line of his shoulders. When he turns around he is not holding it together at all and the real smile is there, the full one that Matteo almost never allows in the daylight, warm and unguarded and pointed entirely at Jennifer.
Santos lifts his face. The saffron in the room is doing something I have not smelled from it before, vivid and sweet and a little overwhelming. "She is ours," he says. Not a question. "She is yours," Jennifer says.
We are quiet for a moment. Santos laughs again, properly, the full sound of it filling the room. Matteo makes a sound that is not quite laughter but lives close to it.
Then I look at her directly.
"There is no question about what we want," I say. "We want you, and our daughter." I hold her gaze. "That is what we want. I want to know if it is what you want."
Santos is watching her from the chair, the bright open attention of him, saffron warm in the air. Matteo has come back from the window and is standing close to the bed. He says nothing, which is Matteo communicating clearly. The certainty in his pale eyes is not hidden.
Jennifer looks at all three of us and something moves through her expression that I cannot fully name and will not pretend to, because Jennifer's inner states are hers to offer when she chooses and not mine to read when she does not.
"I want it," she says. "I think I have wanted it since about day four and I have been arguing myself out of it steadily ever since."
"Then we are in agreement," I say.
"I need to think," she says. "Not because I’m going to change my mind. But because this is a big decision, and we’ve spent time together, but this would be forever. I’m going to the guest house tonight. Have my own space. Think clearly."
Santos opens his mouth.
I look at him.
He closes it.
"Of course," I say. "Take whatever time you need. The guest house is yours for as long as you want it."
Jennifer looks at me and the green of her eyes is direct and steady and I can smell her strawberry going warmer in the air, and she nods once, the nod of someone who has been heard correctly and is registering that fact.
Santos walks her to the guest house himself with all her things, at dusk, wanting to make sure that she has everything that she needed.
Matteo stands at the kitchen window and watches the path until they return, which is Matteo being exactly Matteo.
I pour a glass of water and drink it and go back to my book, and this time I actually read it, because Jennifer has told us what she wants and we have agreed to it and there is nothing further to do tonight except let the answer stand.
Santos comes back through the door and leans against the kitchen counter and blows out a slow breath.
"She's going to say yes," he says.
"I know," I say.
"How do you know," he says.
"She is simply processing it in the order she requires. Let her,” I reassure them as we exchange looks.
"He's right," Matteo says, which is two words from Matteo constituting a full and complete endorsement.
We have dinner and clear the kitchen. Tomas settles in his chair with a book.
Santos reorganizes the spice rack, which he does when he has energy with nowhere to put it.
Matteo sits at the island with a coffee, still carrying the quiet satisfaction of a man whose calculations have come out exactly as expected.
Somewhere in the guest house, Jennifer is thinking. She will do it thoroughly, and we will be here for as long as it takes.