26. Okay Google, “what does hope feel like?”
TWENTY-SIX
OKAY GOOGLE, “WHAT DOES HOPE FEEL LIKE?”
I come home a few days later to find Vanessa and the kids bouncing up and down, waiting for me.
After our conversation that night ended with one of the best nights of sleep I’ve had in years, I insisted again that I wouldn’t touch her until I figured myself out. And for someone who hasn’t felt in a long time, it’s a process.
It’s pure torture to keep my distance. The desire to be close to her doesn’t abate. If only it was simply carnal, I could take care of it, but I crave her .
I smile to myself when I see that she seems as expectant as Anton and Livia are. Kids think they are smart when they try to hide something, but they’re very obvious about their desire to show me or give me something. Vanessa’s shining eyes, the colour of bark when it’s just rained, sparkle with mischief.
My heartbeat a drum against my ribcage, I let my smile show, waiting with excitement.
“Vivi got a gift for you, Babbu ,” Anton exclaims, incapable of holding his secret any longer, and he jumps as Vanessa reaches behind her and hands me a wrapped package. The paper shines with glitter and I open the gift delicately, careful not to rip the paper. I plan on keeping it as a reminder of her.
I pull the small rope away while I look at her and she blushes, our minds connecting to the moment when I tied her up in her flat. I suppress a groan and move on to my gift, finding a finely made leather-bound journal with a metal lock inside the wrapping paper. Blank pages greet me and I frown, but Vanessa speaks softly.
“I read that journaling is good for working through your emotions.”
“And she got us one, too,” Anton says and proudly raises his own journal over his head, Livia copying every movement.
I can't speak. My throat clogs as a rush of a new emotion comes up.
Vanessa just watches and smiles at me with understanding that makes my eyes slightly wet. The tears don’t fall, but they form at the corners nonetheless and I wonder if that isn’t the gift after all. My capacity for feeling anything good is new and precious.
I ’ve had the journal for two weeks now. There are fourteen entries in it. One for each day since she gifted it to me. And she was right. It’s helping.
I don’t really know how to use it. I just start the same way tonight as I open it before going to bed.
My dear Vanessa,
Thank you for being so patient with me, just as you are with Anton and Livia. You never make me feel pressured or like I need to come to a conclusion faster when it comes to my feelings for you.
Day after day, I watch you and I don’t think I can ever stop.
My children need you, but I think I need you more. And for the first time, I want to be selfish. I want you for myself.
I’ve never been a believer, but you’re becoming my preacher and my creed.
When I can’t sleep, I run scenarios in my head. What if you stopped working for me and just studied and lived with us? In my home. What if I just hired someone else? It would work, wouldn’t it? And you’d make it work with me? As a partner?
For once, it’s not the worst-case scenarios running the show. It’s good ones.
I had to Google ‘what does hope feel like’ the other day because I wasn’t sure this is what I felt, but I think it is. And it's exhilarating. Like I’m running a rollercoaster. I’m high on hope. I’m afraid I’ll crash when I come down.
Yet it’s still you I see as I think about it.
I close the journal and remove my glasses. As I lay down, I pick up my phone to text her. Wishing her a goodnight has become a ritual I look forward to.
The next day, my parents come over. It’s Sunday and the kids play in the first steps of the pool, where the water is shallow, as we chat idly after lunch.
My eyes keep drifting to the pool house. I know Vanessa isn’t home; she went down to Sant Armellu pier to meet with Jade before her friend’s shift at Lady in White. Yet, my brain is drawn to her, my body slightly angled towards where she lives.
“Why haven’t you invited her to join us, yet?” my father asks.
I swallow hard and take the leap.
“I wasn’t sure how to introduce her to you, and how to talk to the kids,” I answer my father and look at him and my mother, whose eyes shine with so much love it almost hurts. My mother swats her hand at me like I’m being ridiculous and clicks her tongue with a disapproving sound. “If you think you were being stealthy about loving that girl, picculinu , let me tell you, you’re not. We love Vivi. Next time, don’t let her rot into that little house. Invite her over already. That girl is smart. If you don’t make your move, she’ll be gone.”
I shake my head in disbelief, but the word my mother chose—love—hits me in the chest. I take in my children, laughing and playing, my parents whispering sweet nothing to each other when they think I’m not watching, and I feel that love everywhere.
It’s been months since I heard from Monica and the ghost of her presence disappeared fully, chased away by the radiance of a girl who loves embroidered dresses and oversized sun hats.
And ropes.
“How do I tell Anton and Livia?” I ask my parents without looking at them.
I already know the next steps I need to take, but I need reassurance that I’m not going in the wrong direction; that I’m not the only one who sees Vanessa’s goodness and kindness. I made that mistake before and I’m terrified of making it again. Of giving into this hope, this love, of falling for someone and her leaving.
Though it’s not Monica leaving that hurt me. It’s her abandoning our children. It’s me putting too much faith in something I knew was doomed from the start.
“You just tell them, figliolu ,” my father says while holding a kind smile. “Look at them. They’re happy, they’re healthy. They talk highly of Vanessa. They love her already. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“They’ll hate me for replacing their mother.”
And there it is. The hard truth I refused to acknowledge except in the secret of my leather-bound journal. If Monica resurfaces, when she resurfaces, life won’t be as idyllic as it is now when the only thing I have to worry about is untangling my feelings for Vanessa and how to make it work between us and with my children. She will also be part of the equation, and I hate myself for putting this on Vanessa’s shoulders. She told me about her dreams and her studies. She already started her one-year program to get on track to fulfil them. Yet, if we move forward, she will become a steady face in my children’s life. There won’t be these boundaries that her position as my employee provides.
And my children will have to deal with that as much as she will have to deal with my ex-wife.
“Listen to me, Lino.” My mother takes my face in both hands and turns my gaze to hers. “You’re not selfish for wanting love. You’re a good father to these kids, and I know how much you suffer. That depression you try to hide, it lurks behind your eyes like a permanent stain.” She purses her lips and her eyes swell with tears. “I don’t know when it started and how we could have helped you better with it, but I want you to know that you have every right to pursue love. And no matter what, your children, they love you. Your father and I, we love you. And I’m pretty sure that Vanessa loves you too.”
I embrace her, and she clutches me to her chest. We’re not a very emotional family but this hug, it feels like a release, like a new beginning and a balm to my battered soul.
“Why are you crying, Mammona?” Anton asks as he steps close to us, his eyes full of angst. I lift him onto my knees and call for Livia so she isn’t by herself in the pool. She joins me on my other knee.
“Mammona is just happy and sometimes when people are happy, they cry. But it’s happy tears, picculinu ,” I tell him.
After another hug and a negotiation that ends up with both of them eating a second serving of strawberry pie, I take a fortifying breath and launch myself into the deep end of the conversation I need to have with my children. “What if I told you that Vanessa might live with us? Not in the pool house, but in the main house. With us?”
“It would be more practical,” Anton says with a mouthful of pie and hands sticky with sugar. My father chuckles.
“More practical?” I ask and it’s Livia who answers with both hands raised and a shrug like it’s obvious.
“She’s your gofriend!”
The word ‘girlfriend’ doesn’t come out properly but I understand it perfectly and my parents both snicker at my children being more perceptive than I give them credit for. Vanessa isn’t my girlfriend, but apparently, we have grown close enough for them to pick up on our feelings.
I smile and tell them how I have every intention of asking their nanny to be my girlfriend. A few minutes later, they start playing again like this conversation isn’t the most life-altering thing they’ve ever heard.
I can’t begin to imagine Pierce’s satisfaction when I’ll tell him over what has become our weekly lunch.
And I can’t wait to see my little sunshine when she comes back to me.