Shadowed Heart (12 page)

Women’s voices, from other conversations she had heard when other women got pregnant, that she tried to pull now from her memory and wrap around herself as if they were for her.

“
Pardon
,” a woman’s voice said just behind her, and she stiffened, not wanting to look around in case her eyes were shimmering. The other pregnant woman came even with her and took a deep breath, blinking.

“Sorry,” the woman said again. “Sometimes when I move too fast these days I get dizzy. The doctors said it’s something about the blood vessels dilating. Have you started feeling sick?”

Summer’s gratitude for that tiny connection surged so strongly that it took all her will to strangle it back and not let it come out as a flood of tears. “Yes.”

The other woman made a face. “I’m starting to get over that, I think. I could almost look at chocolate the other day.
Croisons les doigts.
” She held up her crossed fingers, smiling awkwardly.

“Well.” Summer nodded. “I hope so. Congratulations again.”
Thank you
.
For pretending I’m a human being, too.

“What Chloë said,” the other woman added in a rush. “About not telling people yet. That was just stupid. Don’t pay any attention to that.”

Summer rubbed her belly involuntarily. “I think I’ve learned my lesson,” she said, low and dry.
But I bet I could tell people on my island.

She could almost taste it, the sense of happiness that would wrap around her, the exclamations of delight, the encouragement and support. Mamie Louise would be bringing her some magic food that pregnant women could actually eat, like green mangoes with chili powder, and...

Green mangoes with chili powder. She had never even liked them, and all the sudden her teeth ached from the need for the crunch and the pea-apple flavor covered with heat.

You idealize your island too much, Summer. You had to work hard to develop friendships there, too.

Maybe the problem, still, is that you believe in the possibilities for happiness on that island more than you believe in the possibilities here.

“What did
you
eat?” she asked the other woman suddenly.

She made a face. “Not much. Chips. Sorbets some. We’ve been eating in restaurants a lot, or we go to them, but I usually find out that whatever I was so convinced I wanted at that restaurant is something I can’t even stand by the time we actually sit down at the table. But it’s been easier than trying to survive the smells from cooking in the house, I guess. I’m starting to get better.”

This time Summer’s smile was almost spontaneous. “Well, that’s good,” she said. Her gaze skimmed the other woman’s belly again, quickly, curiously, as she tried to imagine that roundness on herself. As she tried to imagine feeling a little better.

“I’m still
very
tired and draggy, though,” the other woman said ruefully.

Oh. Was that normal? Not just Summer being…spoiled or something?

Summer wished desperately that she could figure out some way to extend this moment, to develop it into an actual friendship, but she couldn’t come up with one single thing. Even her island friendships had taken
time.
“I’m Summer,” she said again suddenly, extending her hand.

“Amélie,” said the other woman, and Summer smiled again. She would smile her heart out, if that would help make future friends for her baby.

“And if you want to try our restaurant sometime, when you think you can eat, it’s on me,” Summer said swiftly.

Amélie looked both pleased and a little confused by this generosity from a near-stranger.

Summer shrugged a little, trying to slide some silk over the moment. “A little present for the baby. To say, ‘Welcome’.”

“Thank you.” The other woman’s face softened into a smile.

The two of them stood there a moment, awkwardly.

“Well. Congratulations,” the other woman said, having done her part to make up for her friends’ behavior.

“You, too,” Summer said wistfully and headed back down the cobblestone streets toward their house, leaving the other woman to rejoin her friends and all that excited support.

Still, it gave her a little hope.
Maybe Luc will come home early tonight. And we’ll get a chance to talk. To be excited together.

He
does
want this baby. He really does.

On a sudden wave of tenderness, she realized that Luc, too, must be bogged down in his own emotions. They packed in him so tightly, and he had so little idea how to handle them beyond making desserts and, these days, making love to her. And, boy, had he ever had a messed-up childhood.

But he’d
loved
the idea of having a baby. His face would just light every time he talked about it, back there when they were on her island, lying in hammocks, planning their future for which he and she would both sacrifice every other happiness and sense of worth they had ever found for themselves. Her island and her teaching. His restaurant in Paris.

That’s okay
, they’d always said
. We’ll have each other.

***

Asleep, Summer curved toward his side of the bed, one arm around his pillow, her face buried in it. It was one a.m. Again. The damn restaurant was eating him alive.

Luc stood for a moment looking down at Summer. They had had a hard road to reach an understanding of each other, after they first met. But if he had just been able to watch her sleeping back then, just had the courage to relax his heart to what he saw, he would have understood everything about her: beauty and vulnerability, gentleness, and that sweet hunger for him. A willingness to give everything, if only she could have love in return.

He had hardly been able to stand his day, without her at the restaurant in the afternoon. When the apprentices had chattered their way happily out of the restaurant to go meet her at the green café tables by the
boules
court, he’d stared after them with such jealousy. Ready to turn himself back into a lowly apprentice again just for the chance to sit near Summer.

He didn’t know how he was going to get through this morning sickness phase, and his anxiety made him feel pathetic.
Merde, tough it up.
She’s
the one going through it.

You’re just a particularly ineffective spectator.

He sat on the edge of the bed and, as he reached for her hand, noticed the slim silver remote tucked between her palm and the pillow. He turned to look at their TV.

His stomach clenched. Photos of Summer’s island life scrolled there. A close-up of a beautiful gardenia. A photo of Summer sitting at some old giant of a woman’s feet, the woman weaving a lei, Summer hugging her knees to her chest, head tilted back to smile up at the older woman. Summer with a pile of black-haired kids spilling all over her, the kids making all kinds of silliness out of their expressions and poses, Summer laughing. His stomach tightened and tightened until he felt like the kid in the Métro again, two days without food, his dad’s face blank behind his accordion, and no mother in sight, only all those glossy, polished commuter women who ignored his dancing, ignored his outstretched hand begging for change.

Had his mother had more kids, after she ran back to her island? Had she, too, ended up laughing and happy there, after she had left Luc behind?

He looked down at the present he had carried home with him through the streets: a frozen lime-flavored sphere graced with raspberries. He’d thought about doing a peach sorbet, but he’d wanted it all to come from him, not part from Nico. And, and…
since when do you like lime so much? Since it smells like you.

He had put his heart into it for her, the way he always did. He liked it when she ate his heart. When she licked the spoon clean of him as if she wanted every last drop of what he was.

The sphere was melting now, no longer perfect. Soon it would be an unsalvageable mess.

Going into the kitchen, he tossed it into the sink and stood there staring at it, as it slowly melted away. As the last lump of sorbet slid slowly down the drain, he bent over the sink and clutched his head in his hands, trying to breathe himself sane.

In the bedroom, he stopped suddenly. The island photos were still scrolling randomly. And there was their wedding, both of them garlanded with tiare flowers. They held each other’s hands, the priest just beyond them with his hand upraised. Summer’s face was radiant, tilted up to his own. She looked so happy—relieved, delighted, amazed, as if she couldn’t believe something this wonderful had happened to her. Something as wonderful as
marrying him.
His own face was wondering, luminous, as if love shone as an actual light from her face and spilled over him.

Slowly, he began to strip down to his briefs, watching those photos. There they were at the pig roast afterward, seated on the ground, Summer leaning into him in some moment of laughter, his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. There they were dancing, and around them, also draped in leis, Patrick and Sarah, Dom and Jaime, Sylvain and Cade, even Summer’s “Uncle” Mack, who’d flown out there for it when her own parents “hadn’t been able to make it”. In the photo, Mack Corey, who made a flower lei look like the ultimate in self-confident, powerful male attire, was just in the process of cutting in on Luc. Summer was laughing with pleasure at the attention and Luc was smiling, relaxed, stepping back to allow his honorary uncle-in-law to partner his wife, not afraid he would lose her because he had to let her go for a moment.

Ease seeped through him. Why…he was part of her island happiness. It was, in fact, his happiness, too. How was he forgetting that? He couldn’t lose her to something she loved to share with him.

He slipped into bed beside her, propping on his elbow to watch her. Moonlight gilded over her hair and the one visible cheekbone. Gently, he stroked over her cheekbone, down to her lips. So soft. They curved upward in her sleep under the touch of his thumb. Was it bad of him to keep stroking, to hope to wake her up without admitting it? His hands were so callused, compared to hers. He could make his touch as delicate as a butterfly’s wing but its texture would always have that roughness.
I love you so damn much. I’d do anything for you. Tell me what to do.

A sigh ran through her body, her smile deepening. “Luc,” she said and kissed the heel of his palm, opening her eyes.

Everything in him relaxed in a rush of utter bliss. His world righted itself. “
Soleil.
” He rubbed her lips, tugging the lower one a tiny bit. “How are you feeling?”

“Yucky.” She smiled wryly and kissed his fingertips. Funny how sweet that little gesture still felt, even after months of getting used to it. Months. They had met less than half a year ago, and they were having a baby, and—
God,
that was such a frantically pretentious claim on a lifetime of happiness. Happiness had given him a passing nod and he’d rushed out and told the world they were lifetime best friends. “Thank you for the raspberries you sent over earlier.”

“You liked them?” Maybe he shouldn’t have thrown that lime sphere and its raspberries out. That lime sphere that said
I’ll take care of you. I’ll take the best care I possibly can. You’ll be happy with me. Just stay.

“They helped,” she said, which wasn’t quite as enthusiastic an answer as he had hoped for, but that could be good enough for him.

He looked at her mouth, imagining it closing around a raspberry, imagining the tart, sweet flavor on her tongue. He bent his head and kissed her, trying to taste it, hours too late.

Her lips parted, and he took over, tasting her, hungry, growing hungrier, until finally it penetrated that she was pushing on his shoulders, trying to twist her mouth free.

He jerked back, the blow deep into his vital parts. “What?” Oh, shit, was he making her want to throw up again?

She pulled a great lock of her hair across her nose, breathing through it, her eyes wincing over it. God, that was—was that
revulsion
when she looked at him? “Luc. I’m sorry, I—it’s just the scents. From the restaurant. I can’t—”

It took him still another second to realize that she meant
him.
He...stank to her.

When that was what his world
was
, that she loved the way he smelled, she loved the way he felt, she loved his touch, his taste, she loved him. “I thought—yesterday you said—about the lime smell—”

“I’m sorry,” she said desperately. Her eyes said it, too:
Please, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Don’t be mad. I can’t help it.

He took a deep breath, sliding back out of the bed. “No. It’s all right. Stop, Summer. It’s all right.” He reached out to touch her cheek again and caught himself in case his hand stank, too. “I’ll go take a shower.”

Standing under the water felt so strange. He took a shower every night, of course, after the heat of the kitchens. He often thought of her while he rinsed himself off, of how her hands were going to feel against his fresh, naked skin. Sometimes he shaved at that hour just so his jaw would be smooth as a baby’s against her body. And sometimes he didn’t, so it would be prickly and he could oh-so-gently scrape it up the inside of her forearm as he held it above her head.

But showering now, at her request, because if he didn’t it would make her sick, felt as if he was washing everything of himself away: all the things he had made that day, all the things he had been, the impossible top chef who demanded miracles from everything he touched, who demanded miracles from himself and got them. All of that gone, the scent of lime, the crush of raspberries, the nuts, the caramel, the sugar, the butter, the lavender and rose, the chocolate, the thyme, his sweat, his effort, everything gone. And yet when it was all washed away, he was still there.

He actually hadn’t even
shrunk
. He was exactly the same size.

Naked. He ran his hand over his chest, that strange strength and solidity of his body that persisted even when all his accomplishments were washed off it. Then he grasped the showerhead, forcing himself to hold still while it washed him clean, hanging from it as the water ran over him, trying to focus on water and relaxing muscles and nothing else.