an accusatory stare. It might be the truth, but I don’t think it’s right to say it in front of the children. It’s the kind of tale nightmares are made of.
He catches my eye and smiles. “And then I married your mother, and you two monsters came along. How lucky was that!” He gets to his feet and starts piling up the plates. “Okay, who’s for dessert?”
Matti screams “Me!” and Luis pretends to cut him into pieces to serve on plates. It’s a standard joke in our house. So, of course, Carla screams, “Me! I’m for dessert!” And Isabelle is laughing so much she’s holding her stomach. I don’t know if she really thinks it’s that funny, or she’s just playing it up for the kids. Then Luis asks again, “Who’s for dessert?” and the kids scream, “Isabelle!” But Luis says, “What about Mommy?” Which is nice because Mommy never gets to play this game. Mommy is never for dessert. Maybe he tried once but I wriggled out of it, I suppose that’s why. I laugh, extend my arms ready to be cut up to pieces but they’re insistent. “Noooo!!! Isabelle’s for dessert!” And I can see Luis doesn’t want to do it. He steals sideways glances at her, probably hoping she’ll saying something like, “No, not me, please cut up Mommy instead.” But she doesn’t and the kids are over-excited and they won’t let up so he relents, does his thing, cuts up Isabelle in pieces and serves her up on a plate. And I have to say, she’s a natural, completely comfortable with my husband’s hands on her and my kids pulling her limbs apart.
“I’ll get the cheesecake,” I say.
Twenty-Three
The first time I ever saw Luis was at the college library. I was scanning the shelves for something and he appeared beside me. He smelt of something warm and sweet, like the whiff you catch as you walk past a bakery.
“Sorry,” he whispered, reaching across me.
I fell in love with him the moment I saw him. Later, I found out he was going out with a girl from my dorm. Monica. I hadn’t forgotten her name earlier, I just pretended to. He told me once that she was the first girl he loved. I rolled my eyes when he said that. I mean, every guy was in love with Monica, and it also betrayed a striking lack of imagination. She was the quintessential pretty girl next door. Perfect white teeth, bouncy blonde hair held back with barrettes. Barrettes. I couldn’t see what she and Luis had in common, although she liked to draw, I remember that. I don’t think she was any good though. She used to do portraits of some of the other girls and they all looked the same, with long heart-shaped faces and wide almond-shaped eyes, like a cross between Barbie and Bambi. A gaggle of Barmbies.
We didn’t hang out, just passed each other in corridors on the way to the bathroom, her in cute animal slippers, tying the belt on her powder blue bathrobe, me in nylon pajamas and flips flops.
Somehow, Luis and I became friends. I say somehow as if it was random, but really, I sought him out, bumped into him on multiple occasions until he recognized me enough to say Hi! I remember what his smile did to me back then. Made me weak at the knees. We hung out sometimes, at the library mostly. I studied a heck of a lot more than he did, and we were not in the same classes, but we would still end up at the library at the same time, and we’d sit together at the big table downstairs, me revising physics, him reading about philosophy. He’d raise his head and catch me watching him, I’d blush furiously and he’d smile, that gorgeous sexy smile. This only happened whenever Monica was in class, obviously. I asked him once, long after we became a couple, if he knew then how deeply in love I was with him and he just smiled that same smile and didn’t say anything.
There was a party one night and I knew Monica and Luis would be there. As it happened earlier that day I saw her get herself a treat from the cafeteria. She brought it back to her room, she did that sometimes—I know, because I did watch her a lot. The last time I saw her, I was in the bathroom washing my face, getting ready for the