“I can’t be that generous. Where is Rodrick?”
“On his way here. It took me a while to find him because his phone was out of range, but he should be arriving soon.”
I drift between waking and dozing but keep my eyes closed.
The recent discoveries were more than my exhausted mind could handle. I needed a pause, a complete shutdown. The physical and mental exhaustion is so intense that I even wonder if they’ve given me something to make me sleep.
When I wake to daylight flooding the hospital room, Rodrick is sitting in an armchair in the corner.
His dark, heavy gaze doesn’t leave me.
“Hi.”
He comes closer. Without a word, he pulls me into his arms and holds me tight.
The pain and anguish of the recent revelations ease a little.
Once again, I cry. It seems to have become a habit, more tears in the last twenty-four hours than in years of my life.
It’s the first time I’ve done so in front of him, though, and I feel a little awkward.
“I’m sorry you found out this way.” Despite the words, he seems to feel nothing. His voice is flat, detached, as if he is a spectator and none of it concerns him.
I lift my face to look at him. “There’s nothing I can say that will erase what happened, but I want you to know that I love you with my whole soul and that I hate those two. Your father included.”
He looks surprised. “My father?”
“It was his negligence that led to this tragedy.”
“No. I was the cause.”
“That’s impossible, my husband. You couldn’t have foreseen such an insane act. You were only trying to protect yourself, since your father chose to pretend nothing was happening.”
“He didn’t know.”
I stay silent because I have my doubts. How can a parent not notice the signs? In Rodrick’s case, he tried to get help. He told the truth and was ignored.
“Now that everything has been clarified,” he says as if we’re discussing the week’s dinner menu, not something that shaped who he is today, “we can forget the past.”
“Nothing has been clarified. If you were truly coping with this, you’d be living your life normally.”
“And isn’t that what I’m doing? I became a successful businessman independently of my family’s fortune. I honored my father.”
“He doesn’t deserve to be honored,” I say, unblinking. “Negligent. As guilty as that wretch.”
Again, he seems startled by my hatred.
“You once told me you thought you were responsible for your father’s death, but the only one to blame is him.”
“This conversation makes no sense anymore, Jazmina. It’s over.”
“Is it really? If you’ve overcome everything like you say, why don’t you want children? You’ll never convince me that this refusal to have heirs isn’t connected to what you went through in childhood.”
His jaw tightens. “Yes, you’re right. It is connected. I will never allow my child to be vulnerable. If something happened to us, they would be raised by strangers.”
“Not strangers. I have relatives and a best friend who would take care of our child.”
“This isn’t a subject I’m willing to negotiate on, Jazmina. I’m crazy about you, and even if I think I don’t have the right to want this, I want to spend the rest of my days by your side.”