Chapter 75 Marlena
I woke up to sunlight coming through the window in soft golden bars that fell across the bed and touched my face warm and gentle.
For a moment I didn't move, just lay there with my eyes closed and listened to the sounds of the house, Nikolai breathing slow and even beside me and Elena making small happy noises in her crib by the wall, those little coos and gurgles she made when she was waking up content instead of hungry or uncomfortable.
I opened my eyes and turned my head on the pillow to look at him.
He was still asleep with one arm thrown over his head and his face relaxed in a way I'd never seen before, all the tension and calculation gone and leaving behind just a man who looked younger than his years, peaceful in a way that made my chest ache because I'd spent so long believing we'd never get to have mornings like this.
Elena made another sound and I sat up carefully trying not to wake Nikolai and looked over at the crib where she was kicking her legs and waving her arms at the mobile hanging above her, tiny fabric birds that spun in the breeze from the open window.
I got out of bed and padded across the cool floor in bare feet and leaned over the crib to look down at my daughter.
She saw me and her whole face lit up with recognition and joy, her grey eyes going wide and her mouth opening in a smile that showed her pink gums, and she reached up with both hands like she wanted me to pick her up right now.
"Good morning baby girl," I whispered, lifting her out of the crib and holding her against my chest while she grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled with surprising strength for someone so small.
She giggled when I pretended to be hurt and made an exaggerated face, and the sound of her laugh was so pure and happy that I felt something warm spread through my chest, pushing back against the constant low level anxiety that had lived there for months.
I walked to the window with her and looked out at the vineyard stretching down the hill in neat rows, the leaves dark green and the grapes starting to turn purple as they ripened, and beyond that the rolling Tuscan hills going on forever under a sky so blue it looked painted.
This was real, I told myself, this house and this view and this baby in my arms and the man sleeping in the bed behind me, all of it was real and solid and mine, and nobody was coming to take it away.
But even as I thought it I felt the familiar twist of fear in my stomach, the voice that said it was too good to last and something would go wrong because something always went wrong, and I had to consciously push that voice down and choose to be here in this moment instead of in all the terrible possible futures.
"Your daddy's home," I told Elena quietly, more to remind myself than to inform her, "he came back to us."
She grabbed my nose with her other hand and squeaked and I kissed her fingers.
Behind me I heard the bed creak and then Nikolai's voice, rough with sleep and softer than I'd ever heard it.
"Good morning."
I turned and he was sitting up with his hair messy and his eyes still half closed, and he was looking at us like we were something he'd painted himself and was trying to memorize every detail.
"Morning," I said.
"How long have you been up?" he asked.
"Just a few minutes," I said, walking back toward the bed, "she woke up happy."
"Can I hold her?" he asked, and there was something uncertain in the question like he was still learning how to be her father and wasn't sure he had the right to ask.
I handed Elena to him and he took her carefully with both hands supporting her head and her bottom, settling her against his chest while she immediately grabbed his shirt and tried to put it in her mouth.
He kissed the top of her head where her dark hair was sticking up in all directions and I watched his face soften even more, watched him transform from the man who'd built an empire on revenge into someone gentler and more fragile, someone who could be undone by a six month old baby grabbing his finger.
Something inside me thawed a little watching them together, one of the many frozen places that had formed over the past year of loss and grief and fear, and I let it melt without fighting it even though melting meant feeling things I'd been protecting myself from.
I still had walls, I could feel them solid and high around my heart, but they didn't seem quite as necessary today as they had yesterday, didn't seem like the only thing keeping me safe.
"I'm going to make coffee," I said, needing to move and do something with my hands, "do you want some?"
"Please," he said without looking up from Elena's face.
I went downstairs and put the espresso pot on the stove and got out bread and jam and fruit while the coffee bubbled and filled the kitchen with its bitter smell, and I carried everything out to the small table on the porch where we could eat and watch the morning sun climb higher over the vineyard.
Nikolai came down a few minutes later with Elena still in his arms and sat across from me while I poured coffee into two small cups and pushed one toward him.
We ate in comfortable silence for a while and Elena sat in Nikolai's lap reaching for everything on the table and making frustrated sounds when we didn't let her have the hot coffee or the knife.
The birds were loud in the olive trees at the edge of the property and the air smelled like grapes and wild herbs and morning dew burning off in the heat, and I thought about how different this was from every other morning I'd had in the past year, how quiet and simple and ordinary in the best possible way.
"I want to plant flowers," Nikolai said suddenly, and I looked up from my coffee to see him watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read.
"Flowers?" I repeated.
"For Elena," he said, "a garden she can play in when she's bigger, bright colors and different textures, maybe lavender because it smells good and butterflies like it."
I felt my throat get tight because this was what hope looked like on him, planning a garden for our daughter to play in years from now, believing we'd still be here and still be safe and still be together.
"Okay," I said, and my voice came out softer than I meant it to, "we can plant flowers."
He smiled at me across the table and it was a real smile, unguarded and warm, and I felt the fear spike in my chest immediately because this was when things usually got taken away, when I started believing they were real and permanent.
But I pushed the fear down again and decided to try something different.
I decided to trust this one small thing, this moment on the porch with coffee and bread and the baby between us and plans for a flower garden, I decided to believe it was real and let myself have it without waiting for it to be destroyed.
It was terrifying and it made my hands shake slightly when I picked up my coffee cup but I did it anyway.
"What kind of flowers?" I asked, and the question was my way of saying yes to the future he was imagining, yes to staying here and building something, yes to trying even though everything in my past told me trying only led to loss.
His smile got wider and he started talking about roses and sunflowers and whatever else we could grow in Tuscan soil, and I listened and nodded and felt the walls around my heart drop another inch.
Marlena decides to try trusting one small thing today.