Holy shit.
I took it down from the rack, and that was when I saw it: a pair of pilot’s wings pinned to the front of the suit. Filled with painful longing, I closed my eyes and remembered her words from one of our last conversations before everything was destroyed.
“I bought something today that reminded me of you.”
This must have been what she was going to bring me. It was proof that she had been planning to take me up on the offer. She wanted the baby, too, just as much as I did. I clutched the suit to my chest.
She lied about having decided on Germany. But the truth of the matter was, she did end up going there. I needed to know what happened, where she was. I needed to tell her that I still love her and accept whatever decision she’d made.
Would I still love her if she gave birth to another man’s baby?
Yes.
Goddammit. Yes, I would.
I needed to find her.
Think.
Think.
Think.
Could I get the FBI involved? The police? She’d willingly left. They weren’t going to spend time looking for her. I could hire a private investigator, but would that make her angry if she found out I’d done that against her will?
Then, I had a light bulb moment. In two days, I would be in Rio again. If there was anyone who might help solve this mystery, it was her crazy ass. This wasn’t a job for the police.
This was a job for Maria Rosa.
IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT by the time the taxi dropped me off. A boarder answered the door and went back to his room. I followed my nose, which led me straight to the kitchen. Maria was stirring a large pot on the stove with one hand while feeding Pedro a slice of mango with the other. She didn’t turn around, and I hadn’t called ahead to let her know I was coming, so I assumed she thought I was someone else.
“Venha comer. Conversaremos, então.” Come eat. We’ll talk.
“É Carter, Maria.” It’s Carter, Maria.
She still didn’t turn around. Instead, she took a bowl out of the cabinet next to her and scooped out some feijoada. When she turned and placed the bowl on the table, she wasn’t the least surprised to see me. She’d known I was coming all along.
“Comer! Comer!” Eat. Eat.
She was psychic enough to know I was coming, yet I caught her off guard when I dropped my bags and hugged her. For some reason, being there made me feel something I hadn’t felt in almost a year—hope. I didn’t let go of her for the longest time, but when I did, she squeezed my face and kissed both of my cheeks. After, we sat and ate together in comfortable silence. By the time we were done, I was beginning to get anxious about what I wanted to talk to her about. I’d never asked her anything about my future. She would just randomly come out with things when she looked at me sometimes. I wasn’t even sure if she could answer my questions. Was being clairvoyant an on-demand ability?
After we cleared the table, I was starting to work up the nerve to ask, when she suddenly took both of my hands into hers. I never had to ask a single question. It wasn’t necessary since she told me to sit and began to tell me all about my future.
Three hours later, I was in my room, and my head was spinning. I tried to fall asleep, but it was almost impossible because the only room available was the one that Kendall and I had shared. I could still feel her spirit even after eleven months.
Eleven months.
What would she look like pregnant? Her perky tits heavy with milk and her ass a little fuller. Was I that hard up that the thought of a very pregnant Kendall was making me hard? Fuck. She was the only thing that could even get me hard anymore. Eleven months of celibacy. It was the longest stretch of my life since I was sixteen.
I’d decided on the long flight over that I truly didn’t care if she carried another man’s child. In a fucked up way, I almost wanted her to. Having her get everything she wanted would make the time we’d spent apart count for something at least. Because the thought of both of us wasting the last eleven months of our lives for no damn good reason was enough to make my chest constrict.
I thought about everything Maria had said tonight over and over in my head. As usual, her messages were cryptic, and it was difficult to decipher what it was she was even trying to tell me. But I was determined to listen to her advice no matter what it was. The problem was, I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to do.
A resposta está no céu. A resposta está no céu.
She just kept repeating the same phrase over and over again.
The answer is in the sky. The answer is in the sky.
SINCE IT WAS MORNING before I finally crashed, it was late afternoon when I woke up. My flight wasn’t until the following day, so I had plenty of time to try to figure out what Maria was trying to tell me. She was out at the market when I went looking for her, so I went for a walk on the beach in an attempt to clear my head.