I laugh. Low and a little undone. Santos puts his face in his hands. His shoulders shake.
Matteo stands and goes to the window and stands with his back to the room for a moment. I can see the line of his shoulders. When he turns around he is not holding it together at all and the real smile is there, the full one that Matteo almost never allows in the daylight, warm and unguarded and pointed entirely at Jennifer.
Santos lifts his face. The saffron in the room is doing something I have not smelled from it before, vivid and sweet and a little overwhelming. "She is ours," he says. Not a question. "She is yours," Jennifer says.
We are quiet for a moment. Santos laughs again, properly, the full sound of it filling the room. Matteo makes a sound that is not quite laughter but lives close to it.
Then I look at her directly.
"There is no question about what we want," I say. "We want you, and our daughter." I hold her gaze. "That is what we want. I want to know if it is what you want."
Santos is watching her from the chair, the bright open attention of him, saffron warm in the air. Matteo has come back from the window and is standing close to the bed. He says nothing, which is Matteo communicating clearly. The certainty in his pale eyes is not hidden.
Jennifer looks at all three of us and something moves through her expression that I cannot fully name and will not pretend to, because Jennifer's inner states are hers to offer when she chooses and not mine to read when she does not.
"I want it," she says. "I think I have wanted it since about day four and I have been arguing myself out of it steadily ever since."
"Then we are in agreement," I say.
"I need to think," she says. "Not because I’m going to change my mind. But because this is a big decision, and we’ve spent time together, but this would be forever. I’m going to the guest house tonight. Have my own space. Think clearly."
Santos opens his mouth.
I look at him.
He closes it.
"Of course," I say. "Take whatever time you need. The guest house is yours for as long as you want it."
Jennifer looks at me and the green of her eyes is direct and steady and I can smell her strawberry going warmer in the air, and she nods once, the nod of someone who has been heard correctly and is registering that fact.
Santos walks her to the guest house himself with all her things, at dusk, wanting to make sure that she has everything that she needed. Matteo stands at the kitchen window and watches the path until they return, which is Matteo being exactly Matteo. I pour a glass of water and drink it and go back to my book, and this time I actually read it, because Jennifer has told us what she wants and we have agreed to it and there is nothing further to do tonight except let the answer stand.
Santos comes back through the door and leans against the kitchen counter and blows out a slow breath.
"She's going to say yes," he says.
"I know," I say.
"How do you know," he says.
"She is simply processing it in the order she requires. Let her,” I reassure them as we exchange looks.
"He's right," Matteo says, which is two words from Matteo constituting a full and complete endorsement.
We have dinner and clear the kitchen. Tomas settles in his chair with a book. Santos reorganizes the spice rack, which he does when he has energy with nowhere to put it. Matteo sits at the island with a coffee, still carrying the quiet satisfaction of a man whose calculations have come out exactly as expected.
Somewhere in the guest house, Jennifer is thinking. She will do it thoroughly, and we will be here for as long as it takes.
28
JENNIFER
The guest house shower has excellent water pressure and I stand under it, letting the heat of it work through days of accumulated everything, and I think about nothing in particular and everything at once, which is what I do when I am processing something too large to approach directly.
The tiles are white. The towels are thick. Outside the small window the island is going about its morning business, the birds doing their thing in the herb garden, the water moving steadily beyond the hill.
I get out of the shower and wrap myself in one of the thick towels and sit on the edge of the bed. Is this what my future looks like? I should be grateful, I know that. I am going from doing too much to doing nothing, and somewhere in the gap between those two things I am supposed to find peace.