Placing Levy on the couch next to where we were sitting, I stood. “I’m going to make us some lunch. Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” he said. “Spasgetti!”
I smiled. “All right. I’ll make you some spaghetti.” As I went through the motions of preparing lunch, my mind wandered from the dry noodles I poured into water to the olive grove on Sundara. As steam rose, I swore I could feel the hot dry wind that rattled the leaves, and my heart squeezed so tightly it was a deep physical pain.
Several days before Zakai had told me he thought about Sundara all the time now, and since then, I had too. I’d created a fantasy world out of Sundara through my stories, but the memories that flowed through my mind and over my senses now were astoundingly real and vividly clear. Like Zakai, as I harkened back, I swore I could smell the scents of the mingling desert flowers and feel the blaze of the sun on my skin, but I also pictured the desolate look in Ahmad’s eyes as he’d watched Bibi on the spit, and heard the rattle of the chains Zakai had smashed so mightily against the wall as he listened to what he thought was another man brutalizing me.
All of it flowed together, the real and the imagined, somehow creating insight I’d never had before. For Sundara wasn’t all good, but neither was it all bad, and I was finally managing a way to merge the two realities in my mind, not just to notice the beauty among the tragedy, but to accept both as well.
In some ways that was life. Beautiful and monstrous and heartbreakingly magical. It all swirled together, a thousand individual dots, that, if you found a way to gain some clarity, formed an extraordinary picture that was unique to each of us.
I’d once been sheltered. And happily so. It had been done out of love, I knew that now. But the irony was that, I hadn’t been able to fully appreciate the wonder of Sundara, until I also understood its dreadful reality.
We’re also made more complete by the work, Evie had told me, and I was beginning to understand what she’d meant.
Complete.
No picture was formed when a whole slew of dots was missing.
The mess remained a mess and nothing more. Nothing greater or more beautiful.
How painful and wonderful the lesson had been.
The knock on the door came later that evening, long after Levy was in bed, dreaming the dreams of much-loved three-year-old boys.
I took a deep breath, my nerves jumping as I pulled it open.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” I answered.
He looked behind me momentarily. “Can I see him?”
“Of course you can. Anytime. He’s sleeping—”
“I just want to look at him,” he said brokenly, putting his hands in his pockets.
I nodded, a jerky movement before standing aside so he could pass. He waited until I’d closed the door and then followed me quietly down the hall where I’d led him a few nights before, into the bedroom where our little boy slept.
I stood in the doorway as Zakai moved toward his bed, squatting down beside it, and bringing his face close to Levy’s, his trembling hand reaching out to smooth his inky hair. My heart broke, and it rejoiced to see them together. Love soared inside me, as endless as the star-laden desert sky.
Zakai turned his head to me. “He’s beautiful,” he whispered.
I nodded, a ball of emotion blocking my throat. I cleared it softly. “He’s smart and intense sometimes, but I know how to make him smile. He reminds me of you,” I said softly, my gaze holding his.
He smiled as well, turning back to Levy. He watched him for another few minutes, seeming to soak him in before he stood. I led him out of the room, back into the kitchen.
“Can I, uh, get you a drink or—”
“No, thank you.” He leaned back against the counter. It felt like my heart had moved up my throat to further halt my air as I waited for him to speak.
“I’m sorry I ran out after you told me about him. I was . . . overwhelmed. I didn’t know how—”
“It’s okay, Zakai. I sort of reacted the same way when I found out.” I gave a soft laugh that died quickly. But what I’d said was true. I’d avoided the reality of my pregnancy for days before I’d finally found the courage and the resolve to face it. Then there had been fear . . . but close on its heels had been joy, despite waiting for a call back from Zakai that never came.
“When you found out,” he repeated, releasing a long breath. “You must have been . . . God, you must have been scared, Karys. Scared and alone.”
“I was scared. But not completely alone. I had Ayana, and I had Carly.” I smiled. “And of course, I had the baby inside of me, and my characters when I needed a short escape from reality.”
He smiled softly. “Did you . . . have an easy pregnancy? What about your delivery?”
“I was sick for the first fourteen weeks, and I gave in to my strange craving for red licorice more often than I should have.” I gave him a wry smile. “But overall, everything went well. I stayed home while I labored so when I got to the hospital, it was only an hour until he was born.”
A pained look crossed his features and he looked past me. “I should have been there. I’d give anything to have been there.”
I studied him for a moment. “You’re here now.”
He nodded, leaning back on my counter and crossing his arms over his chest. “I had it out with her,” he finally said. “Giselle. I told her never to contact me again.”
“Oh,” I said, unsure how to respond to that. “Zakai, I’m sorry I didn’t try harder but you have to understand—”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said, blowing out a breath. “I do understand. I don’t blame you.”
He met my gaze finally, his assessing eyes moving over my features. “I’m the one who should have tried harder.”
I watched him for a moment. “You can only do what you know how to do,” I said. I’d learned that lesson well. “We can both wish we’d grown up sooner, or healed more quickly, or made different choices, but what good does that do?”
He looked pensive, appearing to be considering his words. “You’re right. There’s not a rule book for what we experienced. We had so few people to guide us through it. I think we have to try to forgive ourselves and each other.”
I let out a loud gust of air, tears welling in my eyes. “I’ve already forgiven you, Zakai. I hope you forgive me too.”
“On one condition.”
My startled laugh emerged as his lips tilted in a playful smile. “What condition?”
He paused, emotion flaring in his eyes. He walked slowly toward me as my blood quickened. “Marry me,” he said. “I want children with you and lots of them. I want to watch them grow in your belly. I want to watch you nurse them at your breast, and I want to hear you sing them to sleep.”
A groan of relief and love and thankfulness burst from my throat. Zakai gathered me in his arms, bringing his mouth to my ear. “I’ve lost so much time, Karys. With you. With him. Hating myself. God, I don’t want to lose any more.”
I took his beloved face in my hands, the other half of me, and I kissed his lips. “Me neither,” I murmured. “Not another second.”
“I love you so damn much, little star.”