Aftermath - Ann Aguirre [126]
When I approach the door, it swings open, and there’s March. He steals my breath. I always think I’ve forgotten something about his rough appeal; his strong-ugly face epitomizes the masculine ideal in my eyes—with his crooked nose, square jaw, sensual mouth, and amber-laced eyes. His face bristles with a couple days’ worth of beard. No military dress code anymore, but he’s still wearing soldier’s pants with all their pockets in a drab green. His white shirt is a little wrinkled, but he’s broad at the shoulders, strong across the chest. It hurts me all over again that he looks older. I can see the turns I missed in his face, creases at mouth, lines at the eyes.
Oh, March.
He wraps his arms around me before I can say a single word. The pressure of his arms feels so good, so right, that for a moment, I wonder if I’m crazy. Why not just stay? He kisses me with heat and longing, his hands in my hair, until I can’t think.
But a small person nudges forward and between us. Sasha looks so much like the still I once saw of Svetlana, with his fair hair and sea-green eyes. I remember the TK scare on Gehenna, and my ardor cools. March lets go of me.
“Sasha, you remember Jax.”
By his expression, he does, but he’s afraid I’ll take away the one person who’s solely his, and I’m not eloquent enough to convince him that if it came down to a choice, March would pick flesh and blood every time. That surety might hurt another woman, but I understand him, and I’d never put him in that position. That’s part of the reason why I’ve come.
“So glad to see you. You’re just in time for dinner.” In a polite, small voice, Sasha continues, “We’re having pasta. It’s my favorite.”
“What kind of sauce?”
“I like it with cheese,” he volunteers.
“Sounds good.” I feel so awkward talking with him. Some people have the instinctive knack, but I’m not one of them. So I try to treat him like a normal grown human. “What kind?”
“White,” he answers.
“Me, too.” Hey, we have a little common ground. “With cream?”
“Yeah, it’s good that way. We have to eat vegetables, too, though.”
“Green and crunchy?”
Sasha nods. “Always.”
Sounds like March is doing a good job. He knows how to raise a kid.
“It’s almost ready,” he says, ushering me in.
Lovely place. The first room is enormous, furnished with good synth-wood that shines almost like the real thing. Everything is comfortable but spacious, with plenty of room for a kid to run without tripping or breaking something. At the far end of the main room is the kitchen-mate, then a hall that leads down to what must be the san-facilities and bedrooms. It’s so strange to feel March’s imprint here; this is where he’s lived for turns . . . without me. A pang goes through me at how thoroughly he’s settled. There’s art on the walls, for Mary’s sake—some of it drawn by Sasha’s hand. This is his home, for all he once recorded in a vid message that I was his home. That’s not true anymore, if it ever was.
For long moments, I study the pictures. In prints, he favors black and white with bursts of red. In a rare intuitive flash, I realize that for him, I am those flashes of color . . . the irresistible brightness in each frame. It’s both humbling and lovely, that revelation, but the color is always running toward the edge of the picture, always going away, whereas the other images in the picture are solid and show no signs of motion. That’s March and me, beautifully illustrated, and my heart breaks a little.
But if he were the portraits on my walls, he would be the one going away. He left me twice, and I never tried to stop him from doing what he thought was right. A tiny hope I didn’t realize I’d been nurturing shrivels up and puffs away in my next breath. I’m not going to convince him to come with me. I recall what he said before, and nothing’s changed; Sasha needs to attend school. He’s not an average kid who can be raised in the haphazard way I was. When I was thirteen, my parents took to traveling, mostly