Chapter 9 Beyond the Rosciano Gates #3
My mother picks up one of the good ones and bites into it. She chews slowly, considering.
"Well?" I ask.
"Your grandmother would say they're almost as good as hers." She takes another bite. "I say they're better, but don't tell her ghost I said that."
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I check the screen and see Gia's name.
"I need to take this," I say. "I'll be right back."
I step out onto the back porch and close the door behind me, glancing through the window to make sure my mother has stayed in the kitchen. She's moving the remaining biscuits onto a cooling rack, not paying attention to me.
"Gia."
"I wanted to give you a heads up," she says. "Leon called me again today. He's asking if you're ready to talk yet."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him I hadn't heard from you about that and it wasn't my place to invite him anywhere. He seemed to accept it." She pauses. "I told him he needs to hear that from you."
"I'm not ready."
"I figured. I didn't tell him anything else. Not about the test, not about how you're doing, nothing. Just that you need more time."
"Thank you." I lean against the porch railing, looking out at the dark hills. "He called you before? When he first got home?"
"The same evening. He wanted to understand what happened, why you left. I told him about the broadcast, sent him the link. Told him to respect your space."
"And he's actually doing it?"
"He didn't argue with me." She hesitates. "He sounded rough, Ysabel. Tired. I don't know what's going on at the estate, but he's not having an easy time either."
"Good." The word comes out harder than I intended. "I mean, I don't want him to suffer. But I'm not ready to make this easy for him. I tried to talk to him while I was still there. I don't know what to do with him suddenly wanting to listen now."
"I know. I'm not saying you should call him. I'm just telling you what I know."
"I appreciate it."
We talk for another minute about nothing, and then I hang up and go back inside. My mother has left the biscuits to cool and is wiping down the counter.
"Everything all right?" she asks.
"Just Gia checking in."
I pick up my notebook and find a pencil, adding a note in the margin of the biscuit recipe: Farm oven runs hot, rotate halfway, lower rack.
Then I close the notebook and tuck it under my arm, carrying it back to the guest room where it belongs.
The fourth morning, I wake feeling almost normal.
The nausea is there but manageable, settling after a few crackers. I shower and dress and go to the kitchen, where my father is already at the table with his coffee.
"Your mother's checking the beans," he says. "She says we'll be eating them at every meal if you don't help her give some away."
"Do you need help with anything?"
"Not this morning. Take some time for yourself. Read a book. Sit in the sun. You've been working hard enough."
I pour myself a glass of water and take it out to the small porch at the back of the house.
The morning is clear and warm, the kind of day that makes everything feel possible.
I sit on the worn wooden bench and look out at the garden, at the hills beyond, at the life my parents have built here since they left the estate.
They left the estate after I married Leon and made a home here.
There are still repairs they put off and mornings when the work starts before they want it to.
But my mother chooses what grows outside her window, and my father can sit at his own table with muddy boots until she notices. I understand why that matters.
I finish my water and take the glass inside. On my way across the yard to help my mother with the beans, I hear a car on the road.
It's not unusual. The farm is on a route that connects to other properties, and occasionally people pass by. But this car slows as it approaches, and then it stops at the gate.
I stand up, shading my eyes against the sun.
The car is familiar. Sleek and dark, the kind of car that belongs to the estate, not to this dusty farm road. My heart starts beating faster even before the door opens and I see who steps out.
Leon.
He's dressed simply, no jacket, just a shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He looks like he hasn't slept well, shadows under his eyes that I can see even from this distance. He stands by the car for a moment, looking at the farmhouse, at the gate, at me standing in the yard.
Then he starts walking toward the gate.
He doesn't open it. He just stands there, his hands at his sides, waiting. His hand moves toward the latch, then drops back to his side. He waits on the other side of it.
He's come into my world now, where the rules are different. Where he has to ask instead of assume.
I don't move toward him. I don't call out to him or go to meet him. I just stand there, my fingers curled into the hem of my shirt, and watch him wait at the gate like any other visitor who hasn't been invited in.
His eyes find mine across the distance between us.
And I realize that whatever happens next, it has to be my choice. Not his. Not his mother's. Mine.