“Mmm, good question,” she says around her food, a hand over her mouth as she speaks, then swallows. “We didn’t travel. Just spent a week at the family cabin in the mountains. Donated the honeymoon cash to charity. Ethan’s a giver.”
“As it’s said: happy wife, happy life,” I quip.
I take another sip of cognac, watching Natalia as she watches me. Sorrow plucks at my chest as a realization asserts itself:As relaxed as I feel with this woman, I’ll never risk a connection. There’s too much I couldn’t share with her.
Not only the small daily details that might spell disaster for the team in the hands of a journalist—such as Edward Morgan’s health or the sponsor problem—but the simple fact that I’ll never stop missing my wife.
No one should have to compete with a ghost.
I swirl my tulip glass, fumbling to pick up the thread of conversation. “What charity did you and Ethan choose to enrich?”
She squints one eye in thought, and something about the gesture is so natural and charming that I wish I could kiss the small crow’s-foot crinkle above her cheekbone.
“Um, something for children? Ethan adores kids. We’re going to have three or four.”
“Quite the full house.” I swirl the cognac and peek at Natalia. “Is that part fiction? Do you want children?”
There’s hesitance in her expression. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
I move the glass idly, examining the way the candlelight gilds the amber liquid. For some reason, I’m afraid to look at Natalia. “You’ve plenty of time to decide,” I say, my brightness forced. I lift the glass in a toast. “To you and Ethan.”
Her lips part, then close as she searches for what she wants to say. “How come, uh… you never had kids?” she asks.
“Never?” I return with a blithe smile. “I’m only forty-five, kleine Hexe.”
“Oh—of course…” The abashed words tumble out.
I lift a hand to reassure her. “I’m joking. The truth is, we tried for many years.”
“Ah.” She nods gravely. “Fertility treatments and all that?”
“No. I wish I’d insisted upon it, because we learned later—toolate—that our lack of success was due to a very slow-growing cancer. Endometrial. But Sofia wanted things to be ‘natural.’ She had many superstitions. A bowl of pine cones under the bed—silly things like that. It seemed harmless.” I tip back the last of the cognac. “Until it killed her, of course.”
I’ve flown the conversational plane into the side of a mountain with the comment and know it immediately.
Curse my bitterness. It would have been lovely to talk more, but her next sentence will surely be a comforting platitude followed by an “Oh, look at the time—I must get some sleep” exit. Dammit, I can’tbe trusted even with simple friendship, to say nothing of the cratered ruin of love…
My thoughts are pulled back by the touch of Natalia’s hand on mine. In the half second before my eyes meet hers, I’ve already accepted what I’ll find there:pity. A dart of concern between her brows, a benevolent head tilt…
God, I dread that look.
It isn’t there.
Instead, her expression is fierce. “Fuckcancer,” she says plainly.
It spreads inside me with a sensation like a long-empty well filling with pure water: the recognition that it’s what a friend would say.
A stranger would feel the need for more words.
4
AUSTRIA
A FEW DAYS LATER
NATALIA
Phaedra pushes open a heavy metal door leading to Emerald’s huge factory workshop, winging an arm out to usher me through. The room echoes with the excited babbling and laughter of two dozen kids between the ages of six and twelve. A quick headcount shows half boys, half girls have come to the Jump Start event the team is hosting, a STEM education program for disadvantaged kids.
