She pauses inside, eyes roaming over the space. There are already a few gift bags and a rocking chair inside, gifts from Antonia. It appears she has been planning for this day as well.
"This room is beautiful," Ivy whispers. “And huge.”
"I assumed you'd like to decorate the space."
"I think I'd like that very much," she agrees.
"Here." I leave her to pick up the box on top of the empty chest of drawers. "I have something for you."
When I hand it to her, Ivy looks at me as if I've had a personality transplant, and I suppose I have. But the doctor told me how important it was that she was not under any stress, and I’m trying my best to make that a reality, though I can’t tell if I am.
"What is it?" she asks.
"Open it."
She rolls her eyes at my command but does as I request, removing the baby book first. When she looks up at me, I recite the information from the pregnancy book I've been reading.
"It's for keeping track of milestones. At least that’s what we’re supposed to do with it."
She stifles a laugh, and I don't know why. She seems to be enjoying a joke at my expense, but it doesn’t bother me like it normally would.
“That’s exactly what it’s for.”
“There’s something else.” I gesture to the box, and her smile fades when she removes the necklace. I watch her closely as her fingers move over the white gold rose encrusted with diamonds. I don't think she likes it, but I can't be certain.
I shift uncomfortably. "This one is for you to wear when you want," I say. "I just assumed women like jewelry, but if you don’t approve—"
"It's beautiful, Santiago." She smiles up at me with glassy eyes. "Thank you."
10 Ivy
Santiago has done a one-eighty. And as happy as I am, something is still niggling at me. Maybe it’s the fact he won’t yet take me to see my father. Or maybe it’s that he won’t allow me to have a cell phone. I don’t know.
I could chalk all these things up to him being overprotective. Considering all that’s happened, I understand. We almost lost the baby. No. We didn’t almost lose it. It was almost taken away from us. By my brother who is still out there somewhere.
That worries me too.
I’m sitting in the nursery in near darkness, the only light the carousel of animals in pinks and greens circling the soft yellow walls. I rock gently in the cushioned rocker, knees pulled up underneath me, fingers worrying the beautiful diamond-encrusted rose pendant Santiago gifted me. When I first studied it, I half expected a skull to be hidden inside the design.
I shake my head at the strange thought. I’d expected it. It wasn’t there, of course, but I don’t know. I guess that’s bothering me, too. Skulls along with roses, morbid and beautiful, and our very limited past together. The ugly months. It’s all too much.
I put my hand over my stomach because now there’s a baby to consider. It raises the stakes.
And this is what it comes down to. This one-eighty turn. He wants an heir. He needs one. Did he suddenly fall madly in love with me once I became pregnant? Did he suddenly set aside years' worth of vengeance and hatred the moment he learned I was carrying his child?
I feel a little sick at the thought. At what it could mean for me.
What if he’s acting? Given all that’s happened, it’s a miracle I’ve held on to the pregnancy. Maybe he’s worried if I’m stressed or upset, I’ll lose the baby. And then what? Back to square one? Will he remember his hate of me? Lock me in my room, daylight barred from my windows again?
I get up and pad barefoot over the plush new carpet to the dresser, where a few boxes sit on top. I open one, take out the little outfit. It’s for a boy. Any clothes that have arrived whether from Santiago or The Society are all for a little boy. Only Antonia is buying clothes in neutral colors and even some little dresses. What if we have a girl? What will that mean?
I touch the gold bracelet on my wrist. Hazel’s. I’m still wearing it. Will we receive another one with our little girl’s name on it welcoming a daughter of the Society, the gesture itself almost mocking?
You didn’t have a son. A boy.
I shake my head. It’s not like that. IVI isn’t like that. The doctor has been wonderful. Attentive and caring. Colette has had nothing but good things to say about them, all the help they’ve provided since little Benjamin Jackson was born.
That’s another thing. I haven’t been to see her either.
My mind wanders back to Hazel. Santiago has promised to take me to her, too, to meet my nephew, but he has yet to deliver. He insists he’ll be the one to bring me once he has some time. Once things have quieted. Once everything is safe. And seeing as how Hazel ran away from The Society, ran off on a Sovereign Son, he hasn’t said as much, but I know it won’t look good for him if they find out he knows where she is but hasn’t brought her back.
But then there is the guardianship of Evangeline. If she’s in our care, my mother and brother can’t hurt her and he’s willing to do that for me. He’s put everything in motion already.
I bite the inside of my lip and think about Abel and what he’d said about Eva. What he’d do once he had guardianship which he assumed, since my father lay dying in a coma, was inevitable. He’d said those things to manipulate me into cooperating. He is manipulative. But
