Page 55 of Slanting Towards the Sea
FIFTY-ONE
WITH THE WEATHER TURNING moodier, I head to the Supernova mall to do some shopping, because I’m short on long-sleeved clothes.
What I need more than clothes, though, is a distraction.
To take my mind off what Vlaho said, how he wept in my arms only a few days ago.
It’s agony to know all the ways he’s hurting, and not be able to offer solace.
I’m exiting one of the stores when a tiny voice calls from behind, “Hey, there’s Aunt Ivona!
” I turn around, and sure enough, Maro is pointing a finger at me.
Marina is standing behind him, smiling, holding Tena’s hand.
I squat as Maro runs over to hug me, and when I release him, I open my arms to Tena, the more cautious of the two children, but whose hug is therefore more worth the earning.
She chews on her lower lip as she walks into my embrace, and I lift her in my arms, kiss her glossy cheeks.
They reward me with the most satisfying popping sound.
When she surrenders herself, it’s with her full heft.
I try to ignore the tear in my chest, the guilt for having slept with her father, for wanting him for myself the way I do. I bury my nose into her scalp, stinking faintly of baby sweat, and work hard to purge myself of those thoughts.
“Fancy seeing you here.” Marina approaches to kiss me with the same ease she always does. She’s oblivious, then. Vlaho hasn’t told her a thing.
“Even people who hate shopping as much as I do need a new pair of socks now and then.”
“We’ve come to buy new bathing trunks for our little fellow here,” she says, then whispers with a hand over her mouth, but her strained cheekbones betray a grin, “He tore his last ones on a rock. Straight across his butt.”
I laugh with her, but the sound comes out all wrong.
“There’s a sale over at Calzedonia, by the way, if you’re thinking about getting a bathing suit for yourself. Something nice and sexy to dazzle your new boyfriend, perhaps?” She wiggles her eyebrows. “Won’t be long till that Kornati trip.”
My throat closes in on itself.
Vlaho emerges from down the mall, jiggling car keys in one hand, rummaging through his pocket with the other. When he looks up and sees me standing next to his wife, holding his daughter, his face does something painful that twinges in my own stomach.
“Hey,” he says, leaning in to kiss my cheek, because not kissing me would cause more suspicion.
Tena reaches for his neck, and he takes her from me, props her on his hip.
Without her in my arms, I feel exposed. I don’t know what to do with my hands.
“Oh shit,” Marina says. “Maro, come back!” She hurries down the mall, chasing after their son, who’s taken off running. It’s painfully hard to turn back to face Vlaho.
“She doesn’t know,” I say, in a cheerful tone that doesn’t quite match the accusation, because he is still holding Tena, and I don’t want to alarm her.
“No, not yet,” he says. “Things were busy. Tena had a stomach bug last week.” But I don’t know if it’s just a pretext and he doesn’t plan on telling Marina at all. Maybe he shouldn’t, not if he decides that that night was a mistake.
“We shouldn’t be taking that trip,” I say. It was never a good idea to begin with.
“Yeah. But Marina is looking forward, and I—” He doesn’t finish, but he doesn’t have to.
If he wants her to cancel the trip, he has to tell her.
If he tells her, it changes everything, and we will never get to do this again.
We will never stop to catch up when we run into each other, much less meet on purpose.
It feels like we’re teetering on the edge of a cliff, all of us.
Tena is watching me with her big eyes. I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. It’s so wispy, her hair. As delicate as she is.
“Vlaho, we need to get going,” Marina calls to him.
She gives me an apologetic shrug, then turns to chase after Maro again, who giggles, running away from her.
Vlaho and I look at each other. So many unspoken words in his eyes.
He is tormented, I see. Pained. But why?
Why? Because of me, or because of them? Which one of us are you planning to hurt? I almost ask.
“Daddy, I’m tired,” Tena says with her caramel voice, and tucks her head in the crook of his neck. As I rub her back, I feel her heft again, even though I’m not the one carrying her.
But I am.
I am.