From the sequel of a book I haven't finished

Last night, I had a vision of looking out a window at a muddy sky at rain sheeting down upon the tops of buildings. I felt like I was waiting for someone, and that if he arrived, there would be an intense conversation. The room was a chunk of the top floor of an old brick building, spacious and dark but for the light from the window.

When I tried to write a poem about it, I realized that I wasn't the person looking out the window. I told my husband, and he pointed out that I was Ayana (from my book Prodigies) waiting on Grzegorz (another character from Prodigies) that would happen in the next book. (I have visions and Richard interprets them -- we're spooky around here sometimes.)

Maybe I better keep writing.

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Reader from Poland -- I need your help with the highlighted portions below. The XXXXs are where I need the Polish phrase for the English phrase that is also highlighted. 

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Ayana stared out the window of her garret apartment, hardly noting the amber-grey clouds dumping sheets of rain on the tarred roofs of the shops surrounding her. It had been a week since Greg had left the apartment with nothing but the clothes he wore and what he could stuff in the worn military backpack he carried.

She had made a mistake, she had intuited in the aftermath of the argument that broke their relationship. No saving face there — the bout had scoured civility away. She couldn’t figure out how the fight started, except that he had said one word  — “xxxxx”.  Marriage. And then he had said he'd take care of her and the child she carried low in her body. She had panicked, fearing the loss of her autonomy. And out of her panic, she had lashed out at Greg. And he had lashed out at her. She couldn’t tell if it was her rejection of his offer or the words she used. She didn’t remember what she has said except that it was in his native tongue.

The knock on the door startled Ayana.  She stood from the chair by the window, feeling the discomfort in her back as the baby's weight shifted. "Who is it?" she called out both in English and Polish as she plodded toward the door.

"XXXXXXX," she heard Greg's low, rough voice say.

We need to talk.

She flipped the light switch and a soft but inadequate glow bathed the room. She gazed out the peephole to see Greg, wet hair straggling around his face and down his shoulders, his coat soaked. The peephole distorted his wild-eyed looks so he looked like an oni, a demon, and the expression on his face did not bely his seeming.

"Yes, we need to talk," Ayana murmured as she turned the locks on the door.

Greg stepped in, and he didn't look any less frightening. His eyes looked shadowed, his skin bone-pale.  He bent and tugged his boots off at the door. That was oddly the custom in both their cultures, odd because those cultures were otherwise so different. Ayana watched him, her heart aching at the familiar scenario.

Ayana stood frozen, speechless, because she wasn't prepared to cut all ties with Greg. She wasn't ready.

"I brought blackberry syrup," Greg twisted his mouth. "We can't make the baby unhappy, can we?"

"Why do you feed me?" Ayana seethed as the two of them walked to her couch that folded out as a bed. "I think I can fend for myself."

"Hasn't anyone ever done anything nice for you?" Greg muttered. "I want to do for you and the baby like I never got to do for Anna."

Ayana felt a hint of what she feared, being trapped by Greg's solicitousness. "Where is Anna, anyhow? Tell me she is not with her mother!"

"Anastasja will never be with her mother again. She would be always in danger of her life if she were. No, I have taken her to Shemisław's. She happens to think of Shemisław as her grandfather. She's safe while I go through this madness."

"Madness? Is the PTSD with you again?" That would explain the hollow eyes, the beaten down demeanor.

"No. I was mad when I last left you, and I was mad when I didn't come back sooner. I walked around like a zombie --"

Ayana studied Greg's Medusa locks. "I thought you were a demon," she smirked, feeling a bubble of optimism, then sobering again. "This food thing -- is this part of taking care of me? Will you keep me small and harmless? Will you make me stay home with the children and not work with you and Shemisław?"

Ayana glanced again at Greg, and he looked as if he was stifling a laugh. "It's hard to picture you being small and helpless when you can swear in -- how many languages?"

"All of them," Ayana shrugged. "Including ASL." Again, the bubble of amusement tickled her mood. "Don't forget my skills of evasive driving."

"I don't know if Iwanow Jr. will ever forgive you for what happened with his Varsovia outside Wroclaw," Greg grinned, and Ayana remembered her joy in Greg's fey moods, his quirky sense of humor, and his daring. She had become daring, a spy against the Renaissance movement because of him.

"When you said you'd take care of me, did that mean keeping me shut up inside the house and not working with you?" Ayana hadn't spoken so clearly in their last argument, choosing instead to use the subtle language of her homeland. She heard the sharpness of her voice, and wondered if she had lost her Japanese communication style forever.

"Oh, you don't know how much I'd love to," Greg's face fell into grim lines. "My whole family died in the bombing of my parents' house, and I think now and again that I could have saved them if I had only been at Sunday supper instead of busking downtown. Especially now that I know my talent, although I would have exposed myself -- and possibly killed myself -- resurrecting five people. I would die to keep you from getting killed."

Ayana noted that Greg had scooted closer to her. She felt his warmth, and it was welcome. "I would die to keep you from getting killed as well," Ayana sighed. "And I want to work with the others, the Renaissance Children, and to do that I would have to carry at least some of the load and use my talent -- and my skills -- to help with our forays into Second World Renaissance and their compatriots."

"I should have taken that into consideration. I warn you, though, I am going to try to protect you from danger from time to time, and feed you whatever you want when you're pregnant, because I'm a bit of an old-fashioned chauvinist at times." Greg took her hand in both of his.

"And I'm going to have to tell you to back off, because if you were expecting me to be submissive, they failed to teach me at the orphanage." She waited a beat or two, and asked the question that sucked all the air out of her lungs when she thought of it. "Are we still together?"

"Would the thought of marriage scare you -- that is, if I make my best effort not to make you small and harmless?"

"Could we not do a Catholic service? I'm not willing to convert." Her Buddhist/Shinto roots kept her from being totally assimilated into a Western culture that more openly courted violence.

"As I'm sure my talent would send me to Catholic perdition when I die, I think I should avoid the Catholic church myself. Can I tell you I love you? I've tried to tell you, and you've not been receptive to that."


Again, the bubble of happiness, the effervescent feeling of joy filled her.