Chapter Sixteen
Despite his suggestion of being somewhat less virtuous in the morning, Adil received a call around seven that made him growl. When Annabel woke up blearily, it was to a lover who was putting on his clothes and frowning like a thundercloud. His expression eased a little when he saw that she was awake, and he came around the bed to give her a very quick kiss.
"I'm afraid that we'll have to delay much more than that kiss," he said ruefully. "I am needed in a meeting with a few ministers who honestly should know better. Hopefully I will be back just after lunch though."
"I'm sorry to see you go," she muttered, and that was still the truth. Annabel realized that there would always be a part of her that was sorry when Adil left.
Then he was gone, and the silence of the bedroom felt cavernous. She glanced at the clock. It was almost eight, and that meant that at some point in the next hour, Marissa was going to wake up and come looking for food and entertainment. If she was going to do this, she should do it now.
There were a few pregnancy tests in the cabinet in the bathroom. They had been at the hacienda as well. Someone had stocked them, and though they made perfect sense given what she and Adil were trying to do, a part of her had found it slightly odd and invasive. Right now, however, all she could do was be grateful that they were there.
The test was simple, and afterward, Annabel sat on the edge of the tub just as she had the night before.
It might be nothing. You did move just a few days ago, and now you are living in an entirely different place. Your daughter has been cranky, and you are not used to Adil's comings and goings in this place yet. There are many reasons why you might be tired and out of sorts.
Then she picked up the test after a minute had passed, and she realized it was not in her mind at all. According to the test, she was pregnant, and for a single shining moment, her brain was flooded with joy. It was a bright fierce feeling consuming every part of her, making her want to leap in the air with how full she was. She was carrying a child that was part her and part Adil, and it was one of the most wonderful feelings she had ever experienced.
Then, strangely, she wrapped her arms around her belly. It was a protective gesture, something she had done when she was carrying Marissa and the subway crowds got too rough. She wanted to defend her child from the world, and she tried to dismiss the idea that Adil was part of the world.
Your body is already changing thanks to what is going on inside, she told herself, and she knew that was true. There was even a chance that it was remembering how alone and destitute she had been the first time this had happened and responding to that.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Marissa's footsteps in the hall and her excited cry of "mama." After checking the impulse to tell her daughter that she was going to have a sibling, Annabel went to Marissa.
She could talk about what was going on with Adil when he got home. They could handle this like mature adults, and it would be fine. This was what they had been working so hard for, even if that work was one of the most pleasurable things she had ever encountered.
Everything was going to be fine.
***
Afterward, when Annabel looked back on the things that had happened, it had felt like a card house falling down. Every little piece that fell at the beginning toppled another one and then another one, and then the chain of events had spiraled out until no one could stop it.
Of course, she didn't think about those events very often because they made her want to sit down and cry.
Marissa was actually having her first really good morning in the city. She regained her sunniness and her interest in exploring, and while Adil was out, they took a brief walking tour of the area, which contained a beautiful little park, some interesting shops full of clothes and antiques, and finally, a small stand to buy French crepes. Annabel ordered a chocolate crepe to share with Marissa, and the two passed a quiet half hour eating the crepe happily.
When they got back, however, Marissa suddenly remembered the dollhouse that Adil had bought her. It had been left at the hacienda, and no one had thought of it at all. Now that Marissa had thought of it, however, she grew upset at the idea of it waiting alone in that empty house for them to return.
"It'll be lonely without us, Mama," she had insisted."All of the people have names, and no one will call them by their names if we are not there."
There was something curiously melancholy about her daughter's phrasing, and even though Annabel knew better, a part of her heart understood. She knew that being overly-sentimental was definitely a part of something she had gone through while she was pregnant with Marissa, but still, she couldn't help but see the child's point.
"I am sure that they can take care of themselves until you get back to see them," Annabel said, and she saw Marissa's face turn sad.
"Tell you what. Moving such a big dollhouse would be a lot of work, but let's see what Adil says about it. Perhaps he can look into having it shipped here..."
Marissa brightened up a little after that, and their afternoon was calm. They were sitting and puzzling out a chapter book together when the door banged open and Adil entered.
"My god, what a ridiculous day," he growled, tugging his tie loose and shrugging off his jacket in nearly the same motion. "Sometimes, I swear that the people who run this country are simply being pig-headed for the purposes of being pig-headed."
Annabel started to say something, but then Marissa raced into the room.
"Adil, Adil, we forgot the dollhouse you gave me at the hacienda! The dolls are going to be lonely without us, and we have to go back and get them. Please, please say that we can go back!"
Adil shot her a baffled look, and right before he spoke, Annabel felt a strange premonition of disaster. She started to say something, to attempt to smooth it all over, but Adil was already talking.
"The dollhouse I bought you? Don't worry about that, I'll just get you another to keep here as well. Annabel, I wanted to talk to you about perhaps going out tonight..."
Annabel wasn't listening to him because she was watching her daughter instead.
Marissa was as smart as a whip; nearly every adult who had had anything to deal with her said so. She could make connections very quickly, and Annabel could see her making one now. She realized from the way that Adil was speaking, the dollhouse, a thing that was precious and perfect to her, was completely unimportant to him, and that stung. Annabel, as an adult, would take it one farther. From a person who was not a sheikh, who did not rule a country and who was not fabulously wealthy, the dollhouse would have been a well-considered gift, one that required time and thought and effort. For Adil though, it was no different from picking up a rose from a street vendor to bring home.
Marissa didn't know all of that, of course. All she knew was that she had been brushed off as if she didn't matter, and that the man she had thought was going to fix it all for her was ignoring her. Her entire face trembled like a bowl full of jelly, and her mouth opened in a wail.
Adil looked shocked at the noise that Marissa made, and he drew back slightly.
"What the hell..."
"I want my dollhouse," Marissa sobbed. "The people are going to be lonely if we just leave them there and... and..."
"Marissa, be quiet..." Adil snapped, but his harsh tone only made her wail louder.
Tantrums were part of childhood, and they were part of parenthood as well, and apparently Adil did not understand this. Instead of comforting Marissa, he turned a baffled gaze to Annabel.
"What in the world did I do?" he asked. "Can't you make her quiet?"
Annabel's sympathy for Adil being startled with Marissa's strange request as soon as he walked into the door evaporated, and she glared at him. The power of her glare must have startled him because he took a step back. She couldn't be worried about him right now. Instead, she turned to her daughter.
"Marissa, listen to me, we're going to take a few deep breaths, all right?"
Marissa's wail tapered off, and hiccuping slightly, she did as her mother requested. She breathed with Annabel for a moment, and when she looked a little calmer, Annabel offered her her hand.
"Why don't we go do something a little quieter for a while?" she said, and Marissa looked up at her beseechingly. Her tear stained and confused face made Annabel even angrier, but she hid it as best she could.
"But my dollhouse...?"
"That is something to be discussed later," she said firmly, "but I promise you that we will figure something out. Now come on, pumpkin. You can choose which book to read."
Twenty minutes later, Marissa was settled down in her room reading. She was calm, and if not happy, then at least quiet and thinking about things rather than hysterical. It seemed as if Annabel was going in the other direction, however, and after making sure that her daughter would be all right, she stalked out to the living room.
Adil was waiting for her, hands clasped behind his back as he gazed out the window.
"What the hell was all that?"
"That was a frazzled little girl who ran to someone she trusted and got brushed off as if she didn't matter," Annabel said, keeping her voice low. "What were you thinking?"
Adil reared back as if she had slapped him.
"I didn't say she didn't matter," he said, glaring down at her. "I had no idea what was going on, and what does it matter any way? She wanted a dollhouse, and I told her I would get her another one. That should have been the end of the matter."
Annabel could have pulled her hair out in frustration.
"No," she said, "that is not the end of the matter. She presented you with something she felt was important. You told her that it didn't matter, and that you could just replace it. You know what happens when people realize that you don't care about the things you get them? They start to think that you don't care about them."
Adil frowned down at her.
"That's ridiculous. One dollhouse or the other, it's all the same, isn't it?"
"Not to her, obviously,"Annabel snapped. "And if that's the attitude you are going to take about it, if you are going to cling to that even in the face of it not working that way for someone you are meant to care about, that is very very bad news."
"I still don't understand what it is she is so angry about, and at this point, I don't even know why you are so angry either," he growled.
He ran all ten fingers through his hair, shaking his head.
"Look, I have had a long day. Why don't we arrange for a sitter, and then you and I can go out, talk, perhaps forget all of this ever happened..."
Annabel was not a woman who was given to anger, but now she could feel it bubbling up underneath her skin. She had to stop herself from shouting, more because it would have frightened and confused Marissa badly.
"No!" she said, and she substituted force for volume. It must have been effective, because Adil took a step back.
"No. I am not going out with you. I am... not."
Adil stared at her for a moment, and she saw a dozen emotions flicker over his face. She saw hurt and confusion, but then his expression settled on anger.
"You are behaving as a foolish and over-sentimental woman," he said coldly. "There is nothing the matter here, only a little girl who made a dramatic request and then who could not deal with a solution."
Annabel wanted to tell him that it was so much more than that, but she found that he was already turning away from her. To her shock, he simply picked up his jacket, and walked out the door, slamming it so loudly that the thunder echoed through the apartment. The sound brought Marissa running, and she ran straight to her mother, grabbing on to her shirt.
"Mama, Mama, what's going on?" she asked, her voice small and fearful.
For a moment, Annabel's heart wanted to break for the fear in her daughter's voice. Then she straightened up, and when she spoke, there was a deep resolve there.
"We are... going on a little trip, that's all," she said, and she walked towards the bedroom.
***
There were a dozen places for Adil to go, a thousand, but instead of going to a place where he would be welcomed with shouts and draped with women who would of course agree that Annabel was being unreasonable, Adil ended up at his office at the Parliament building instead. It had a gorgeous view of the city, and he simply stood there in the dark, breathing.
In his mind's eye, he could still see Annabel's accusing gaze, and he could still hear Marissa's anguished wail. He wanted very badly to stick with the idea that he was right, but the farther he got away from the situation, the more clear it became that he was far from blameless.
It had been an irritating day. He knew that, and he knew that his nerves were jangled from some of it. In the past, when he had returned to the hacienda, he could always count on Annabel and Marissa waiting for him and for them to soothe the unevenness of the day from his brow.
He hadn't realized that the transition would be so difficult for him, and Adil finally understood with growing guilt that though traveling from the desert to the city was very much second nature to him by this point, it was still a foreign and frustrating thing for them. Annabel was an adult and could cope, but the pressures on Marissa, who had not even been to school yet and who had already moved once, had to have been high.
He thought of the dollhouse, and his guilt intensified even more. Annabel was right, he realized. He had bought the toy on a whim, and he had wanted to delight Marissa. He had not realized how attached to it she had become, and he had certainly not seen that she might need something stable in her life after all of the turmoil that had come before. The guilt of it all threatened to crush him, and then he straightened.
Dealing with people he cared about (and it was beginning to occur to him that he did more than care about Marissa and Annabel, should be the same as dealing with the professional needs of his life. He had done something wrong. He would be honest, he would apologize, he would tell them it would never happen again, and then they would move forward.
Adil glanced at his watch. It had been a few hours since he had left the penthouse. He could make it back across town before Marissa went to sleep, and perhaps she would forgive him. Then he could speak more seriously with Annabel and make his apologies to her as well. One of the reasons why he wanted her as much as he did was because she was a good mother, and he should have remembered that.
His spirits were still low but rising when he left his office, and he made it through traffic in good time, at least.
Then Adil entered the penthouse and a cold chill went up his spine. It was dim, but it could be dim when people were in the bedrooms. It was more than dim, however. There was something distinctly unoccupied about it, and as he went from room to room, he realized utterly and completely that he was alone.
They had left him.