Chapter 4: Nothing to Flinch At

At six in the morning a burn nurse came to change the dressing on Lucia's face.

Rafael had not slept.

He sat in the door chair with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled to the elbow, and he stood up when the nurse reached for the tape.

"I can leave," he said.

"Stay," Lucia said.

She had not planned to say it.

The nurse peeled the gauze back slowly.

The air hit raw skin, and Lucia sucked a breath through her teeth.

Her left cheek was red and glossy from the temple to the jaw, and the burn ran down her neck to the collar.

The nurse held up a steel tray so she could see.

Lucia looked for as long as she could stand it.

It was worse than she remembered.

Rafael's hand closed over her right hand on the blanket.

His palm was warm and a little rough.

She waited for him to look away, to wince, to glance at the door.

He looked at her face the whole time, and he did not blink.

"It's healing," he said. "The edge is already closing."

"You can't tell that from there," Lucia said.

"I can," he said. "I'm looking."

His thumb moved once across her knuckles and then stopped.

The nurse cleared her throat and went on with the gauze.

Lucia kept her eyes on the ceiling and her hand where it was.

By eight o'clock Elvira Castellanos had been wheeled back in with a breakfast tray on her lap and a paperback in her fist.

"Rafael," she said, "go and eat something that isn't a vending machine."

"I'm fine, Abuela."

"You are gray. Go."

Rafael went, slowly, glancing back twice.

Elvira held the paperback out toward the bed.

"Lucia, mija, we stopped at chapter nineteen on Sunday. I have been thinking about that duchess all week."

"I'm in a hospital bed, Señora."

"You have a mouth, don't you?" Elvira said. "The duchess is not going to marry herself."

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