“It is hard to be certain. I think in the beginning, the drugs enabled him to cope.”
“Really?”
“He was under a lot of pressure. They gave him a way to blow off steam.”
“Yes, I guess …”
“But not for long. They took over. As they do. He couldn’t cope without them. And bit by bit, I lost my brother.”
“He’s still there.”
Zamir made a sound of disagreement. “You cannot imagine what it’s like, to see someone you love go through it. He is my brother, but he isn’t. He is himself, yet he’s not. My brother, as I knew him, is nowhere. Instead, I have this version. Bitter, dark, angry, and I don’t know how long he’ll work at recovery. Even when he is out, I feel like he might slip at any point.”
“It’s going to be a lifetime of management. There’s no cure for what he’s got.”
Zamir didn’t answer immediately. “You sound as though you speak from experience?”
“Oh, not really. Not in the same way.” Her eyes shifted to the wall beyond him. “My sister Ava went through a rough time a while ago.”
It was fascinating for many reasons. Olivia didn’t often speak of her sisters. “In what way?” He prompted, hoping she’d continue. He didn’t want big chunks of her life to be secret from him.
“She hooked up with this guy a few years ago. A total jerk, in the end.”
If Ava looked anything like Olivia, he could well imagine that she would have been just as much a target for sleazy men.
“It was complicated. She was engaged to someone else, but Cristiano came into town and swept her off her feet. He promised her the world, and then disappeared.”
“That must have been difficult.”
“Yes, if that were all she had to deal with, it would have merely been d
ifficult. But on top of that, Aves found out she was pregnant.” Thoughts fired randomly in his brain, and Zamir was not at all proud of the thread of consciousness that revelled in the very hope that Olivia might be in a similar state.
“And?” He pushed, when she didn’t speak.
“And,” Olivia sighed. “He never spoke to her again.”
Zamir’s feelings were easier to comprehend now. Fury slashed through him. “You mean he didn’t acknowledge the child? Or help?”
“No. He never knew. She tried to tell him. We even flew over there. But he refused to see her.”
“Lissanil Su,” he swore under his breath, and though Olivia had no idea what he’d said, she gathered from the inflection that it was a serious insult.
“She went into labour two months early. Milly was the most tiny little thing we’d ever seen. More like a kitten than a baby.” Her eyes had a faraway look in them. “There were complications.” Olivia couldn’t be certain she wasn’t sharing far too much with this man, but she couldn’t stop. Having opened the vault, it felt good to speak about the time that had been desperately traumatic for all of the sisters, not just Ava. “Aves would have died if she hadn’t had a hysterectomy.”
“Which means … no more children.”
“No more children. No more babies.”
He furrowed his brow. “And this man, this Cristiano. Where is he now?”
Olivia laughed. “That’s a little more complicated. Shoot. I really need to email my sisters.” She squeezed his fingers. “I’ve been a little distracted lately, I guess.”
“That goes for both of us.”
She smiled softly at him and her heart turned over with love. “He’s not involved, if that’s what you’re asking. And he still doesn’t know about Milly.” So far as she knew, at least. But was Ava really capable of keeping it from him?
“Bastard.”