Chapter Text
He had seen the news, read the reports like everyone else: it all confirmed his views.
‘I’m not here to argue,’ Aleida stated. I’m here to explain.’
Bill bent over his soldering iron. ‘I’m not interested in her excuses.’
‘It’s not excuses. But it will change your view of Margo and what she did, and I think you need that.’
Bill snorted.
Aleida pulled herself up onto the kitchen island behind him and began to speak. Long before the end she was in tears. Long before the end he had turned to face her.
At the end there was silence.
§
They say you should be careful what you wish for. In early 1995 I would have given anything to live that life of cosy domesticity in a Midwest Punxsutawney, with an undemanding job and a wife who loved me.
Friends and colleagues would have considered me happy. Lucky, even. Yet I was merely existing. I still mourned the woman to whom I owed my life, and who forever owned my heart.
Dissembling was a life skill necessarily learned in Moscow, but as we begin our new life in Alcântara, begin to heal together, it is one I no longer need.
§
We have visited Alcântara twice already. Graciana adores Sergei – he taught her to swim – and Javi has rediscovered his Tia Margo; they spend hours at the dining table, heads bent over equations.
Sergei is just happy. Margo, emblazoned with freckles from the Brazilian sun, is loving work, getting used to the lifestyle, getting used to Sergei. But there is a quiet peace about her, and I see the quick, gentle touches of his back, his leg, his arm…
She talked once of regrets; I ask if she is happy.
‘I kinda see what all the fuss is about,’ she says.