How big did Dario say the property is? Too big for me to find my way back home.
Following the line of fencing, I look for a better angle, hoping to see the driveway or the house itself. But all I see is a camera mounted on the top of a fence pole.
When he realizes I’m gone, he’ll go to the little room under the stairs and check his screens for me, but who knows when that will be?
I tuck my clipboard into my elbow and take out my phone. Open it. Brush the keys with my thumb. I know the shape of Dario’s number. I know the shape of Daddy’s office from calling it every day to let him know what was for dinner. I know Massimo’s cell phone shape from calling him to check on Daddy’s every need or drive me someplace if Timothy wasn’t able to.
Do I remember it?
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten points on the shape. Right. And then I automatically press the green button.
Calling… appears with its ellipses running.
Calling… quickly becomes Connecting… then becomes a timer counting up from zero.
“Wait.”
What did I do? This isn’t what I want.
When I hit the red button, the timer is replaced with the clock.
I feel like I dodged a bullet.
But why?
Is calling Massimo to say hello the worst thing in the world? Just to talk?
Dario’s right. I don’t know enough about the world to function in it, but I do know how to call him.
I’m about to do it when the phone buzzes in my hand. I press the green button, because only one person has this number.
“Dario?”
“Where are you?” he asks.
“I don’t know.” I look around. “I saw a deer.”
“Am I supposed to use that as a landmark?” I hear stomping feet on his side. A door opening and snapping shut.
“I’m waving at a camera.”
“Stay there.”
“You’re coming?” I ask.
“I’ll always come for you.”
“Okay.”
“Hang up.”
I hang up. Do I need to tell Dario that I dialed Massimo’s number if we didn’t say anything? Will he go back to thinking I’m ignorant and incapable over such a silly mistake?
Four minutes later—according to the clock on my phone—his dark figure appears between the trees, breath huffing in cold clouds, scarf under his chin, jacket waving in the wind his speed creates. His kiss arrives in time to keep his promise.
“You’re not supposed to walk this far.” His hands cup my face, and he has to bend to level his eyes to mine.
“Are you worried I’m going to climb over the fence?”
“I’m worried you’re going to get lost for too long.” He puts his arm around me and guides me back. “It’s cold. You’ll call me a snort and I won’t hear it.”
“If someone calls you a snort in the forest and you’re not there to hear it, are you still a snort?”
“I am your snort.” He kisses the top of my head. “I’ll always pick you up and bring you home.”
“Have you heard anything about Denise?” I try to ask casually.
“Not yet.”
“I bet she threw your phone in the trash.”
“Maybe she did.”
It’s not long before I can see the house—far away, in the spaces between the trees.
“Can we stay here?” I ask. “In this house? Can it be ours?”
He seems to think about it for a few steps, then stops, facing me, then looks down at our clasped hands. “If you like it that much.”
“Do you not like it?”
He hesitates, looking at the house, then the path we just walked down. “I bought it for another woman, for a specific purpose. You deserve a house of your own. Made for you, not a castoff I bought for someone else.”
“That’s not the way I think of it at all.”
“But it’s how I think of it.”
That’s the last word for him. He takes my hand and leads us on a stroll to the house again, twigs and leaves crackling underfoot. The scarf around his neck unwinds and blows behind him. The ground feels soft and unsure. Mud sucks at the soles of my shoes, and wet leaves slide against each other if I don’t pick up my feet.
“A week ago, you were trying to send me away,” I say, taking the last word from him like a thief. “You made up a passport and bought me a ticket on a plane. Now you want to build a house around me. And this house in your head, I can’t even picture it. But this house? However or whyever it’s yours now, I can see it. It’s got rooms and furniture. It exists. I can grow from here. Branch out. Figure out who I am—that’s all I want.”
“You will. You’ll have it all.”
“When?” I don’t want to sound like a demanding child, but I don’t know how a demanding, powerless adult sounds.
“As soon as this is over.” He swings his arm to indicate this, and I know what he means. This violence. This war. This plan.
“It’s not going to be over.” I stop him at the door of the house that was never, and never will be, mine. “Dario, this thing you’re doing, it’s not going to end for us, or for my family, or anyone.”
“It will.”
“Do you think you’re the first person who’s come for us?”
He flinches ever so slightly. I wouldn’t even recognize the expression if I didn’t know him. He knows he’s not the first, but he’s never considered that he may not be the last.
“What if we ended this?” He looks at me, a little brighter, a little more hopeful. “What if I had a secret place on a tropical island?”
My heart drops into despair. “I don’t want you to send me away.”
“What if I went with you?”
“With me?” I’m not playacting at confusion.
“Do you want me to be there with you?”
I hadn’t even considered the possibility, and now that it’s been offered, I can’t tie it onto my assumptions.
“How am I supposed to know?” The spool of insecurity unwinds in a single sentence. “I’m not sure what you mean when you tell me what you want, and I can’t be sure what I want until I know what you mean when you tell me what you want.”
“I get it.” He holds up his hand, closes his eyes, and collects his thoughts. “I’ve known what I want since the day my mother died. Destroy the Colonia. Wipe them from the earth. I still want it. But now I want more. I want you.”
“You have me.”
“Do I? As long as I’m at war with your family, do I ever have you?”
My hands are warm compared to what happens to my heart.
“So stop the war.”
His laugh is short and hard. He takes me by the shoulders. “When we get Dafne, I’ll stop it.”
“Of course.” I’m ashamed I forgot already.
“Then we’ll be in St. Easy together.”
“St. Easy?”
“That’s what we call it. You’re going to learn everything and be with people who know what you need. Including me.”
The terms of the offer are now clear. It fits in a slot between my desire to stay with him and his desire to send me away.