The Wall Crossers

Teodocia Asserts Herself

Olivia's perspective

As I say to Leida we can try to have a family if she wants, she looks at me with a look I have never seen on her face before. It is a look that is transforming, as I watch, from enduring love and joy, to pensive, expectant, alarm; and her breathing is becoming more shallow now. She reaches and hold my hands... squeezes them. She looks at me like she is going to propose marriage but believes I could decline! But we are past that already!

Leida's perspective

I am overjoyed, and afraid at the same time. It is time, to tell her. She just opened the door for us... for this. I have not as much fear now. I need her on my side with this. I cannot carry this burden alone.

I say, my voice a little shaky, "O-li..via. I need to tell you something." Now she looks at me with wide eyes. Knowing something is coming, but not knowing what. She sees I am tense in this moment, where before I was exhilarated. She opens her mouth, slowly asks, "What, Leida? What is it you need to tell me?"

We sit down on the bench, facing each other.

I continue, "O-li..via... I... I think I might... I might be pregnant." And now I throw myself into her arms. She holds me, quietly processing what I have just said. She pulls me very close into her warmth. Places one hand on my head... the other on my lower back.

Olivia's perspective

Leida is softly crying. I hold her tight in my arms. I say, "It's Okay. Shhh. It's Okay, Leida." After a few moments, I pull back to see her amber eyes. They are wet, but she is waiting. Waiting to hear from me. Now I am cupping her face with my hands.

"Leida," I whisper, "... you... you are... you think you might..." She is nodding Yes. "H... How?"

Leida's perspective

I am quiet for a moment. I am looking down at Olivia's chest, at her pretty Army shirt. I put my hands on her chest, feel her warm body. She gently wipes the tears from my face with the backs of her hands. Then she drops her hands to my waist. We are still sitting side by side, but turned in, closely facing each other.

I lift my eyes to Olivia. I say very softly. "O-li..via. It is... you. It has to be you, my darling. There could be... no one else."

"But how? Leida, how? I can't... the, you know..."

"I know, darling. I know, but... we... we were wrong about... I was... somehow, we didn't, you know, realize... and I..."

We put our foreheads together, thinking. I hear Olivia's breathing. It is not strained though.

Olivia's perspective

I feel shock at this revelation. Could it be true? Leida breathes in deeply and lets her air out slowly. Her breath is warm on my face. Her smell is intoxicating, as always. I know this: whatever this is, I don't care. I want her, more than anything.

A moment passes. Leida pulls back to study my eyes. She is herself again—recovered. She slow blinks at me.

I lean forward and lightly kiss her lips. She tastes wonderful. I breathe her in. I say to her lips, exuding love, "You taste like... like my wife, Leida." She giggles. She is so happy that I said this.

Leida's perspective

We grow serious again.

"I will get a test. To see. And if it is... you know... we can... then we could..." I let my words hang in the air. I am hesitant. But then I steel myself... transform myself in an instant, becoming that professional journalist I truly am, not a worried fiancée, fearful conceivable expectant mother, "We will do, dear O-li..via, what is best for you. Whatever makes you happy. That is the course of the stars, the steps, that we will follow from here." I look beyond Olivia, thinking, then back to her. I reach up and undo my hair, letting it down. I shake it out, confidently. I twirl a strand of my loose hair, coolly. I look at her with power surging again. But on the brink of tears of joy if she meets me where my heart needs filling up, not where my words dissimulate.

Olivia's perspective

I look at Leida and see through her momentary outward resolve, deep into her heart where worries yet thrive and churn, to where her true dreams long to live, to where the truth awaits my loving touch and rapprochement, and I say, so she will feel an outpouring of gentleness and bravery, resonating with her stars, "No. No, Leida, not that. We will... I will love you... love you both."

And we are kissing hard and crying, four hands molding two bodies into one shared life. And ours are now not tears of emptiness or hurt, but blithe.

And in these quiet silent seconds I... finally truly understand Elisabeta's prophesy: There are two who wait for you now. However, one does not know she waits. This one, who knows not of waiting, is your future. She knows who your wife will be. Leida is one, and the child is the other—who both have been waiting. The child does not know she waits. This one, this child, is my future. She knows who my wife will be—her birthing mother.

I pull back from her, we are looking together both with wet eyes, and I say to Leida, "Let's name her Teodocia Leida. God's gift."

Leida looks at me so surprised. "How do you know for certain she will be a girl?"

I grin and answer, "Frau Elisabeta told me in a phone call on seventh January. Just last week. She told me in a riddle, and, finally, I now understand!"

She cups my face and looks at me in amazement. "You are full of surprises my dear wife! I am so in love with you."

"And I am so in love you too, Leida. And I will explain my call with Elisabeta later."

She nods, smiling. I see in her expression a future—our future... full of promise, growing, expanding, fulfilling.