Chapter 72 Marlena
0077 - Marlena
Six months passed and I lived them as someone else entirely.
Maria Bianchi was the name on my papers and the name the neighbors in the small Tuscan village knew me by, a young widow who'd moved here from the north with her baby daughter to start fresh after her husband died in a car accident. They were kind to me in the careful way people are kind to someone whose grief is still visible, bringing me vegetables from their gardens and inviting me to church on Sundays and offering to watch the baby if I ever needed help.
I always said no to the help because I couldn't risk letting anyone get too close, couldn't risk them noticing something that didn't fit the story I'd built.
The house sat on the edge of a vineyard with views that stretched for miles, rolling hills covered in grapevines and olive trees and small stone buildings that had been there for centuries. It was beautiful in a way that should have made me happy but mostly just reminded me how alone I was, how quiet the rooms were except for the baby's sounds, how empty the bed felt at night.
Elena was six months old now and she had Nikolai's grey eyes looking out from my face, his serious expression when she was thinking and my dark hair that was just starting to grow in thick and soft. She was perfect and every time I looked at her I felt my heart break a little because Nikolai should have been here to see her, to hold her, to watch her discover the world with those careful eyes.
I didn't know if he was alive or dead and that not knowing was its own kind of torture, Damien's people had taken him away bleeding on that beach and I'd never heard anything after, no news reports about his death or arrest, no messages from Katya or Irina, just silence that stretched on for months until I had to accept that maybe silence was all I'd ever get.
Every day I thought about him and every day I told myself to stop because it didn't help anything, but I couldn't make myself stop any more than I could make myself stop breathing.
I'd wake up in the morning and reach for him before remembering he wasn't there, I'd see something Elena did that reminded me of him and want to share it with him, I'd lie in bed at night and remember the way he'd held me on the island like I was something precious he was afraid to break.
The money he'd told me about was real and it was more than I'd expected, enough that I'd never have to work and Elena would never want for anything, and I'd moved it carefully through channels Katya had helped me set up before she disappeared, splitting it into accounts under different names so it couldn't all be traced at once.
I lived simply in the vineyard house and spent my days taking care of Elena, learning how to be a mother without anyone to help or guide me, figuring out feeding schedules and sleep patterns and all the tiny details that made up a baby's life.
She was a good baby, quiet most of the time and happy to lie in her crib watching the shadows move across the ceiling or the leaves outside the window. She smiled easily and laughed when I made funny faces at her, and sometimes when she grabbed my finger with her tiny hand I felt like maybe I was doing something right.
I sang to her in the evenings while rocking her to sleep, old songs my mother used to sing to me and new ones I made up about dancing and sunshine and safety. I told her about her daddy while she nursed, told her he was brave and complicated and that he loved us both even though he couldn't be here, and I didn't know if she understood but it felt important to say it anyway.
Sometimes I cried quiet tears after she fell asleep, sitting in the dark nursery with my hand on her back feeling her breathe and wondering if Nikolai was somewhere doing the same thing, thinking about us, missing us, or if he was gone completely and these moments were mine alone.
Today was Elena's six month birthday and I'd made a small cake in the kitchen that morning, nothing fancy just vanilla with strawberries from the market, and I'd put half a candle on it even though she was too young to blow it out or understand what birthdays meant.
I sat at the kitchen table with Elena in my lap and the cake in front of us and felt lonely in a way that was almost physical, like there was a hole in the room where Nikolai should have been standing with his camera taking pictures and his serious face breaking into a smile when Elena laughed.
"Your daddy should be here," I told her quietly, "he should be here watching you grow up and holding you and teaching you things, he should be here with us."
Elena grabbed at the frosting with her chubby hand and brought it to her mouth and made a face at the sweetness, and I laughed even though my eyes were filling with tears.
"You look just like him when you make that face," I said, "same expression, same eyes, you're going to break hearts someday just like he did."
I cut a small piece of cake and ate it slowly while Elena played with the frosting and got it all over her face and hands, and I thought about how strong I had to be for her, how I couldn't let the loneliness and the not knowing destroy me because she needed me whole and present and capable of giving her a good life.
Six months I'd been alone with her and six months I'd managed to keep going, one day at a time, one feeding and one diaper change and one bedtime at a time, building a life that was small and quiet but safe.
I looked at my daughter covered in frosting and smiling up at me with those grey eyes and felt something shift inside, something that wasn't quite peace but was close to it, a kind of acceptance that this was my life now and I could either drown in the sadness or I could choose to find joy in the moments that were still good.
"We're going to be okay," I told Elena, and I believed it even though my voice shook, "just you and me, we're going to be okay."
On Elena's six month birthday, Marlena makes a small cake. She feels lonely but strong for her daughter.