Julia closed her eyes, letting the implication of his words wash over her. She thought of their future, of the images she’d daydreamed about. She thought about telling Gabriel that she was pregnant, about carrying his child inside her body, about holding his hand while she gave birth to a son . . .
All the images vanished as if in a puff of smoke. Julia felt the loss immediately. She hadn’t realized how much she wanted to have those experiences and to share them with him. Now that he was telling her she couldn’t, she felt pain.
“No.”
“No?” His eyebrows lifted.
“You want to protect me, and that’s admirable. But let’s be clear, there’s something else.”
“I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“It goes deeper than that, doesn’t it? It’s wrapped up in what happened between your father and your mother.”
Gabriel stood up, dropping his shorts to the floor. He turned away, standing naked before her.
She cleared her throat. “Sweetheart, I know that you have scars. You can’t even look at the things in your desk drawer.”
“This isn’t about that. This is about choosing the risks I’m willing to take. Your father could lose Diane and the baby. I’m not prepared to take that risk.”
“Life is risk. I could get cancer. Or get hit by a car. You could wrap me in bubble wrap and keep me indoors and I could still get sick. I know that I could lose you too. And as much as I don’t want to say it, someday you’re going to die.” Her voice broke on the last word. “But I choose to love you now and I choose to build a life with you knowing I could lose you. I’m asking you to make that same choice. I’m asking you to take the risk, with me.”
She moved to him and took his hand in hers.
He looked down at their entwined fingers. “We don’t know what the risks might be. I have no idea what’s in my medical history.”
“We can be tested.”
He squeezed her hand before releasing it.
“That isn’t enough.”
“Some of your relatives are still alive. You could try to speak with them, find out about the medical history of your parents and grandparents.”
He scowled. “Do you think I would give them the satisfaction of crawling after them, begging for information? I’d rather burn in Hell.”
“Listen to yourself. You’re right back where you started—thinking that you aren’t good enough to reproduce. And refusing to find out if there are any obvious issues in your family tree. What about your dream about Maia? What about Assisi? What about me, Gabriel? We prayed for a child. We’ve been praying that God would give us our own child. Are you taking back that prayer?”
He clenched his fists at his sides but didn’t respond.
“All because you don’t think you’re good enough,” she whispered. “My beautiful, broken angel.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck.
Gabriel let out an anguished sound as he returned her embrace.
“I’m making you dirty,” he whispered, his sweat-slicked chest pressing against her blouse.
“You’ve never been cleaner.” She tenderly kissed his stubbled jaw.
They held one another before Julia led him to the bathroom. Without words, she turned on the shower and quickly divested herself of her clothing.
He followed her inside the shower.
The water was warm and it fell like rain, bouncing and dancing over their bodies and down to the floor. Julia poured soap into her hands and began to wash Gabriel’s chest, her palms gliding lightly over his pectorals.
He wrapped a hand around her wrist. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to show you how much I love you.” She pressed her lips to his tattoo and then continued, lathering his abdomen with her hands. “I seem to remember a beautiful man doing this for me once. It was like a baptism.”
They were silent as she explored the steel and sinew of his arms and legs, the firmness of his backside and the bumps of his spine. She took her time, gently touching him until all the suds had rinsed away.
His eyes pierced hers. “I’ve hurt you, again and again. Yet you’re so giving. Why?”
“Because I love you. Because I have compassion for you. Because I forgive you.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head.
Julia began washing his hair, coaxing him to lean forward so she could reach every dark strand.
“God hasn’t punished me yet,” he murmured.
“What are you talking about?”
“I keep waiting for him to take you away.”
She brushed the shampoo from his eyes so he could open them.
“That isn’t how God works.”
“I’ve lived an arrogant, selfish life. Why shouldn’t he punish me?”
“God isn’t hovering above us waiting to punish us.”
“No?” His eyes were tortured.
“No. Did you ever once feel that way when we were in Assisi? When we were sitting near St. Francis’s crypt?”
He shook his head.
“God wants to rescue us, not destroy us. You don’t have to be afraid of being happy, thinking that he wants to take that happiness away from you. That’s not who he is.”