Saved and SAINTified by Tiana Laveen

.” She gave a halfhearted laugh. “I see Gwendolyn is making the rounds.” Startled out of her own all-consuming thoughts, Xenia looked up at the woman.
    “ Xenia, this is my sister, Benja,” Angela said.
    “Hello , Benja.” Xenia’s tone was weak and hung on by a flimsy thread. Her eyes pleaded—begged a million times to try to stop the inevitable.
    Please let me hold her just a little while longer, please!
    Xenia continued to rock the baby, hoping that this last ditch effort would afford her more time. Her heart sank as Benja reached for her child and removed her, leaving her empty. Benja turned toward Angela.
    “Thank you for keeping her while I used the bathroom. Lord, it seems that lately I can’t even do that in peace.” She laughed as she rocked her baby possessively in her arms.
    “No problem. Hey, did you see the peach cobbler Georgette brought?”
    “What? She brought peach cobbler, oh, it’s on .”
    B oth women began to walk away from the table. “Xenia, I’ll be right back. You wanna slice of cobbler?” she called out as she made her way to her kitchen with her sister and niece on her heels.
    Xenia splashed on a plastered smile and shook her head. “No, Thank you.”
    She turned back toward the table and surveyed the empty glasses, dirty plates with crumbs and left over cold eggs from the delicious breakfast and lunch feast they’d all enjoyed. Her gaze traveled to Saint’s plate, practically squeaky clean, minus the teethmarked cantaloupe rind he’d left. Sighing, she turned back to him and Tony. Instead of seeing him conversing and snickering, cajoling and hollering with tears of hysteria glossing his hazel eyes, she was met with an intense, heated stare. Saint’s regard beamed down upon her like a spotlight.
    Feeling dazed, s he quickly spun back around and crossed her arms over her breasts. She fixed her eyes back on the table and began to nervously fold her napkin into different shapes while her baby musings once again overcame her thoughts…
     
    ****
     
    The drive to the babysitter’s to pick up the boys was initially fairly quiet. Saint switched gears on his new pearl white Lexus RX400x SUV, changing lanes several times until he was content with the traffic flow.
    He cleared his throat and adjusted his seat as he continued to move down California state route 42. He looked over at Xenia, who absentmindedly looked out the window, her hands busily twirling a piece of fringe from her purse that was neatly situated in the middle of her lap. She crossed her ankles and cleared her throat, still staring aimlessly out the window.
    “So, we’re just going to play this game, right?” he asked quietly as he continued to look straight ahead. “I’m supposed to continue to ignore the big pink elephant in the room?”
    Xenia looked at him and hesitated. He knew she was trying to figure out if she should play it off, or embrace the opportunity to speak her piece.
    “You can’t possibly believe that I could know you like I do .” He shot her a look then faced forward again. “And not know what is going on, right? That you could feel so strongly about something and it would just sail past me. … Honestly?”
    Again, he was met with silence.
    “Just like with Hassani. Here we go again…” He blew out air in frustration at her continued reserve as he approached the exit ramp.
    “What do you mean, just like with Hassani?”
    He detected an attitude in her tone.
    “You know exactly what I’m talking about, Xenia. You didn’t tell me you wanted to have a baby sooner than we’d agreed on when we got married. You hid it from me and now you’re doing the same shit again. I noticed the resurgence of this, months ago. It started on our honeymoon. I watched you stop and look at all the little Italian babies, mainly the little girls. You kept staring and smiling at them. Then, we got back home and you about lost your mind when you found out Stacey was pregnant with a baby girl.”
    “What?