Page 54 of Run

“How can you live with that?”

“How does anyone live with anything, Giovanna?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I don’t know what you’re looking for. Do I like this life? Is it what I would have picked for myself? No. But I accept it. This life saved us. Brought me my husband, a love I didn’t dare dream of. It’s responsible for the child that I’m going to have.”

“So I just have to accept it, hope for the best?”

It was only after I spoke I realized that I had said “I” when this conversation was supposed to be about her.

Daniela noticed.

She always noticed things like that, but she didn’t press me on it. Instead she said, “You just have to decide. Every time he leaves I worry he won’t come back. I fear the things he does, the things that might be done to him. But at the end of the day I try to imagine my life without him. I can’t.”

She stood then and went back to the stove, and I didn’t speak. I had a lot to think about. Because I didn’t have to try to imagine what it was like without Vincent. I had lived that for years.

But could I imagine life with him? Could I be like Daniela?

Was being with him worth it?

That was one question I could answer easily.

It was worth it.

I loved Vincent. If I knew anything, I knew that.

But could I live with the worry this life would bring?