Chapter 15
WHAT WE ALREADY HAVE
Aweek later, as I hung the laundry, I spotted Dani coming down the road toward the house. I ducked behind the sheet I'd just pinned to the line, praying he would pass without noticing me. The last thing I wanted was conversation—least of all with anyone tied to Caius or his father.
There was no escaping him. He had already seen me, and moments later he was striding up the path, his head rising above the very sheet I had hoped would hide me.
“Magda—we need to talk.”
I straightened and looked at him over the clothesline. Something in his voice had changed—steadfast where it had once been uncertain. The shy boy I had always known was gone. In his place stood a man.
I couldn't bring myself to meet his eyes—I was afraid I'd cry if I did. Afraid of the disappointment I might find there, of what he would see in me if he truly looked. Maybe he would call me trash, the way some of the villagers did. Maybe I would believe it.
A stupid, foolish girl—old enough to be a woman—dreaming of things that had never been meant for her. My grandmother's words echoed in my head as guilt closed over me, the knowledge settling at last: I had given myself to Caius, and even his love had not been enough.
Maybe it never had been real at all.
And worse still—I carried his child. The boyar's grandchild, growing inside me.
Unless fate chose to claim me as it had my mother—death on the childbed.
Perhaps that was all I deserved. Better to be swallowed by the earth, laid beneath the soil in a nameless grave, than to live beneath the weight of such guilt and shame.
That was the future Buna had seen for me in the smoke. To think just a week prior I was foolish enough to believe I could outrun that fate.
“I can't talk now, Dani,” I said, blinking hard against the sting in my eyes.
I focused on the basket in my hands, on the thin crack in its handle—anywhere but his face.
“I have to finish my chores.” The words sounded brittle, even to me.
I turned before he could answer, afraid that if I lingered a moment longer, the wall I was trying so desperately to build between us would crumble.
He came around the clothesline toward me.
I turned quickly, clutching the basket to my side as if it could shield me.
His hand shot out, closing firmly around my arm, and the sudden grip jolted me still.
I looked up at him, my heart racing, every instinct screaming to flee—uncertain of what he knew… and what he didn't.
“Magda—wait,” he said, his voice low, almost a plea.
He swallowed hard, drawing in a breath before the words came.
His grip shifted, sliding from my arm until his hand found mine.
His palm was warm against my skin, and though I hadn't expected it, the simple, gentle touch eased the frayed edges of my nerves.
The air felt heavy, charged with the silence that stretched between us until he spoke.
“I want you to be my wife,” he said simply.
And though his eyes still held the soft, almost drowsy gentleness I had always known, there was a new resolve burning there.
“I've wanted it since we were children—since the days we chased each other through the woods.” He stood there, holding my hand.
“I've loved you that long,” he added, as if time was proof.
I shook my head—not because I doubted his words, but because I knew I didn't deserve them.
I could only stare up at him, my throat tight, the truth lodged somewhere between my heart and my tongue.
It felt as though the universe had turned a harsh, unrelenting light on me, and I buckled beneath it.
I wanted to tell him I couldn't—that my heart still belonged to Caius—but before I could speak, I saw it in his eyes.
He already knew. “You don't have to love me back,” he said softly, his words steadying the storm in my head. “My mother says many marriages are built on less than what we already have.” He met my gaze, unflinching. “I know you care for me. And that is enough.”
His thumb brushed mine. “You will always be enough for me—just as you are.”
There it was, shining through him—a calm, steady sense of purpose, as though he had been waiting for this moment all his life. He reached for the basket tucked beneath my arm and set it aside, then took both my hands in his.
My heart hammered. He was too good for me.
He knew where my heart truly lay, and still he wanted me.
But the baby—perhaps if we married quickly, the village would believe it was his.
The thought struck like a held breath. Could this be my way out?
The idea felt almost blasphemous. Fate was not merciful—not to someone like me.
Tears slipped down my cheeks, burning with guilt—though perhaps he mistook them for joy.
“Are you sure?” I whispered, when what I longed to say was that he deserved better.
Maybe I wanted to give him one last chance to turn away, to find a woman who could love him honestly, instead of binding himself to me.
He smiled down at me, and I could have sworn I saw tears glistening in his eyes too. “Yes. I'm sure, Magda. I've never been more sure.”
We did not speak Caius's name. It was as if he had vanished, cleanly erased from our lives. I accepted the silence gladly, even as something in me understood it would not stay silent forever.
I swallowed hard and whispered a prayer for forgiveness before I gave him my answer. “Then yes,” I said. “I will marry you, Dani.”
He leaned in and kissed me. His lips were warm and gentle against mine—nothing like the fire and urgency I had known with Caius.
One hand slid to the back of my neck, careful but firm, holding me there, a velvet cage I did not quite know how to escape.
Part of me wanted to flinch, to pull away, to run.
But another part—smaller, quieter, driven by fear or need—leaned into him all the same.
The kiss was awkward, unfamiliar. And yet it stirred something I wished it hadn't. My heart remained silent, still tethered elsewhere, but my body answered despite me, and the shame of it burned hotter than his touch. I pulled away, breath unsteady, confusion flushing my cheeks beneath his gaze.
“When?” I asked—meaning the marriage.
“Soon—very soon,” Dani said, his excitement spilling over, eager like a child at Christmas. “Should we tell your grandmother?”
I glanced toward the cottage. “She's not here just now. Come back tonight after supper.” I tried to laugh as I added, “She'll probably try to talk you out of it.” It was meant as a joke.
But a small, secret part of me almost wished she would—so Dani might yet be spared a life bound to a woman who could not love him as he deserved, who would never be fully happy, never truly satisfied.
Dani beamed as he lifted my hand and pressed a kiss to it. “Till tonight,” he said, already turning away.
I raised a hand in return, though guilt and shame closed over me the moment his back was turned. I watched his tall frame retreat, growing smaller as he disappeared into the village—and felt myself shrinking too, hollowed out by the quiet, unbearable weight of deceiving my friend.
Buna returned from her rounds in the village not long after, just as I was pulling a loaf of bread from the clay oven behind the cottage.
I set it in the same basket I'd carried the laundry out in earlier and brought it inside.
She sat at the table, slicing cheese for a snack.
I placed the steaming loaf on a trivet to cool, then turned to stir the stew bubbling over the hearth.
“Dani is coming after supper,” I said flatly, my back to her. “He's asked me to marry him. I said yes.”
Behind me came a judgmental hmph. Had she not stood in this very spot two months ago, telling me I would be wise to do exactly this? Now she made it sound like folly. I could not win. “Does he know you carry his best friend's babe?”
I spun around, the spoon clattering against the pot. “Who told you?”
“Magda—do you forget I am a midwife?” She shook her head. “And a woman besides. It is early days still, but the signs are there for those who know to look.”
I turned back to the stew. “No.” I said finally. “He doesn't know. Are you going to tell him?”
“I will not betray your secret.” Her tone was grim, unyielding.
“But for his sake—and yours—you had best bed him soon.” Her words were a blunt hammer.
In that moment I understood she was part of this now, whether she wished to be or not.
She carried our secret, but the look on her face said she didn't like the weight of it.
“He knows I don't love him,” I said quickly, needing her to see that this was not some girlish delusion. “I told him plainly. He said he didn't care.” Even recalling it bore a hole in my gut—low and secret and faintly shameful. He didn't care—but I felt like he should.
When Dani returned later that night, Buna fetched the bottle of p?linc? she kept on the high shelf. She poured the sharp brandy—apples, pears, and plums distilled to fire—into three small glasses. Lifting hers, she intoned, “Dumnezeu s? v? binecuvanteze uniunea,” blessing our union.
But her piercing gaze never left me. I felt it burn through flesh and bone, straight into the rot at my core—into a restless soul already damned.