Chapter 28 A Place Called Ours
Chapter 28 A Place Called Ours
Nadja Ironside
The calm of the day had become a delicate fabric after Joana’s casual visit, until it was torn by the dry sound of a phone notification.
When I look at the screen, I see his name. My heart, which had learned to beat in a less anxious rhythm, gives a sudden leap against my ribs, not in a painful way, but in something I wished I had beside me.
Dragon: I’ll be away for three days. Orders from the boss. The house is safe and all the doors have been programmed to open only from the inside with a password. The soldiers cannot enter the house and do not open the door under any circumstances.
Reading the message seals the air inside my lungs. Orders from the boss, he was referring to Marcus Reed, Joana’s husband. It is work and his world, the one I know only through shadows and whispers, that have surrounded me since my birth. But it is the second message that makes the ground beneath my feet feel like quicksand.
Dragon: I’m going to miss you.
Simple, direct words. A declaration that does not ask permission and settles in the center of my chest, warming and terrifying me in the same measure. I look at the screen once more, at his name. “I’m going to miss you.”
Otávio never missed me. He missed his object of torture, his possession when it was not in his presence, I was his property.
I do not know what to do with this attention I am receiving from Dragon. It is unfamiliar territory, invaded by kindnesses that I still suspect to be traps. A heavy sigh escapes my lips. When the reply does not come.
Anything I write will seem silly and awkward or too cold. I leave the phone on the kitchen counter with the message open like an accusation or a promise, something I have not yet decided which.
The silence of the house, now consciously empty of him, feels deeper. I need to keep busy. I decide to face the bedroom. Our bedroom, as he himself named it. The thought still sends a strange shiver down the back of my neck. He asked, or rather, almost ordered, that I sleep here from now on. His bedroom.
Which now is… ours. And the word “ours” is a knot in my throat.
I take my phone and go upstairs to the bedroom to start arranging my few belongings, transferring them from the shopping bags to the spacious closet where his dark, impeccable clothes are.
It is a strangely intimate ritual to see my softly colored blouses beside his black or gray suits. I am folding a sweater when Lúcia appears at the door, with a stack of clean, folded sheets in her arms.
"I thought you might need help to…" she begins to say, but her voice disappears in the middle of the sentence.
Her eyes, always so attentive, scan the room and settle on the empty spaces where the mirror and the TV that Dragon destroyed had been. The lighter patch on the wall and the traces of our “little disagreement”. Of my blind fury, of my panic attack turned into audacity. Of the way he destroyed everything to contain his rage and not hurt me.
I feel the heat of embarrassment rise up my neck. I hurry to explain, the words tumbling out.
"We had a… a small disagreement last night. It was… an accident."
Lúcia looks at me, and there is no judgment in her eyes. There is a deep and painful understanding that makes me even more embarrassed.
"I understand, Mrs.," she says, her voice a gentle comfort. "Sometimes, adjustments… cause shards. What matters is that no one got cut by them, isn’t it?"
I nod in agreement, unable to speak. She nods back and moves forward, placing the sheets on the bed. Then she bends to pick up one of the shopping bags that still holds personal items, intimate things I did not want to expose yet. It is a natural and helpful movement. But a sudden, irrational and overwhelming panic rises inside me.
"No!" the word comes out louder and harsher than I intended.
Lúcia freezes, surprised by my reaction, and my face burns.
"I’m sorry, Lúcia. It’s just that… you can let me organize this by myself. They’re… personal things." I try to soften my attitude with a smile, but it comes out crooked and embarrassed.
I am uncomfortable, yes. Uncomfortable because she saw the marks of what happened last night, uncomfortable because she invaded this fragile boundary I am trying to establish between what is mine, what is his and what is… ours. And uncomfortable, deep down, because I still carry so many habits that belonged to the abusive relationship I had with Otávio, so many needs to hide the many traces of the assaults I suffered, as well as to protect the small fragments of myself that remained.
She immediately steps back, her hands raised in a peaceful gesture.
"Of course, Mrs. Nadja. No problem. I… I’ll check on dinner. If you need anything, just call me."
Lúcia leaves the bedroom, leaving a heavy silence behind. I feel ungrateful for my attitude. While she has been kind to me. But kindness, sometimes, can be as intrusive as violence, when you are not used to receiving it.
I sigh, rubbing my face, irritated that that bastard is not dead inside me. He lives here inside me, he is a whispering ghost that turns innocent gestures into potential threats.
The days pass in a haze of mechanical activities. I arrange the bedroom and the closet, a methodical activity, and as soon as I finish I go to a reading space and look for a book that seems interesting to me.
I take a book from the immense shelf, begin to leaf through it, but the words make no sense. His absence, made official days ago by the message, is a physical weight on me. The house, even so safe, feels like a very large and terribly silent cocoon.
The day stretches on and, in the late afternoon, I feel my phone vibrate and see Clara’s name on the screen. This is a relief and a thread of connection to a world that, although dysfunctional, is familiar.
"Nadja! You can’t imagine the hell this is here," my sister’s voice sounds exalted over the phone. "They’re taking me out of the convent today and our beloved parents already have a list of ‘suitable candidates’ longer than the grocery list for the month. Our father Petar, the poet of Tragedy, only talks about alliances and business deals. And our mother is already planning engagement parties. It’s as if they bottled up all the ambition they didn’t use on you and now they’re pouring it all on me!"
I laugh, a dry and genuine sound. It is good to hear her voice, even full of drama.
"And you, Clara? What do you want?"
"I want them to leave me alone! I want… I don’t know, Nadja. Maybe paint or travel. Meet someone who doesn’t have the IQ of a log and the charm of a door. Something simple, you know?" She pauses. "And you? How is your… dark knight?"
I instinctively look toward where our bedroom is, as if Dragon could be there.
"It’s… complicated. But different. He… respects me."
"Respects you?" The surprise in Clara’s voice is almost comical. "That’s better than any love poem, Nadja. Careful, you might end up liking it."
"Let me know if anything gets even worse with our parents!" I said with a bit of concern.
I hang up with a tired smile on my lips. “Liking” is such a dangerous word. It is in this state, suspended between the lightness of laughter and the weight of loneliness, that I realize I did not have dinner. I was still in the room that looks more like a library. Until the calm of the early morning is broken by the ring of the phone, a sharp and insistent noise on a small table beside the sofa where I was lying with a blanket over my legs.
I answer without thinking and let my voice, blurred by fatigue, flow.
"Nadja?" it is a hoarse, dragged whisper, full of a terror I recognize in my DNA. "It’s Ella."
"Ella? What happened? Where are you?" I jump up on the sofa, my heart beating out of rhythm.
"I’m at the airport. In Belgrade. I’m… I’m running away, Nadja."
"Running away? From what?"
"From my parents. From… from my fiancé." A sob muffles her voice. "They chose. They had an engagement lunch today… and he… he grabbed me in a hallway, away from everyone…" her voice breaks into a restrained and agonizing cry. "He hurt me, Nadja. He said it was an advance, a taste of what our marriage will be like. I… I can’t stay here. I managed to escape and I’m taking the first flight to Montana. Please, I need your help. I have nowhere to go."
My blood freezes in my veins. The story is a sinister echo, a distorted reflection of my own life with her brother. In that moment, I see the situation in slow motion for my best and only friend. Ella, always so vibrant, so full of light, has been reduced to a terrified whisper in an airport.
"Come," I say, my voice firm with an instant decision. "Come here. You’ll stay with me. You’ll be safe here. Send me the flight details and I’ll come get you."
The plan forms in my mind, fragile and urgent. And I will need help. I cannot count on Dragon’s soldiers; his orders were clear: I cannot leave the house. But Ella needs me. I remember Joana then. Her energy, her frankness and, above all, her power as the boss’s wife. She will know what to do.