When Angel came down on Wednesday morning, much earlier than the babies for once, the mess of toys, clothing, bottles, and food was gone.
"Z?" He called out quietly on his way through the house.
For a flash, everything was the way it was meant to be. He stepped into the kitchen to find his wife at the table writing in one of her books with fresh coffee in a mug in front of her.
"Hey," he said quietly.
Zara put her pen down and looked up at him. "Hi."
When she spoke he realized things weren't exactly as wonderful as they looked. "I didn't know you'd be home so early. I was gonna clean up."
Cracking a small smile, Zara shook her head. "It's okay. I get it. Honestly, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting."
"Thanks?" He said with a nervous smile that fell the moment he noticed she'd covered the hole in the wall from his outburst with a framed photo of the twins. It was awkward, in a weird spot that anyone would have questioned for a photo, but it hid the damage none the less which was exactly what she was doing to herself. "Listen, Z," he took a deep breath, "I'm sorry."
"I know," she nodded, "Me too."
"The twins are sleeping," he said, clearing his throat nervously.
Again, she nodded. "I know, I was up there. I've been home since 2, actually. I did a lot of thinking and I couldn't sleep, I wanted to jump on some shit," she said, gesturing to her journal before shutting it.
"Like what?"
"When you were a kid did you picture this?" She pointed on her arm to the exact location of his Mayans tattoo.
"No," he said simply. They'd had this talk before, in a much less emotionally heightened way, but he knew it was different now.
"Yeah, me neither," she laughed a little. "I mean married with kids, yeah, but not in some shit border town married to a man like you, involved in multiple criminal organizations," she shook her head. "It sounds ridiculous, it sounds like bullshit and until this weekend I didn't even realize it was me because it still seemed so unreal."
"I mean, yeah, the club is the club but the cartel and Bastian," he tried to agree with her, to bridge the gap he felt growing in real-time. "It's pretty crazy."
"To say the least," she said as she stood up from the table. "You can go, I'm sure you're dying to get back to the club."
"I'm good," he blurted out. "You said you wanted to jump on some shit, I can stay with the kids."
"No," she chuckled a little. "My mom is coming over, she'll stay with them and then we're going to have lunch."
Angel shook his head. "You left for days, Z, and now it's just back to normal? You wanna pretend like nothing happened?"
"Not at all," she said, slightly cooler than before, "But I don't know what to say or do here, Angel. All I know is I have a list," she clutched her journal tighter, "And I can work on that right now."
"Tell your mom to stay home," he said, showing his anger in a restrained manner, "I'll take care of the kids this morning."
Hesitating at first, Zara nodded and sucked her teeth, unsure what to say to him. "Okay," she drew out each syllable. "I'll be back around lunch, hopefully."
"We'll be here," he said sadly.
Zara stepped toward him and pressed her lips to his cheek. "I love you, Angel," she said, her eyes on the floor.
