The Wall (The Woodlands) (8 page)

“
It was hard at first,” unbearably so, “but we’re doing ok now.” I looked down at the beautiful boy and smiled. Yes, we were doing ok.

“
I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to help you.” He sounded so regretful. He always jumped to blaming himself for things, things that were out of his control.

“
Don’t do that,” I snapped “This is not your fault. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me. I should have listened to Apella, not made us stop and build that damn cabin.” It hurt just thinking about it, bits of me fretting around the edges. Apella. I needed to find her, thank her… forgive her.

“
Don’t be ridiculous, Rosa. This was no one’s fault,” he said, waving his hand dismissively.

I scowled, though he couldn
’t see me, he was still staring at his hands. I finished with the feeding and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. “Look up.”

Joseph
’s head rose tentatively. I took the two steps to his bed and handed him our son. He inhaled deeply and I could see his hands were shaking, “He’s beautiful,” he whispered as he lightly touched the baby’s forehead, swirling his fingers through his light curls.

“
You would say that—he looks just like you!” I scoffed.

Joseph rolled his eyes, tracing his
son’s brow with his large finger. Orlando opened his eyes and Joseph smiled broadly. “Ha! Hardly. Oh, you poor boy. You have your mother’s eyes.” He shook with laughter, his gown slipping down to reveal a zipper-like wound in the middle of his chest. He touched two fingers to the wound and winced. “Oh, ouch, it hurts to laugh.”

“
Good,” I said with a smirk.

He slowed his breathing and stared at me
while I stared at the wound on his chest. It moved as he spoke, “Rosa, he’s perfect. Well done.”

I thought
,
don’t thank me. Thank the scientists—who concocted him in a lab
. But I bit my tongue. “What’s his name?”

I
flinched a little, and then tried to cover it up by smiling, but my mouth felt strained. The memory of Cal pushing himself on me was too fresh and unpleasant. It didn’t mix well with how I was feeling right now. “Orlando.”

Joseph screwed up his face.
“Orlando? I guess it’s better than Leech. What does it mean?”

I closed my eyes
, the light shining through them making my vision pink. “Gold…”

There was silence. Maybe
he understood, maybe he didn’t. How I felt was probably different for him. But when I opened my eyes, he just gazed at me for as long as I could bear before I turned away. I think he understood. He held out his spare hand and clasped my own. He was here. We stayed like that for the longest time. Neither of us willing to move or disconnect from each other.

Eventually,
I left Joseph with the baby and excused myself to shower. The truth was I needed some time to myself to decompress, sort through my feelings. I needed to work out where I fit in this instant family. It was very hard to shake the wrong feeling. The backwards feeling.

I
was also suddenly aware of my appearance. I undid my untidy half-up and ran my fingers through my very knotty, rat-nest hair. I’d barely looked in a mirror since we arrived here and I suspected I looked like a wild girl that had just stepped out of the forest, dirt, leaves, and all.

But
I was happy—thrilled even. The rest was going to take time to sort through, bit by bit. I was a crumbling wall. People kept taking bricks from the bottom and stacking them on the top, leaving the whole structure wobbling and unsound. It stretched to the sky but was unlikely to ever reach it. I just had to hold onto to the fact that Joseph was awake. That fact alone filled me to the brim.

I took a towel from a stack by the door and entered the women
’s bathroom. It was empty but I locked the stall and undressed in there. Hot water was such a luxury. I could have stood under the stream forever. I stared at my feet and let the water drum a steady beat over my back.

Two women came
in, talking seriously.

“
You know, he used all of it. If anyone else gets hurt, there won’t be anything we can do until we get home,” a high-pitched, whiny voice complained.

“
Don’t start. He did what he had to do. He was just following the Pledge. That’s what we all have to do.”

“
I suppose. But the girl—I don’t think she’ll go along with it. She seems, well, young. Young and stubborn.”

Stalls closed and they stopped talking. I let the shower continue to
run until I heard toilets flush, sending sporadic spurts of hot and cold water over me, making me hop up and down, trying not to scream. The bathroom door closed. It didn’t sound too good. I had been so caught up in my own tragedies I had lost sight of all the questions I should have been asking.

I held my trust in a locked box
, deep inside myself, obstacles and booby traps safeguarding it. I’d never given it to these people but I’d forgotten to remind them of that. The woman was right; I was unlikely to ‘go along’ with anything.

I finished
up and dressed. There was always an abundance of clean clothes to choose from, but I found the process difficult. I was used to grey-green and green-grey. Here there was every color and every cut. I chose a red, button-up shirt and a pair of jeans. My white sneakers were high cut and fit nicely around the cuff of my pants. My reflection showed a girl of bizarre proportions, my hair was ridiculous. Untended, it had morphed into a giant, dark mane that fell nearly to my waist. I needed to ask for some scissors.

Funny where dark memories can surface from. The most mundane things can trigger things long buried.
An ache appeared in my chest. If Clara were here, she would help me with this stuff. She could also advise me about what to do about what I just heard. Although she would probably say to trust them and then I would go ahead and ignore everything she said. I plaited my hair as best I could and walked back to our room. I would play dumb, try to observe. Talk to Joseph—see what he thought about it all.

My head felt heavy as I made my way back. Someone was lying to me but I wasn
’t sure why and whether it was something to worry about. Somehow these halls had become a soggy mess of me dragging my feet, through jelly, through grass, and now wet cement. I’d had enough. I needed to get out of here.

Matthew
was arguing with Gus just outside our door. Lights flickered above. When they saw me, they stopped talking, their behavior seeming even more suspicious. Either they were talking about me or having a lover’s quarrel. Ick! Gus was a bit old for Matthew. Matthew approached me and said Joseph would need at least a few days to recover before they moved him. And by the look on Gus’s face, that must have been the issue. He had wanted to leave a while ago. Delaying the trip by even more time would definitely upset him.

“
I’m going to restrict visitors to just you and the baby for now,” he said softly. His eyes trailed a disgruntled Gus as the man stomped quietly down the hall. I sympathized. When you wanted to stomp around this place, it was very unsatisfying, the noise absorbed before it could escape from under your boot.

I was surprised
by Matthew’s orders. “Why?”

“
I have scheduled an ultrasound for Apella later and if it shows what I think it will, she is going to need some time. This way, it’s out of everyone’s hands. Think about it as a forced recovery, for everyone.”

“
Can I help? Can I see her?” I said in clipped excitement. I knew he would say no. I knew Apella well enough to know she was a private person and would want to handle this on her own, but I had to ask.

He shook his head, h
is faced creased and grainy from tiredness. I touched his hand and thanked him. He said he would keep Deshi, Apella, and Alexei updated. I had questions I wanted to ask but he seemed so stressed. I had the feeling he needed some time also.

I was
upset at first, but when I thought about it, a bit of time could be nice. Could we just pretend we were somewhere else and forget what was going on around us? I decided to take this recovery time at its word. Recover some of the time we had lost and enjoy being alone with Joseph. I postponed talking to him about the women from the bathroom, about Cal. It could wait. The world could wait for a while. It was doctor’s orders anyway.

We spent our days talking.
Joseph was supposed to lie down so we faced each other, hands clasped together, Orlando sometimes lying between us. I was buzzing from his touch, not one single shred of that charge had waned.

He wanted to learn everything he could about Orlando and I tried really hard not to look like the inadequate mother I
knew I was.

“
So how often does he feed? Do you bathe him? Can I change his nappy?” he said in one hurried breath.

“
Um, I don’t know, quite a lot, yes and definitely yes. Please!” I answered. He was hilarious, so enthusiastic, as I knew he would be. He was already a great father, but then, he’d always wanted to be one. I felt a little tug at the idea that soon, he would overtake me.

He raised his eyebrows and sighed,
“Does it hurt?”

“
Does what hurt?” I asked, confused.

“
Feeding him.”

“
Oh no, not really. Maybe a little at first but now it just feels normal,” I said, flustered by the turn in conversation.