Chapter 304 Marry me

The Don did not answer at once. He sat very still in his chair with his bandaged arm across his knees, and a strange look moved over his face, almost like pain.

"I need him awake, for Katty’s sake; she needs him," Helena said. It was a good argument. It was also the truth, which made it better.

The Don rubbed his forehead with his good hand. For a long time he said nothing. Then he stood. "Come," he said. "Tonight." They went in the dark.

They hit the road in a white van; two guards sat in front, and two more in a second car behind. Helena sat beside the Don with her hands folded in her lap. She did not speak, and neither did he. The city fell away.

At last they turned down a narrow lane between tall hedges. There was a low gray building at the end of it, with no sign and one lit window. A man in a white coat opened the door before they had stopped.

Inside, the air was cold and clean. They walked along a hallway lined with pale green tiles, past rows of closed doors, past a nurse who looked up and quickly looked down again. Their footsteps echoed.

The Don stopped at the last door and put his palm to a panel. It slid open.

The room was small and white. A single lamp burned low. A machine hummed softly in the corner, and a green line crawled across a screen, rising and falling in slow, steady beats. And on a narrow bed lay a man.

She had seen him on the screen. It had not prepared her.

He was real. He was here, an arm’s length away, breathing. His hair had gone gray at the temples, and his face was thinner than she remembered, with fine lines at the corners of his eyes that had come while she was not looking. But the shape of his mouth was the same. The curve of his brow was the same. Even in sleep, there was something gentle in his face, as if he were about to smile at a thought.

Helena’s hand flew to her mouth.

She could not hold it back. The tears came all at once, hot and fast, and she did not try to stop them. She crossed the room in three steps and dropped to her knees beside the bed. She took his hand in both of hers. It was warm. It was warm.

"Kontino," she whispered. His fingers did not move.

She pressed her forehead against the back of his hand and wept without a sound, her shoulders shaking. Twenty years. She had stood at a grave that was empty. She had worn black. She had lain awake and spoken to a man who was gone, and all that time he had been here, breathing, under a lamp, in a white room, with a machine for a heart.

Behind her, the Don stood in the doorway and watched. "I will wake him," he said at last. His voice was quiet. She did not turn. "On one condition."

Helena lifted her head slowly. She wiped her face with her sleeve and looked over her shoulder. The Don stood with his back to the light, and she could not see his eyes.

"Marry me." The room hummed.

"For real, this time," he said. "Not a show. I want it done, in front of everyone, in a way that no one can ever say was false." His voice dropped. "And I want you to tell me that you love me."

Helena stared at him. She had known this was coming. She had known it in the study, and in the car. She had felt it all the way down the long green hall. It still hit her like a hand to the chest.

"You are asking me," she said slowly, "to marry you. In front of him."

"He is asleep."

"That does not make it better."

"I do not need it to be better." His jaw tightened. "I only need it to be true." She almost laughed.

There was a thing the world did not know. Twenty years ago, when the Don had carried her out of her burned house and into his own, there had been no ceremony. The world had called it a marriage.

But no court had ever seen it. No paper had ever been signed. She had been a widow, in her own eyes, and he had never dared to make it legal, because he had never been sure she would say the words. He had only kept her close and called her his wife.

Now he wanted the words.

Soon, to the world, they would be renewing their vows. A beautiful old story. A husband and wife, brought together again after a long and terrible trial. But in truth, it would be the first time, and the only time, that she was ever made.

Helena looked down at the hand in hers. I said I would do anything.

She had said it. She had meant it. She had meant it the moment she saw the green line on the tablet, and she had meant it when she knelt down on this cold floor. It was only words. Words were the cheapest things she owned.

And Kontino was warm. Once he is awake, she thought, I will find a way. I will think of something. I will always think of something.

She stood up.

She smoothed her dress. She wiped her cheeks once more, with the back of her hand. She faced the man in the doorway and looked him straight in the eyes.

"Okay," she said.

The Don did not move.

He had been braced for a fight. She could see it. His shoulders were tight and his good hand was clenched. He had thought she would shout, or spit, or throw something. He had thought she would tell him in a low, shaking voice exactly how much she hated him, how many nights she had lain awake wishing him dead, and he had been ready to hear it.

She had said okay.

It was so small. It was so simple. It was a word you would say to a waiter, or a neighbor, or a child asking for a biscuit. And it sat in the air between them, light as a feather, with no anger in it and no tears and no fight.

He stared at her.