Traded for Nine Boats, I Walked In Pregnant and Ran Their House novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Anastasi

Alex's POV

The Easter candle burned on my dresser, where I had set it down when we came in out of the wind.

Her mouth was already on mine.

"Christos anesti," Ari said against my lips.

"Alithos anesti," I said.

We had carried the flame home from the midnight service through the dark streets, cupping it with our hands.

At the door I had made the smoke cross over the lintel with the tip of the candle.

My grandmother had walked ahead of us with hers, and not once looked back.

Now there was only the one small flame in the room, and the bed, and Ari.

She was thirty-three weeks.

She wore a white dress my grandmother had had made, long-sleeved and loose below the breast, and she had been standing for three hours.

Her feet ached, she'd told me in the church doorway.

Her back ached.

She'd pulled me by the hand up all three flights of stairs.

"Sit," I said.

She sat on the edge of the bed, and I knelt on the rug and took her shoes off.

I rubbed each foot between my palms until she sighed.

"Stop being sweet," she said.

"I've been standing in a church for three hours thinking about your mouth."

"In a church."

"At the Gospel.

"During the part where the priest says the light shines in the darkness."

I laughed.

I unbuttoned the white dress from the neck down, every button, with my fingers shaking.

She watched my face.

I eased it off her shoulders and let it fall, and the candlelight went over her.

Her breasts were fuller than I had ever seen them, with the veins faintly blue under the skin and the tips dark and tight.

Her belly was huge and round and high, with a dark line running down the center of it.

The skin had a sheen in the gold light.

I put both my hands on it and bowed my head.

"Eleni," I said to the baby, "your mother is the bravest person I have ever met."

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