“No,” I agreed, nodding my head as my eyes met Rafe’s. He pursed his lips, leaning forward to touch his lips to my forehead gently as if he knew that I needed him to confirm he truly accepted what my family would think of him going forward. “She was telling the truth.”
“How could you be involved with someone like that, Isa? That is not the girl I raised.”
“But it is,” I said. “I just hid the demon inside me better than Odina did. I kept it from you where she flaunted it, but it’s there. That’s why I never really lived the way you wanted. I think I always knew what would happen.”
“Where is Odina?” she asked, changing the subject as if she couldn’t bear to discuss the line of thought with me any longer. I couldn’t fault her, knowing that she’d pinned all her hopes and dreams for her legacy on me.
Another thing ripped away by my husband, even if it was just a casualty and not his goal.
“The people who were responsible for the attack took her. I’ll try to get her home safe,” I said, pinning Rafe with a look. The quirk of his eyebrow communicated how little he planned to do, but I owed it to my family to return one of their daughters to them.
I’d do it for my mother if nothing else.
“She has to come home. Just be careful,” my grandmother confirmed. I agreed, giving her the confirmation I knew she needed. I had no idea how I would make it happen, not when I couldn’t put myself at risk when I was pregnant.
If it came down to the baby and Odina, I knew who I would choose. Even if it destroyed what remained of my humanity.
“Can I talk to him?” I asked when an awkward silence descended between us. I wasn’t quite ready to hang up the phone, not knowing that it could very well be the last time I spoke to her. Hanging up felt like closing a door and walking away from the past that could have no part in my future.
My future was bathed in blood and tears, but it wasmine.
“I love you, Isa,” my grandmother said, her voice tight. I knew without a doubt that she sensed the inevitable just the same as I did. That the goodbye felt final in a way neither of us wanted or should’ve had to deal with in the wake of my mother’s death.
I hadn’t only lost her, butallof them in one way or another.
“I love you too,Nohkomach. I always will." A pained sound escaped her throat, and there was a sniffle before the soft sounds of her talking to my father.
“Isa?” he asked, his voice too rough and weak.
“Hey, Daddy,” I said, forcing a smile to my face as I spoke to him. “How are you feeling?”
“Please, Isa. Just come home,” he said, ignoring the question and focusing on whatever tension he’d picked up from my grandmother. His voice grew tighter, as if the emotion worsened whatever pain speaking was causing him.
“Rafael has promised that he’s going to take care of you,” I said, not even bothering to question it. I knew Rafe would give me anything so long as it wasn’t to leave him; taking care of my father’s medical bills would be a no-brainer. “Go with the specialists. Let them do what they can.”
“Isa,” he rasped.
“I love you, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I murmured, fighting back my own tears.
“The doctor said the same foundation that paid for your grandmother’s surgery is paying for my treatment now. Tell me how that’s possible,” he said, and the desperation in his voice broke my heart. He knew that the conversation was ending, that I wouldn’t last much longer before I fell apart.
And when that happened, he would lose me.
We would lose each other.
“Goodbye, Dad,” I said, pulling the phone from my ear. I stared down at it, frozen at my father’s shout, at the hollow and broken sound of his grief as I went silent.
“Isa!” he yelled desperately.
Rafe took the phone from my hand, touching the screen until my father’s pained voice disappeared entirely. He dropped the phone to the bed, staring at the side of my face. I couldn’t take my eyes off the phone, off the revelation in my father’s last words.
“You paid for her surgery,” I murmured, the quiet tone of my voice sounding so broken that my breath caught. I felt numb inside, as if my body had been encased in ice and nothing could move or function until I found warmth.
It came in the feeling of Rafe’s hands rubbing over my bare skin, of his reassuring touch that stimulated all the nerve endings that threatened to shut down in the shock of grief that plunged me into a state of agonizing stillness.
“I did,” he said, drawing me into his chest and adding his warmth to my body.
“You saved her life.”
“I have enough money,mi reina, but you only have oneNohkomach." He butchered the pronunciation, much the same way I was sure I would when I eventually tried to learn to speak Spanish, but it warmed my heart to hear his attempt anyway.
I only had one grandmother, just like I’d only had one mother. One father and one sister.
But with all that had happened, I no longerhadthem, not really. The ones who still breathed were lost to me.
There was only us and the family we were creating.