She feels the clouds settle, but does not want to open her eyes. She is not ready. If this is a dream, it is also a nightmare. If it is not, she would prefer not to know. His voice echoes somewhere in the near distance, drawing her from the depths. Her breathing quickens. He is calling for Danijela.
Her eyes flutter open against her will. She studies him. He is not the man she knows. He is a different version of himself, and she knows in an instant why. The girl is cross-legged on the bed, next to her, eyes wide. His eyes. Smaller and darker, but his. Intense and ambiguous and enigmatic. She loves his eyes. Jasna's eyes. A lower lip quivers and she instantly feels a wave of maternal instinct wash over her, and she smiles without meaning to. The girl responds by curling onto the bed, against her. She fits perfectly against her mother's side.
Abby is her mother. Danijela.
She is Danijela.
"Where am I?" She is not aware that she is speaking until she's said it.
His hand caresses her face, and it's eerily familiar. "At home. In bed."
Her voice trembles. "Vukovar."
"Yes."
She closes her eyes again, unconsciously stroking Jasna's back as she does with Joe. It comforts her. "The siege."
His voice hushes and he places a hand over Jasna's face. Shielding her. "Yes."
Only now does she realize the little hand gripping hers. She's never seen him, but she knows. She knows how old he was when he died, too, and it churns her stomach. Joe's age. Marko is Joe's age, almost exactly. Sticky baby fingers, wrapped around two of hers, as he peers at her over the mattress.
Her heart aches. She doesn't know how Luka looks at Joe without remembering. He's darker, his features sharper, but god, he looks like Joe. His lower lip juts out questioningly, and she feels for him what she felt for Jasna. They are not her children, and yet they are. She cannot help herself but to love them.
She is Danijela.
Luka's fingers are on her throat, checking her pulse. She wants to tell him that it's fine, but then, she's not a doctor. It occurs to her that she has no idea what her profession is. Does she have a profession? Did she go to college? She's never asked any of these things. She has no idea of anything.
Her eyes go to Jasna, and again, she is calm. The girl is somehow grounding to her, and she cannot help but wonder if it is because she does not have to think of her as someone else. Luka is not the husband she knows, Marko is not the son she carried, but Jasna – Jasna is simply Jasna. And for some unfathomable reason, she loves this child. A wave of raw emotion goes through her.
She will lose Jasna.
She will lose herself.
This is Vukovar, and there is a siege. She turns to Luka, who sits worriedly by her side, Marko leaning on his knee. "What day is it?"
"Subota."
It feels as though someone inflated a balloon inside her head. Her ears ring. "What?"
"I said, Saturday."
"Saturday," she repeats. She says it again, and listens carefully.
She has spoken Croatian. He has spoken it to her, and she has understood. Some connection in her mind has heard Croatian and understood English, thought in English and spoken Croatian.
She reminds herself that this is a dream. A nightmare.
"Mama." Jasna is looking at her, in a perfect mirror of Luka, brow furrowed, eyes swimming with at least a dozen emotions. "Are you awake now?"
She fights off the urge to answer that no, she is far from it, but again a wave of maternal instinct takes hold and she strokes the girl's soft curls and nods.
"You had a panic attack," Luka murmurs, and now she sees into him, the same man she knows.
He's wrong, but she nods all the same. She has no way out of this nightmare, and for now, she plays along.
"I'll make some tea. Jasna, come and help me." He rises, hoists Marko on his shoulder, and extends a hand to his daughter.
Their daughter.
She is Danijela.
Alone, she eases up from the bed. She inexplicably knows her way around this place.
Nightmares do not make sense. She reminds herself of this once more.
A mirror is in the bathroom, and she closes her eyes to avoid the answer as she stands before it. She is not ready.
As she breathes, she wonders if what she sees will matter. It's a dream either way. A nightmare.
The more she stands breathing in and out, the more she wonders if this is not, in truth, a dream. Perhaps it is a blessing, albeit terrifying, to meet these people. But then, she's constructed them in her mind, hasn't she? She's created these people out of Luka's memories and a single photo. And that would mean…
She opens her eyes to see a face she recognizes. Nearly identical to the photo, perhaps a bit more fatigued, hair a little disheveled about her face, but Danijela's.
She is Danijela.
She studies herself closely. A cross dangles around her neck, and for the first time she notes the well-worn nightgown hanging loosely over her body. She grimaces at the sight, her own taste still lingering within.
She is Abby, as well.
The ring on her finger bears a miniscule diamond. She smiles at this, remembering Luka's chagrin when he told her – told Abby – how hard he'd worked to save for even the smallest of diamonds.
He'd not had to struggle quite so much for the one she wore in the waking hours, a full carat proffered under the stars and snow for the marking of a private anniversary. It would dwarf this even further, and a sudden sense of jealousy at the comparative meaning stabs at her. This, this minute stone on her finger now, weighs more heavily, somehow.
And suddenly, she needs him. Needs his arms around her, whoever she might be.
Whomever it is that he loves, she wants it to be her.
