Chapter 62 Chapter 62
Chapter 62 Chapter 62
Monday at 7:20 a.m., Laura opened her eyes in the suite with Cavalier’s hand on her belly and the metallic taste that had been greeting her before her coffee for the past two weeks.
She was going to throw up.
“Cavalier, get off me.”
“What?”
“Get out of bed, now.”
She made it to the small bathroom with her hand over her mouth, knelt in front of the toilet, and vomited in fits and starts. It had been fifteen minutes since she’d had breakfast, and her body had decided that was offensive, too.
Honey, I swear on Grandma Elena’s grave that once you’re out of here, you’ll make it up to me this week.
Cavalier walked in barefoot and grabbed her hair with his left hand—without asking permission, without the look of a new husband learning to put up with gagging, but rather like a man who’d been doing it for weeks.
“Laura.”
“Cavalier.”
“Vargas in an hour.”
“Cavalier, this is morning sickness, not a heart attack—don’t call Vargas for something that’ll go away with a cookie.”
“I’m calling him anyway.”
—You jerk.
—I know.
She rinsed her mouth and sat down on the floor with her back against the wall. Cavalier sat down next to her, not caring about his suit pants.
“Cavalier, one thing.”
“Go ahead.”
“If this kid turns out to be as stubborn as you, I’ll cut fifty percent off her last name and just call her Mendoza.”
Cavalier gave him a brief smile.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Fine, Laura, if she turns out to have your big mouth, I’ll take a discount off my own last name.”
At 9:30, she got into the sedan with two men in the back and her purse slung over her shoulder, along with the new pants she’d bought on Saturday with Carla, because at ten weeks, her belly was no longer just an idea—it was a fact that the mirror confirmed with a look that said, “Don’t act surprised.”
She arrived at the clinic at ten.
“Patricio, coffee from the neighborhood.”
“You don’t have an appointment until eleven, ma’am.”
“Patricio, the coffee is for me; the appointment is at eleven.”
She went up to her office and checked twelve messages on the landline while jotting down two urgent matters in her planner: a patient with a bladder infection for tomorrow and a pediatric prescription for the pharmacy on the second floor.
At 11:20, Carla arrived unannounced, carrying a bag of pastries and her five-month baby bump coming through the door three seconds before she did.
—Lau.
—Carla.
“I brought you pastries to blackmail you—I need your opinion on the name.”
“Carla, we’ve already talked about the name four times.”
“I know, but last night Miguel suggested a new one, and it’s really bugging me.”
—Which one?
—Liam.
—Carla, I love you, but if you name that baby Liam, I’ll never let you into the clinic again.
“Is it that bad?”
“It’s like naming your son ‘ringtone’—give him a name with some weight to it.”
Carla laughed, placing her hand on her belly, and handed him the croissant.
—Lau.
“Yeah.”
“Cavalier?”
“Since Saturday, Cavalier’s been drinking boiled broth and has Vargas’s cell phone on speed dial. Last night he gave me some tea that smelled like a dead mosquito, and he swore it was ginger.”
Carla laughed again.
—Lau, one thing.
—Go ahead.
“Whatever name you give your baby, promise me you’ll let me hold her before Marcela does.”
“Carla, that’s not a promise—that’s a declaration of war on my mother-in-law.”
“Fine, then I’ll declare it myself.”
“Fine.”
At two in the afternoon, she returned to the mansion.
At her 11:20 appointment, Vargas confirmed that the baby was doing well, that her blood pressure was stable, and that the nausea would subside in two weeks. He gave her a prescription for something to help her sleep.
“Mendoza, your husband called me twice this week because he hears you pacing around at four in the morning. Take a pill.”
“All right, Vargas.”
Marcela was in the foyer with a basket of yarn and large needles, looking every bit the mother-in-law who’d been knitting for three weeks but hadn’t dared to show her work yet.
“Honey.”
“Marcela.”
“Vargas?”
“The baby’s doing well.”
“Good.”
“Marcela, what’s that in the basket?”
Marcela looked at her for three seconds.
“A shawl.”
—What color?
“Yellow.”
“Why yellow?”
“Because we still don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy, my love.”
—When we find out, we’ll make another one.
—Okay.
Marcela kissed his forehead and went up to the west wing with the basket.
At nine o’clock that night, Cavalier went up to the suite with his jacket slung over his arm, his face worn out from the two back-to-back board meetings he’d had that Monday.
Laura was already lying on her left side, holding Vargas’s pill in her hand with a glass of water beside her.
“Cavalier.”
“Laura.”
“Manuel?”
“Manuel is aging faster than I’d like; he went downstairs three times today to check his blood pressure.”
“Vargas?”
—Vargas is going to give him a full checkup tomorrow.
—Okay.
—Laura, one thing.
—Go ahead.
—Tonight I don’t want to talk about my grandfather, or the meeting, or anything. Tonight I want to go to bed with my wife, who’s ten weeks pregnant, and get eight straight hours of sleep for the first time in a week. Okay?
—Okay.
Cavalier slipped into bed on the right side, wrapped his left arm around her waist, pulled the sheet down to her belly, and rested his open palm on the baby.
—Cavalier.
“Yes.”
“No pill tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because if I fall asleep with a pill, I won’t feel it if you wake up feeling bad, and if you wake up feeling bad, I want to know.”
Cavalier kissed her hair.
“Okay.”
Laura set the pill on the nightstand.
At 11:20, Cavalier was still awake. So was Laura.
“Cavalier, one thing.”
“Go ahead.”
“You haven’t touched me in four days.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
—Because Vargas told me on Tuesday that the nausea is worse with nighttime stimulation.
—Cavalier, Vargas isn’t my husband.
—I know.
—Touch me.
“Laura.”
“I’m not asking for your permission.”
Cavalier turned, looked at her for three seconds, ran his left hand over her cheek, down her neck, and kissed her slowly on the mouth.
Slowly because her belly could no longer be ignored. Slowly because at ten weeks, her body was asking for something different than it had at five. Slowly because they’d spent forty-five days learning to take things slowly.
Good sex—without urgency, without anger, without Plaza, without Alex, without guns, without anything. The kind two people make love at 11:30 p.m. when they’ve already had four weeks of peace and ten weeks with a baby inside.
At one in the morning, Cavalier kissed her temple.
“Laura.”
“Yes.”
“Is your stomach still upset?”
“It’s still upset, Cavalier, but at least now I don’t care.”
Cavalier chuckled softly, so as not to wake anyone in the west wing, where Marcela was knitting at odd hours.
By ten past two, Cavalier was already fast asleep. Laura wasn’t.
She was lying on her back with her left hand on her belly, counting the weeks. She’d been keeping track of them for those sleepless nights ever since Vargas had cleared her of the threat.
If the baby was due at forty weeks, she had thirty weeks left. Two hundred ten days. Seven months, counted at two in the morning, month by month, week by week, just like when she used to count the shifts at Mount Sinai before the long vacation.
“Daughter.”
Pause.
“Honey, one thing.”
“Mommy just did the math.”
“Two hundred and ten days, sweetheart. If you’re due in July like Vargas says, I’ll see your face on the seventh or the eighth. That month in New York is unbearably hot, but your mom doesn’t care. I’ll welcome you just the same.”
Long pause.
“Honey, Mom has never counted days with such joy. When I was a girl, I counted down the days until vacation so I could go to the country with your grandma. When I was at Mount Sinai, I counted down the days until my shifts were over so I could rest. When I signed the contract with your dad, I counted the fourteen days he owed me. But now I’m counting down the days until I get to see your face. And that, honey, is the first time in thirty years that I’ve counted something for a good reason.”
Pause.
“Two hundred and ten days, sweetheart. Hang in there.”
She shifted over to her left side, took Cavalier’s left hand across her belly, and closed her eyes.
By 2:20, she was already asleep.
And for the first time in forty-five days of marriage, in the middle of a Cavalier mansion, a woman ten weeks pregnant fell asleep counting the days until she would see her daughter’s face, without thinking about exiled brothers-in-law, without hearing the clock on the nightstand, without waiting for the next problem.
Two hundred and ten.
And even though tomorrow the nausea and the clinic and the Cavalier’s boiled broths would return, and even though the mansion would remain just as it was, that night—that night—there was only one woman counting down the days until July.