POV Elena
The toilet has become my morning companion, cold porcelain against my cheek as I retch up nothing but bile. One month in this hotel room, and my body has developed a routine.
I wake at 5:47, stumble to the bathroom, vomit until there's nothing left, then curl on the tile floor until the shaking stops.
"Good morning to you too," I whisper to my belly, now showing a slight curve that can't be hidden by loose sweaters anymore. "I know you're in there. You don't have to keep reminding me."
I drag myself to the shower, letting hot water wash away the morning's misery. By the time I make it down to the front desk, I look almost human.
"Morning, Elena!" The desk clerk, Marcy, grins at me. "Got something for you."
My heart skips as she hands me the cream envelope, my name written in Henri's elegant script. Four weeks, four letters, each one a lifeline I didn't know I needed.
"Secret admirer's consistent," Marcy says with a wink. "Must be some handsome man."
"He's just a friend," I say, but I'm already running my finger over the envelope, feeling the expensive paper.
Back in my room, I settle into the desk chair, opening the letter with the care of someone handling something sacred.
“Ma chère Elena,
I told myself I would keep these letters light, friendly, safe. But it's been seven weeks, and I find I can no longer pretend you're just a casual correspondence to me.
Every morning I wake up hard and aching, my first thought is always of you.
Every evening I sit at my desk, trying to find words that might bring you comfort, but all I can think about is the curve of your neck, the way your lips part when you're deep in thought.
I've written countless drafts, each one more revealing than the last, each one a confession of my desire.
You've asked about my life here, but what I haven't told you is how every moment is filled with thoughts of you. I walk through these vineyards and imagine you here with me, the sun warming your skin, your dress slipping off your shoulder.
Elena, I'm fifty years old, and I thought I was past this—this consuming need, this desperation to touch and be touched. But here I am, burning for you, the distance between us both necessary and unbearable.
I don't know what brought you to that hotel room, but I saw the shadows in your eyes that night. I saw the hurt, and I wanted to kiss it away, to make you feel something more. Meeting you has awakened something in me I thought had died—a hunger to know every inch of you, to be known in return.
Forgive me if this is too much. But I needed you to know, just once, that you're not alone in that room. Someone wants you, Elena. Someone desires you constantly, more than he should.
Yours, in whatever way you'll have me,
Henri."
My hands tremble as I read the letter again. Then once more. The cream paper feels hot in my fingers, as if his words have literally set it ablaze.
‘Every morning I wake up hard and aching, my first thought is always of you.’
"Oh God…" I whisper to the empty room.
Here's this elegant, sophisticated man burning for me, and I'm sitting here pregnant with twins, abandoned by my husband, living in a budget hotel on data entry wages.
The contrast is almost laughable.
But I'm not laughing. I'm remembering his lips on my hand, the way his eyes darkened when I kissed him, how he pulled back not from lack of want but from too much principle.
He wanted me then. He wants me still.
‘The curve of your neck, the way your lips part when you're deep in thought.’
When did he notice these things? In that brief hour at the bar? The dance in his room? How closely was he watching me while I was drowning in my own misery?
I stand abruptly, pacing the small room. "Your mama is in trouble. A beautiful Frenchman wants her, and she's lying to him by omission, and she's probably going to hell for how much she wants him back."
Because I do. God help me, I do.
My laptop pings with a work notification. Three weeks of job hunting had been an exercise in humiliation.
"We're looking for someone long-term," the marketing firm had said, eyes fixed on my belly.
"The position requires flexibility for travel," the law office explained.
"We're concerned about coverage when you... need time off," the medical clinic had stammered.
Even the grocery store had rejected me.
After twenty-three rejections, I'd found this: data entry for a company that doesn't care if I'm pregnant, dying, or turning into a butterfly, as long as the Excel sheets are accurate.
My phone sits silent on the nightstand. One month, and Adrian hasn't called once. Not to ask if I'm okay, not to ask about the baby—babies, though he doesn't know that.
His lawyer sends brief emails through mine: "Division of assets proceeding." "Prenuptial agreement under review."
Cold, clinical words that reduce seven years to paperwork.
The indifference hurts worse than anger would. At least anger would mean he still felt something.
I pull out my stationary and begin my weekly response.
I tell Henri about finding beauty in small moments, about the desk clerk who brings me crackers when I look particularly green, about the way snow fell yesterday like a blessing.
I don't tell him about the pregnancy. I don't tell him about the loneliness that sits on my chest at night like a stone. I don't tell him that his letters are the only thing some days that makes me feel human.
"Starting over is strange," I write. "Some days I feel like I'm building something new. Other days I feel like I'm just learning to breathe underwater. But forward is forward, even when it's slow…"
That's when I feel a sudden flutter, like butterfly wings inside me. So soft I think I imagined it. Then again, stronger.
The pen drops from my hand as both palms fly to my stomach. "Oh my God. Hi… Hi there."
Tears stream down my face as I sit alone in this tiny room, feeling my children move for the first time. I have no one to call.
No husband to share this with. No mother—she died three years ago. No friends—I was too busy being the perfect wife.
"It's just us," I whisper to my belly, to these two tiny dancers. "But maybe that's enough. Maybe we're enough."
I pick up the pen again, hand shaking, and add one more line to Henri's letter:
"Today something miraculous happened. I can't explain it, but I wanted someone to know that at 7:43 p.m. on Thursday, November 15th, the world felt suddenly, impossibly, full of hope."