Hidden Heart (28 page)

Three women. Three stories.
Three lives. But above all, three sisters. They sat, crying and
opening up, unlocking painful memories. When they finished, there
was a bond between them they hadn’t felt before. It was not the
bond of blood. It was the bond of heart.

Chapter 15

“
Okay,
Tessa, you can do this,” Chiara said. She dipped the cloth
into cold water, squeezed quickly and wiped off Tessa’s sweaty
forehead and face, then placed it on her upper chest. “Come on, big
gulps of air, like this, don’t stop breathing, it will go away
faster.”

Another jolt of pain rushed
through Tessa’s body and her scream broke against the night’s
silence. She pressed one hand on top of her head while pushing her
other into a fist against her stomach. Since she stopped taking her
pills, this was the worst night. She needed time to adjust to no
more drugs and the pain split her body like a saw cutting through a
tree trunk.

“
I don’t think it was a
good idea to stop so abruptly,” Octavia said, caressing Tessa’s
hair. “Maybe smaller dosages in the beginning, until the brain
starts functioning normally?”

“
Maybe you should take half
of a pill?” Chiara said and rubbed Tessa’s shoulder when the pain
ceased.

“
No…I…don’t want…any
more…pills, please, throw them away,” Tessa whispered.

Alessandro entered her room
holding a mug of tea. His eyes locked with hers while he neared the
bed and put the mug on the nightstand. He looked at Tessa with
pained, tired eyes, sighed, then brushed a hand through his hair.
It was his first night back and Chiara told him about Tessa’s
refusal to take any medication, her willingness to take steps
towards getting her life back. But she didn’t speak to him as
openly as she spoke to her sisters.

“
Thank you,” Tessa said and
forced a smile.

Almost instantly another
pain blurred her vision and her body shook violently. She squeezed
her head between her palms willing the pain to ease up. It didn’t
last as long as the previous pain, but it left her wilted. She
rolled onto her left side, pulled the covers and closed her eyes,
catching her breath. Minutes passed by and the pain returned, but
not as intense as before. The intervals between the spasms
lengthened until after midnight when she broke into a feverish
spell and became delirious.

“
Give her a shot, give her
a pill, do something,” Octavia said checking Tessa’s fever
again.

“
I’m not a doctor,
remember? I can give her a shot, but the medication the doctor
prescribed her would get her back in the fog she’d been. We
promised that no matter what happens to her, we aren’t giving her
those stupid drugs; do you want her to be mad at us again?” Chiara
exchanged the wet cloth on Tessa’s forehead with another one,
colder.

“
What if she caught
pneumonia when she stood in the rain days ago? Are these the side
effects from the medication? What do we know about interrupting
such powerful drugs?”

Chiara shook her head, then
stood without answering her sister and walked to the window. It
began raining again sometime in the afternoon and it hadn’t stopped
since. She opened the window and fresh, crisp air entered the room.
The chill quickly spread into her body, making her
shiver.

Chiara took a few deep
breaths, closed the window and returned refreshed to Tessa’s bed.
Tessa mumbled something, mixing Romanian and English, sometimes
raising her voice, sometimes whispering. She kicked the bed, tossed
and convulsed, then stopped and lay inert for a few minutes only to
start convulsing again. Chiara took a seat near the bed and waited
in silence.

Octavia checked Tessa’s
temperature one more time—no change. The fever kept creeping up for
a while, then stabilized around forty degrees Celsius for several
hours. Just before dawn, after she placed another cold cloth on
Tessa’s forehead, Octavia noticed the fever ceased and her sister
stopped tossing. She turned to Chiara to tell her, but Chiara slept
curled in a chair. She took a blanket and covered Chiara, then sat
in the other chair across from the bed and instantly fell
asleep.

***

“
What are you doing?”
Octavia yelled at Tessa rushing to her side.

Tessa stopped and turned to
see her sister running her way. Octavia still wore her pajamas, her
cloak hung half open and her hair tousled around her face. Her hot
breath left a trail of steam before dissipating into the cold
morning air.

“
I’m digging my grave,” she
said when Octavia neared. Her cold and cramped fingers gripped the
shovel’s handle as she continued digging.

“
You’re doing what? Why?”
Octavia’s brows drew closer as she tried to catch her breath. She
woke up earlier and her first thought was to check on Tessa, but
she was nowhere to be found. While Chiara and Alessandro looked
frantically for her in the house, Octavia rushed out the door. She
saw Tessa far away using a shovel.

“
I’m burying old
Tessa.”

“
The soil must be hard as
rock,” Octavia said.

Tessa kept hitting the
ground, then put a foot on top of the shovel and pushed even
harder. She’d made a pile of dirt already and a fairly deep
pit.

Octavia’s eyes grew huge on
her face. Tessa’s words made her shiver. She feared her sister was
delirious, but she had no idea how she’d stop Tessa from continuing
digging. She didn’t look like a crazy person; her face was flushed,
her eyes clear; no signs of madness.

“
Tessa, come on, you’re too
weak; you’ll get pneumonia or something worse. Let me take you
inside,” Octavia tried to grab Tessa’s elbow and take her
away.

“
I’m almost ready,” Tessa
said, lifting a big chunk of dirt and tossing it on top of the
pile. She pulled a photo out of her pocket, folded it one more time
and, kneeling, she placed it at the bottom of the hole. Then she
stood, brushed her pants and picked the shovel up. Covering the
hole took less than the time to dig it. She lifted two thin, small
branches already fixed together as a cross and stuck it on top of
the mound, then pushed the soil with her bare hands around it to
force it to stay straight.

Shock paralyzed Octavia.
Her sister had gone mad, why would she do such a terrible
thing?

“
There, done,” Tessa said,
standing and looking down at her own grave. She brushed the sweat
on her forehead, then wiped off her nose on her sleeve. She looked
sideways at her sister and continued, “I woke up this morning with
the need to say goodbye to my old identity. I no longer own the
first thirty years of my life. I have a long way to find myself, to
find out who I really am, but I can’t carry such a load if I want
to move forward.”

Tessa picked the shovel and
stopped in front of Octavia.

Octavia looked amazed at
the transformation of her sister; for the first time since the
attack, her eyes sparked again with such intensity, they looked
like emeralds on fire. Her skin glowed, her cheeks pink and her
pouty mouth lifted in a faint smile. The short hair, all tousled
and wavy framed her face, giving her an innocent air.

“
Come, now we can go,”
Tessa said. She lifted her palm to embrace Octavia’s shoulders,
reached for her, then curled her fingers in a fist. She tried again
and again she failed. She took a big breath, opened her palm one
more time and swallowing hard she touched Octavia’s elbow. The
touch made her quiver, but she didn’t let go. Instead, a triumphant
smile appeared on her face as they began walking side by side
towards the house.

Octavia didn’t argue, too
shocked to say anything. She kept looking from time to time at
Tessa’s profile; she no longer walked with her head bowed, no
longer dragged her feet. Even her grip on her elbow felt alive;
strength radiated from her cold fingers.

“
Where did you find her?”
Alessandro asked the minute he saw them walking into the house. He
was fully dressed, coat and boots on and ready to dart out to look
for Tessa. His face full of dread began relaxing at the sight of
her.

“
She was out… digging a
hole,” Octavia answered, averting her eyes. She took off her coat
and walked into the kitchen where Chiara had just started the
coffee machine.

Alessandro and Tessa
remained in the hall entry, face-to-face, staring at each other.
Months ago, she’d jump into his arms and bury her face in his
scent, in his chest. Months ago, he’d welcome her into his arms,
hugging her, kissing her. Today, they seemed to have lost that.
Instead, an uncomfortable emptiness and silence replaced the
intimacy and the belonging feeling, leaving them two strangers
under the same roof.

For too long he’d waited
for her to acknowledge his presence. For too long he’d been waiting
for her to talk to him, tell him something—anything.

Alessandro took a step
closer, lifted his palm, but dropped it before he touched her face.
He saw her face sparkling again and for a second he forgot Tessa
wouldn’t welcome his touch anymore. Being alone around her seemed
harder and harder to endure, his desire for her making it that much
more difficult. He didn’t allow himself to think about the way she
made him feel inside and out, what impact she had on his senses. He
didn’t even let himself mourn the baby they’d lost, and about whose
existence he had no idea until the doctor told him; instead he told
himself whenever she regained her strength, they’d talk about it
and mourn together.

Tessa pulled at her scarf
and bowed her head, then walked into the living room. She looked
around the room and for the first time in months, the place felt
hers again. As if a curtain had been removed from her eyes,
everything looked familiar; the colorful books covering an entire
wall, the sofa and matching chairs with the yellow and green flower
pattern fabric, the rustic coffee table and the heavy dark green
draperies. She stopped near the fireplace and ran her fingers on
the stone shelf above it. It felt warm and rough.

She closed her eyes,
feeling Alessandro close by; his scent and proximity made it hard
to concentrate, to get out the words she’d rehearsed since she woke
up that morning. She knew her words would stab at his heart, but if
there was a single thing she was sure about these days, it was
letting him go on with his life.

“
Alessandro…” His name felt
like a balm on her lips. She turned half his way, but couldn’t
muster the courage to look into his eyes. “Listen, Alessandro…I’ve
been doing a lot of thinking and I just want to tell you how much I
appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

He took a step closer and
that threw her off balance. She gripped the stone shelf, backed
against the wall and shook her head in denial.

He stopped. His shoulder
slumped and his head bowed. He brushed his hand through his
hair.

“
I need you to go…I need
you to go and never look back…I can’t…I can’t be with you. I need
my space, I need to find who I am…” She fought to swallow the lump
that formed in her throat. “Tessa, the woman you knew…she doesn’t
exist anymore…she’s dead…please, set me free.”

It hurt to say it, but she
had to. She held her scarf with both hands and squeezed it tight,
so tight her fingernails dug into her palms. Her heart hammered and
the wave of tears threatened to spill on her face.

He looked confused, like
she spoke a foreign language, a language he didn’t
understand.

“
What? Why? Why don’t you
let me stay and take care of you?”

“
Because it’s wrong; us…it
was wrong all along and I…it’s better this way, trust me,” she
whispered.

“
But why?” his raised voice
resonated into the house.

Octavia and Chiara hurried
into the room, looking concerned.

“
I need to talk to her,”
Alessandro said without even glancing at them. His demeanor was
stiff, his voice convincing, his eyes locked on Tessa. Tessa nodded
at her sisters and they retreated to the kitchen.

“
Look, I know it has been
hard on you, but I don’t want you to waste more time.” She put a
hand on her upper chest, pressed hard, then made a half circle with
her arm. “I have nothing to give you and I’d be selfish to want you
to stay with me when I am not who you need. It’s been a lie all
along, so please go!”

She felt the urge to
run—run away from him, run away from the pain she’d caused him. She
tried to rush out of the room, but he stopped her. His imposing
stature overwhelmed her and forced her to take a step back. She
felt his breath on her face, his smoldering eyes drowning in
tears.

His voice cracked to a
whisper, “If this is what you really,
really
want, then I will not stop
you. Just promise me, when you find what you are looking for,
you’ll let me know. I’ll be waiting.”

She didn’t mean it, did
she? She needs me…I need her. I can’t just walk away like this…is
she losing her mind?
Alessandro felt as if
something kicked him below the belt and a claw entrapped his heart,
squeezing it, making it bleed. He collapsed on the couch, rested
his elbows on his knees and grabbed fistfuls of hair at the side of
his head.