Chapter 7 Back to the Ground I Knew #2
Gia pulls up to the gate and turns off the engine. "Do you want me to come in?"
"No. Thank you. You've done enough."
"I haven't done nearly enough." She reaches over and squeezes my hand. "Call me if you need anything. Anything at all. I mean it."
"I know you do."
I get out of the car and retrieve my suitcase from the back. My mother is already crossing the yard toward me, her face a mixture of concern and carefully restrained questions.
"Ysabel." She pulls me into her arms, the familiar smell of her soap and the lavender she keeps in her clothes wrapping around me. "You're here."
"I'm here."
She holds me for a long moment, then pulls back to look at my face. "You look exhausted."
"Everyone keeps saying that."
"Because it's true. Come inside. Your father's making breakfast."
Gia waves from the car, and I wave back as she pulls away. Then I follow my mother through the gate and into the house, my suitcase wheels catching on the uneven stones of the path.
***
The kitchen is warm with the smell of frying eggs and toasting bread. My father is at the stove, his back to us, an apron tied around his waist. He turns when we come in and his face does something complicated when he sees me.
"Ysabel." He crosses the room and wraps me in a hug, tight and fierce. "You're home."
I'm not sure this is home, not really. I grew up at the estate, in the small rooms where servants' families lived, and I moved out when I married Leon. But my father's arms feel like home, and the smell of his cooking feels like home, and right now that's enough.
"I'm here," I say again, because I don't know what else to say.
He releases me and holds me at arm's length, studying my face the way my mother did. "You hungry?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
"Sit down. Eat something. Then you can tell us whatever you want to tell us, or nothing at all if that's what you need."
I sit at the small wooden table, the one my parents bought when they moved here, nothing like the long formal table at the estate with its crystal and silver. My mother pours me a glass of water and sets it in front of me without asking if I want it.
"Leon's still overseas," I say, because I have to say something. "His return booking got canceled. He's been trying to get home."
My parents exchange a look that I can't quite read.
"We saw the television last night," my mother says quietly. "The program about the launch."
My parents saw it too. I look down at my hands, wishing I could have told them before they had to wonder what was happening.
"They aren't having an affair," I say. I need that much to be clear. "Nadia's an investor. She was there for business. But the way they filmed it, the way they framed it..."
"You don't have to explain," my father says. He sets a plate of eggs and toast in front of me. "Eat."
I pick up a fork and push the eggs around the plate. My stomach is uncertain again, that familiar queasiness that's been plaguing me for weeks. I manage a few bites of toast, then set the fork down.
"I signed the papers to start a separation this morning," I say. "I asked him about a divorce."
The kitchen goes quiet. My mother's hand stills on the dishcloth she was holding. My father turns from the stove.
"Ysabel," my mother starts.
"Please let me finish. I need you to know what I've done." I look down at my plate. "I can't keep living like this. Being invisible. Being the wife no one remembers exists. I'm done being a secret."
"Does Leon know?" my father asks.
"I sent him a message this morning. Told him I needed time, asked him not to follow me right away." I push the plate away. "He's probably still trying to get a flight. I don't know when he'll be back."
My mother comes to sit beside me, her hand covering mine on the table. "Whatever you decide, we're here. You know that. But are you sure this is what you want?"
"I don't know what I want. I just know I couldn't stay in that house one more night, setting tables he doesn't sit at, watching him on television because I can't have him across from me in real life.
" My voice breaks slightly. "I love him.
That's the worst part. I love him so much, and it's not enough. "
My father moves the frying pan off the heat. "I'm not going to tell you to go back."
"I thought you might."
"Why?"
I pick at a loose thread on the tablecloth. "Because I married him. Because you and Mama had to deal with so much after that, and now I'm here with a suitcase."
"You didn't use up your welcome when you got married," he says.
My mother squeezes my hand. "And we can manage one suitcase. Your father brings in more dirt than that every morning."
He looks down at his boots. "I wiped them."
"On the wrong side of the mat."
A small laugh escapes me, surprising enough that my eyes fill. Neither of them makes anything of it. My mother slides the water closer.
"I need to lie down," I say. "I didn't sleep last night. Can I use the guest room?"
"It's your room," my mother says. "I changed the sheets after you called."
I push back from the table and let her lead me down the short hallway to the small room at the back of the house.
The room is simple and clean, a single bed with a white coverlet, a wooden dresser, a window looking out over the vegetable garden. My mother has put fresh flowers in a jar on the nightstand and hung a small painting of the coast that I recognize from my grandmother's house.
"Rest," she says. "We'll be here when you wake up."
I sit on the edge of the bed and wait until she closes the door behind her. I open my suitcase and lift out the recipe notebook, setting it on the dresser. Before I can reach for the clothes, my stomach rolls. I sit down again, then lie back on the coverlet, waiting for it to settle.
The queasiness is still there, a low hum in my stomach that won't quite settle. I've been blaming it on stress, on the situation with Nadia and Vera, on the mess my marriage has become. But lying here in the quiet of my parents' house, I find myself counting days in my head.
When was my last period?
I try to remember and can't quite pin it down. Before the reception that started all of this. Before Nadia arrived. Weeks ago now. More weeks than there should be.
My heart starts beating faster.
It's probably nothing. Stress can do strange things to a body. The nausea, the exhaustion, the way my emotions have been swinging wildly from one extreme to another. It could all be explained by what I've been going through.
But…
I lie very still, my hand drifting to my stomach without quite meaning to. The queasiness sits there, familiar now, a companion I've been ignoring for too long.
I need to know.
***
I find my mother in the kitchen, washing the breakfast dishes. My father has gone outside to check on the goats, and through the window I can see him moving through the small field, his familiar figure bent against the morning light.
"Mama."
She turns, drying her hands on a towel. "I thought you were sleeping."
"I couldn't." I lean against the doorframe, not sure how to say what I need to say. "I need to ask Gia to bring me something from town. Something I don't want anyone to know about."
My mother studies my face. For a moment I think she's going to ask what it is, and I'm not sure I can explain without the words sticking in my throat. But she just nods.
"Call her. Whatever you need."
I take my phone out to the small porch at the back of the house and sit down on the worn wooden bench. The morning is warming up, the smell of the garden and the distant sound of the goats drifting through the air. I dial Gia's number.
"Already?" she answers. "It's been less than an hour."
"I need you to do something for me. Something I can't do myself right now."
"Name it."
"Can you go to the pharmacy in town? The one on the other side, where no one from the estate shops."
There's a pause. "Ysabel. What kind of thing are we talking about?"
"A test. A pregnancy test."
The silence stretches. I hear Gia take a breath, let it out slowly.
"Okay," she says. "Okay. I'll be there within the hour."
"Thank you. And Gia? Don't tell anyone. Not my mother, not anyone."
"I won't. I'll see you soon."
I hang up and sit on the bench, looking out at the garden my mother has been tending since they moved here. Tomatoes climbing their stakes, beans twining up their poles, herbs in neat rows along the border. A life built with patient hands, one day at a time.
I try not to think about what the test might show. I try not to think about what it would mean to be carrying Leon's child right now, in the middle of leaving him, in the middle of everything falling apart.
I try, and I fail.
Gia arrives in forty-five minutes, pulling up to the gate with a small paper bag tucked under her arm. I meet her at the car before she can come inside.
"I got two different kinds," she says quietly, handing me the bag. "Just in case."