Page 266 of Ricardo

Victoria squeezes gently. “You don’t know yet.”

“I can’t be.”

“You don’t know yet,” she repeats.

“What if I am?”

Her face softens.

“Then we deal with that.”

I almost laugh again, but it becomes a sob.

“We?”

“Yes,” she says. “We.”

Tears fill my eyes.

“I haven’t told Ricardo.”

“Because you don’t know anything yet.”

“But if I am—”

“Then you are.”

“He has enough.”

Victoria’s face changes.

“Julia.”

“Dante is in the hospital. Harrison is—” I cannot finish. “Everything is already on fire.”

“And if this is true, hiding it from yourself will not put out the fire.”

I close my eyes.

The tears slip free anyway.

“I’m scared.”

“I know.”

“I’m so scared I can’t even tell which fear belongs to what anymore.”

Victoria stands slowly and comes around the table. She lowers herself into the chair beside me, close enough that her shoulder touches mine.

“That’s all right,” she says.

I look at her.

“It doesn’t feel all right.”

“No,” she says. “I imagine it doesn’t.”

For some reason, that helps more than comfort.