I stood in the doorway, panting, watching him move around the house, changing out of his work clothes, putting dirty clothes in the hamper. Doing normal things when there was nothing normal about what he’d just seen. I stood on the edge, an observer. I was gripping the sill with my toes but I didn’t want to step in. Stepping in meant owning up. I just kept my eyes on Joseph, noticing him, noticing the changes I’d failed to see before now.
Before he used to have to fill every gap, every break in conversation with chatter. Now there was a stillness to him, a contemplative age that smoothed his face and dwarfed my own maturity. Was it his purpose, his need to help people? I envied it so much. I couldn’t quiet my thoughts for even a second. I was a whirlwind, a hurricane that swept in and destroyed everything in my path.
His control was unbearable. I’d expected him to come at me. Shout and scream. But he ignored me.
I pulled a bandage from the first aid kit and wrapped my wrist tightly, while he moved to the kitchen and tried to wash the dishes. The dull collision of ceramic against steel the only sound the house could abide. I stepped forward and the floorboards creaked under my feet. I was sneaking up on him like a thief in my own home. He stopped washing, letting a cup fall into the sudsy water, gripping the sides of the sink with his head bowed. Every muscle in his arms was tensed, like he was silently trying to rip the sink from the bench. It warned me not to come any closer.
“It’s not what you think,” I squeaked, my throat closing over slowly like the petals of a night bloom. “Pietre and I, he… we…” Damn it!
He turned to face me, suddenly looking huge, a powerful man looming over me, daring me to come up with something to explain my behavior. “What do you think I think?” His face was tight but I could see the hurt in his eyes.
“That there’s something going on between Pietre and me…?” As I said it, it seemed the most unlikely conclusion to come to.
He laughed at me and I shrank smaller still. It was a bitter sound. “You and him? That’s ridiculous. I know exactly what you’re doing. Damn it, Rosa, you’re training. You’re… leaving me.” He started muttering to himself, saying something like he should have guessed but he didn’t want to see it. The words sprinkling out like salt onto the weathered floor.
I took a step closer and he took a step back. “No,” I whispered. “I’m not leaving you. I’ll be back.” I was pumping my hands now, trying to calm him. It didn’t work.
His whole body shook and he put his hand up as if to say, Stop! Don’t come any closer.
“Where’s Orry?” he asked, his eyes flitting around the room, avoiding my own.
“He’s with Odval. He’s safe.” I felt pitiful. How could I explain this to him?
He turned his back to me again, turning on the tap and leaning down to take a drink. Every breath in his body was exaggerated, the anger building, his chest and shoulders seeming to swell with it.
He spun to face me; I felt my own resolve hardening. This was not the best way to tell him but I still felt this was the right thing to do. I straightened myself and faced him front on, nose pointed upwards in defiance.
“When do you leave?” he asked, the words squashing their way out of his hard-set lips.
“Tomorrow,” I said quietly.
He sighed deeply. “Then I’ll go with you,” he said determinedly.
Watching the heat and anger swirl around the both of us, I wondered, How do you break someone? Do you have to be callous and unfeeling? Or did you think your bond was strong enough to take it? And it wasn’t, you were wrong.
“No. You can’t.” I watched his face crumple, his eyes looking right through me. “Someone needs to stay with Orry. Besides, you’re too loud,” I said with a weak smile. “You couldn’t sneak up on Addy, and she’s deaf!”
He wasn’t amused.
He stood two meters from me, his arms folded calmly across his chest. I watched them rise and fall with his breath, watched him try to control his anger.
“Well, I guess you’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” he said resentfully. Then his eyes sparked. “Except for one thing.”
I didn’t want to ask but I had the feeling he would say it anyway. “What’s that?”
His eyes were fuming, the green boiling over, his temper rising. Gold could be an angry color.
“I won’t let you go.”
I took a deep breath. “Joseph, you know you can’t stop me. I’m going.”
He was losing it, throwing any argument at me he could to stop me from going. He was pitching his arms in the air, pacing back and forth, “Don’t you think I would like to rescue my parents? Why do you get to and I don’t?”
The answer to that question was easy. “It’s different, you know that. Your parents are safe. They are happy. They… love each other. I’m thinking of my baby brother or sister too. Orry’s blood.”
Silence followed for what seemed like forever as he glared at me. I hadn’t moved and my legs started to ache. I shifted my weight back and forth. How could I make this make sense to him? Could I? I leaned on the back of an armchair and waited for him to speak.
When he opened his mouth, the force was still strong but some of the anger had drained away. “Why is this so important?” He knew why. “Aren’t you happy with Orry and me?” His tone was bewildered, strained.
It broke my heart to hurt him like this. But then, it was already kind of broken. I considered his question. Didn’t he realize that’s why I needed to do this?
I slid towards him slowly, gliding across the floor in my socks like an ice skater, talking as I moved. “Of course I am.” I grasped his hands but he shook me free like I was trying to cuff him. Surely, we had to be stronger than this. “That’s why.”
“I don’t understand.” He laid his head in his hands like the words were giving him a headache.
“Don’t you think everyone deserves this, what we have?” I pleaded.
Recognition flickered in his eyes.
“Rosa.” He jolted back suddenly, wringing his hands. He pulled his hair back from his eyes. My heart skipped and all I could see was him. Like one of Orry’s pop-up books, he stood clear, the rest of the world turned blurry—boring two-dimensional representations of the real thing. “I’m so angry with you,” he stuttered. “How could you… I mean, what am I supposed to do if… damn it.” He clasped his hands together and looked at the floor. He was never lost for words. The gravity of our situation had pulled them away.
I could have walked away. Maybe I should have. Let him cool off or tried harder to convince him I was right. Instead, I took two steps towards him and connected with his lips before he could speak again.
His arms were slack at his sides for a moment, like I’d shocked him into submission. But I pressed hard against his chest. I literally threw my body at the problem, holding the two crushing walls, the opposing opinions, at bay with my twig-like arms. I felt heat taking over, lips colliding and kissing deeper than they had before. I thought, He may set me back, put me in my place, be the sensible one as always and tell me to stop. But after a few seconds, his arms gripped me tightly. They dragged up my back and under my shirt with such pressure I could barely breathe.
He pulled my shirt over my head and threw it on the ground. Lifting me up, he moved towards the bedroom door, bracing my back against the doorframe as he kissed my neck and slipped my bra strap off my shoulder to kiss my collarbone. I shivered, goose bumps growing all over my skin. He ran one hand over the lace of my bra and wound it behind my back to release the clasp. When he did it so swiftly, I resisted the urge to ask him if he’d done it before. Then words would never have hoped to find me as he brushed his lips across my chest and I thought I would die.