Chapter 10 - THE SUNLIGHT IN PILSEN
Six months later, the April sun broke over the rooftops of Pilsen with an intensity that washed away every memory of winter.
The windows of our third-floor apartment on 19th Street were thrown wide open. The breeze smelled of lilacs from Mrs. Torres’s tiny courtyard garden, charred tortillas from the bakery, and the crisp, clean scent of fresh lake air sweeping across the city.
In the kitchen, the vinyl floor was gone.
Over the winter, while Megan was recovering and Clara was gaining weight in the neonatal nursery, I had torn up the old linoleum with a crowbar, down to the original yellow pine subfloor. I had sanded every square inch, bleached the wood, and sealed it with clear polyurethane that caught the morning light like honey.
There was no broken glass. No smell of eucalyptus. No heavy, powdery scent of tuberose.
On the kitchen island sat a vase of bright yellow sunflowers that Megan had bought at the open-air market on 18th Street that morning. Beside them, our old record player was spinning a dusty Sam Cooke LP, his smooth, golden voice filling every corner of the apartment:
*“Darling, you send me… honest you do…”*
Megan was standing in the center of the kitchen, barefoot, wearing a pair of faded denim overalls and a white t-shirt. Her legs were bare, lean, and golden in the sunlight—the bruises long since faded into smooth, healthy skin. Her hair was pulled up in a messy topknot, loose curls dancing against her neck as she swayed to the music, laughing as she folded a stack of tiny flannel onesies.
“Jake!” she called out over the music, not turning around. “Did you move the diaper ointment again?”
“I didn't touch it,” I shouted from the living room, where I was on my knees on an antique rug, assembling an activity gym made of polished birch wood. “Check the basket by the rocker.”
“Found it!” she laughed, her voice ringing through the apartment with that loud, unashamed vibrancy that had been stolen from us for so long. “You know, for a man who claims to be terrified of domestic chaos, you’re remarkably bad at putting the lid back on the tub.”
“It’s a design flaw in the packaging,” I retorted, stepping into the kitchen and sliding my arms around her waist from behind.
I buried my face in the crook of her neck, breathing in the scent of her skin—lemon verbena, baby powder, and fresh sunlight. She leaned back against my chest, her hands resting over mine, her warmth soaking through my shirt.
“How is she?” she whispered, glancing toward the bedroom.
The bedroom door was wide open. The curtains had been replaced with sheer white cotton that billowed softly in the spring breeze.
Inside, in the center of the room, sat the finished birch crib.
Sleeping soundly beneath a pale yellow blanket—crocheted by Mrs. Torres—was Clara.
She weighed fourteen pounds now. Her cheeks were round, flushed with healthy pink, her tiny dark eyelashes resting against her skin as she breathed in that deep, untroubled rhythm unique to babies who know they are safe. Her dark curls were coming in thick, just like her mother’s.
Marcus Vance was in Austin, Texas. He had sent a postcard two months ago—a photograph of the state capitol—with three words scrawled on the back: *Glad she’s okay.* He had returned the four thousand dollars via a cashier's check three weeks after Helen was indicted. We had deposited it straight into Clara’s college fund.
Helen had pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree murder and aggravated battery four weeks ago, taking a plea agreement that spared us the trauma of a trial. Her lawyers had tried to argue diminished capacity, citing early-onset cognitive decline, but the prosecution’s paper trail was ironclad: the purchase of the heavy metals from an industrial supply house in Indiana, the falsified affidavits, the secret meetings with Marcus.
She was currently serving a fourteen-year sentence at the Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln, Illinois.
I hadn't visited her. I hadn't answered her letters. Every envelope postmarked from Lincoln went directly into the metal incinerator bin in the alley behind our building without being opened.
She had wanted to build a cage for my family. Instead, she had built one for herself.
“Jake,” Megan murmured, turning in my arms, her dark eyes looking up into mine, clear, bright, and brimming with life. “Look at this.”
She pointed to the refrigerator.
Stuck beneath a small wooden magnet shaped like an acorn were three yellow sticky notes.
The first was old, its edges curled and faded from September:
*Rest, sweetheart. Our baby needs your smile.*
The second was from December, written the day Clara came home from the hospital:
*Welcome home, Peanut. You own this house now.*
And the third, written that morning in my messy, hurried scrawl:
*I love you more today than yesterday. But not as much as tomorrow.*
Megan smiled, that brilliant, room-filling smile that made my chest ache with gratitude so profound it felt like worship. She reached up, caught the back of my neck with both hands, and pulled my mouth down to hers.
The kiss tasted of chicory coffee, spring air, and the absolute, hard-won certainty that the darkness had come, and the darkness had lost.
From the bedroom, a small, squeaky gurgle drifted out through the sheer curtains.
Then, a loud, cheerful, two-syllable squawk:
*“Bah!”*
Megan pulled back, her eyes dancing with amusement.
“Sounds like the dictator is awake,” she said.
“I’ll get her,” I smiled, kissing the tip of her nose.
May you like
I walked down the sunlit hallway, the yellow pine floorboards warm beneath my bare feet. I entered the bright, airy bedroom, reached down into the crib, and lifted our daughter into the morning light.
Clara looked at me with her huge, slate-gray eyes—eyes that didn't carry a curse anymore, but a blessing—and she laughed, her tiny hands reaching up to catch the sunlight dancing on the wall.
