Page 9 of The Expat Affair

The reality of the situation settles over me again—not only that Xander is dead, but that it just as easily could have been me. That his killer could have flipped on the lights and seen me lying there, my hair spread out across Xander’s pillow. Could have just as soon strangled me, too. My fingertips flutter to the side of my neck, grazing over skin that’s soft and smooth.

I slide the card into my bag, and the surge of bravado I felt back in the juice shop has all but melted away. Detective Boomsma opens the door, a silent gesture that I’m free to go.

Outside, I stand in a slice of shade and stare at traffic, trying to figure out where I am. This is not the charming Amsterdam I’ve come to know and love, not the hodgepodge rows of gingerbread buildings lining the glittering canals. This is modern, industrial, ugly Amsterdam, a million miles away from that view from Xander’s sleek penthouse and the feeling of endless possibility.

I tell myself that despite everything, I can still do this. No—not just that I can butshould. That’s what happens when you survive a terrifying brush with death, you are obliged to live the hell out of your life. I should still push forward with myEat, Pray, Loveera. Should still sayyesto adventure. Reboot myself as someone who doesn’t just fall into a marriage because all her friends are doing it or because her mother expects it of her; not someone clinging to her small-town, country club life because she doesn’t know any better and change is terrifying. Who doesn’t let life happen to her, but makes her own life happen.

A bus zooms past, stirring up a pile of trash and leaves that rain like confetti over the busy street. I turn left, then right, then left again, pointing myself toward what I think—Ihope—is the city center.

Rayna 2.0 can find her own way home.

Willow

In the end, I have not one lunch date but two. Sem and his best friend, Vlinder, a stunning Dutch girl with blue eyes and blond ringlets. They sit shoulder to shoulder in the front cubby of my cargo bike, deep in conversation about Juf Addie, their teacher who’s getting married in May. Apparently, she’s invited the entire class.

At the end of the driveway, Sem twists around, his fingers tugging at the seat belt. “Mama, help.”

Two little words, but they never fail to stir up a storm in my chest. Partly at the lack of mother I have in my own life, but mostly because I am one. Despite all the warnings doctors gave when I was pregnant. Despite all the close calls and hospital stays. Those other mothers at school, they love to complain about how motherhood isso hard. The endless chores, the lack of time for yourself, the constant onslaught of motherly guilt for doing too much or not enough or making some mistake that can mess your kid up forever.

But for me, the hardest part has always been the worry.

Sem, the child that almost wasn’t. An accidental pregnancy in every way—only eight months into our long-distance relationship and while I was on the pill. Too soon, too unplanned, a pregnancy so precarious it felt doomed from day one. And yet from the day those two lines appeared on the test, there was nothing I wanted more.

I lean in and help him unclip the buckle to his seat belt, then drop a kiss on top of his head. His hair is the only place on himthat’s warm, the dark strands soaking up the January sun, and that familiar cloud settles over me like a lead blanket.

Already this has been a rough winter, filled with one long, chronic cold that’s morphed into croup and spiked his fever so high it sent us to the hospital three times. He requires constant monitoring and a whole host of specialists we have on speed dial. For a medically complex kid like Sem, every bug that blows through town, every bacterium that sneaks onto every surface is a danger.

But scariest of all are the ear infections—what might be mild for most kids could be deadly for Sem. Too close to his cochlear implants, too dangerously close to his brain, which could mean yet another operation to place ventilation tubes, explantation of his cochlear implants, meningitis, death. Every hurdle we make it past feels like a miracle.

I press the back of my fingers to his forehead. As usual, he bats my hand away.

“Okay, my love. You’re free. Now help Vlinder.”

As soon as she’s loose, the two of them clamber over the sides and race on skinny legs to the side door, eight centimeters of solid, fortified wood too thick for even the Nazis to bust through once upon a time. According to Thomas, they came through the front room’s stained glass windows instead, now a sheet of bulletproof glass.

This is the cost of being a Prins, we live in a freaking bunker.

Inside the house, Vlinder and Sem shrug off their coats, dropping their backpacks like sacks of cement to the well-worn marble floor. They take off down the hall as Ollie comes racing the other way, his tail and tongue wagging in his hurry to get to me, even though it’s only been fifteen minutes since the last time I saw him.

I scratch him behind a scruffy ear. “I know, I know. I missed you, too.”

I dump my keys in the bowl on the hallway table, patting down my windblown hair in the mirror, an eighteenth-century masterpiece of smoky glass and gilded wood and plaster, with an ornate frame of swirling ivy and flowers and shells. Of all the fabulous pieces in this house, the imported furniture and the artwork decorating the walls, the silverware and the chinaware and the safe full of jewelry upstairs, this mirror is by far my favorite—a Christmas gift from Thomas’s father from a restoration shop in the city center. He bought two more just like it, one for himself and the other for Thomas’s sister, Fleur.

“I hope you don’t mind, Martina,” I say, coming into the kitchen where she stands at the counter, slicing wild radishes for garnish. Isnag one and drag it through a plate of softened, salty butter. “We have an extra mouth to feed for lunch. I hear she’s hungry.”

Vlinder and Sem give each other matching smiles. They’re an island unto themselves, those two, like Thomas and I once were. Twin flames, I used to call them. Soulmates. Now the only thing I can think isJust wait. Give it enough time, and she’ll lose interest in you, too.

Martina is my mother’s age, somewhere in her early sixties, but that’s where the similarities stop. Where my own mother is bleached blonde and perpetually bronzed from the tanning salon, Martina’s look is au naturel. She’s also scrupulously loyal to Thomas and thus to me, and she loves on Sem like he’s her grandson—a welcome bond since I haven’t spoken to my mother since I was sixteen.

“I hope so,” Martina says. “We certainly have plenty.”

I eye the platter Martina has prepared, piled high with every meat imaginable. Juicy slices of roast beef and fat sausages and multiple kinds of salt-cured hams, more food than three people can eat in a week. Which in the Prinses’ world, is also the point. Do you want roast beef? We’ve got four kinds. Pâté? Which do you prefer: duckor goose? For families like the one I married into, it’s not about the excess but about options. Getting exactly what you want when you want it is the ultimate privilege.

She tips her knife at the sink, an order for the kids to wash their hands, and they obey because this isherkitchen. Martina is cook, maid, grocery shopper, dog walker, organizer of repairmen and gardeners, occasional babysitter, and overall master of this domain. Thomas, Sem, and I only live here.

“I hope you didn’t get stuck in all the commotion near the park.” Martina’s gaze flits meaningfully to the kids, but they’re oblivious, chattering away at the sink.

I shake my head, reach for another radish. “No, but I heard all the sirens. They were a hot topic this morning during drop-off.”

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