But I must find a balance in this change. I am still the same man I was yesterday—that will never change—but I must now also allow the part of me that Izabel created, to live equally alongside him.
I get out of my car and walk down the sidewalk toward Dina Gregory’s house, and for the first time in my life I look up at the stars with purpose, a hundred pinpricks in the fabric of a black sky, and I feel the change happening in real-time. I feel the pressure in my chest, a strange, warm light in my eyes, and, of all things, I welcome it. Maybe that is the key to surviving change: embracing it, however cumbersomely, or gracefully, one can.
Bugs swirl around the blazing porch light near the front door; I hear a dog barking in the distance, the night breeze combing through the trees, a truck engine revving in the driveway of a house nearby, and my heart beating in my ears and in my head. I knock lightly. And I swallow.
Izabel has been staying with Dina since she was released from the hospital, and I have not spoken to her since the night Artemis slit her throat. I was there with her, nearly every hour of every day at her bedside, and when she was awake and able to talk, I tried, but she would not talk to me. Or anyone for that matter. Only the nurses. I have been patient, as I will continue to be. But I cannot deny the anxiety I feel inside, not knowing what she is thinking, or if she can ever forgive me for what happened to her.
I hear movement on the other side of the door, and then the clicking of a lock. My hands are sweating; I unfold them from one another to allow in some air.
“I wondered how long you’d sit outside,” Izabel says, standing in the doorway.
She gestures me in.
“You knew?” I ask.
Izabel makes a noise with her breath, and shakes her head as if she cannot believe I even asked. I cannot believe it, either. Love makes a man undeniably stupid.
My gaze sweeps the living room. A basket of folded laundry sits on the floor beside the sofa; lemon-scented furniture polish and powdered carpet freshener is distinct in the air.
“You have been cleaning,” I say, feeling awkward about my poor attempt to spark conversation. I am not used to this sort of thing; I want to talk with Izabel about what happened, but I certainly do not want to lead with it.
“Yeah, I’ve been cleaning,” she says.
She walks into the kitchen, and I follow.
“Want some coffee?” she asks, turning her back to me and sifting through a cabinet.
“No thank you.”
Withdrawing her hand, it comes out empty, and she closes the cabinet door.
Then her shoulders rise and fall heavily, and still with her back to me she says, “Then what do you want, Victor?”
“Thank you, but I do not want anything,” I tell her kindly. “I could not eat or drink anything if—”
She turns, and looks at me from across the bar. “I mean, what do you want?”
Oh.
I sigh, and glance at a kitchen chair.
“May I sit?”
She nods.
“I will understand if you do not want to see me—”
“If I didn’t want to see you, Victor, I wouldn’t have opened the door and let you inside.”
She is waiting for something. An apology? I will gladly give it to her. I do not know how many times I told her I was sorry while she was in the hospital, but I will apologize every day for the rest of my life if that is what she needs. An explanation? I have been desperate to give her one of those as well, and I intended to do that also while she was hospitalized, but considering she would not talk to me, I did not feel it the right time.
I decide to go with something different, something she would likely never expect of me—something I never expected of myself.
“It would make me very happy if you would marry me, Izabel.”
She just stares at me, unblinking, and although the expression on her face has not changed much from the emotionless one, I see evidence of something different in her eyes. But I haven’t the faintest clue as to what it is.
I stand up. Because it feels right not to be sitting.
“I…I do not expect it soon,” I begin, nervously, “but I hope that someday you will be my wife, because I—”
“Stop, Victor.” She puts up a hand.
Maybe I should have stuck with the apologies and explanations.
“I am sorry,” I say.
“I said stop.”
She drops her hand at her side and comes toward me; I get the feeling I am about to be lectured in the calmest of ways.
Her hands touch my shoulders lightly, and the next thing I know, I am sitting down again. She pulls out the empty chair next to me and sits, drawing her legs up and crossing them with her feet tucked beneath her bare thighs; she rests her hands in her lap. I try so hard not to look at the still-healing four-inch-long scar running upward along the side of her throat; the many stitches, like a freakishly-large centipede with wiry black legs; the glistening medicated lubricant—I tear my eyes away, swallow hard, and look at her beautiful face instead. I feel the stiches across the palm of my hand, but mine are nothing compared to hers.
She hesitates, as if gathering the appropriate words, and then says, “I love you fiercely, Victor. I can’t control that, and I can’t change it. But unlike you”—she pauses, holding my gaze—“unlike you, I’m not trying to.”
I start to speak, but she is not finished.
“It’s all you’ve ever done,” she says. “Since you met me, you’ve tried to push me away, tried to control something no man or woman can ever control, instead of accepting it, and letting life happen—please look at me, Victor.”