18. Liana
— ? —
Liana
The sky had been darkening all afternoon, clouds rolling in off the water in thick gray waves.
Bianca was in the living room building a tower out of blocks that kept falling over, her frustration growing with each collapse.
The knock at the door was quiet, almost hesitant.
I wiped my hands on a dish towel and walked through the living room, stepping over scattered blocks, expecting a delivery driver or maybe Gina checking in before the storm hit.
When I opened the door, Dominic was already turning to leave, his shoulders hunched against the rain that was starting to fall harder now.
A paper bag sat on the step between us.
He stopped when he heard the door open, half-turned back toward me, and I saw his face in the gray light. Tired. Uncertain. Nothing like the man who commanded rooms and made grown men go quiet just by walking in.
“Your migraine pills.” He nodded toward the bag without looking at me. “You were almost out, and the pharmacy on Harbor Street closes early when it storms. I didn’t want you to run out and not be able to get more.”
I stared at him, then at the bag, then back at him.
“How do you know I was almost out?”
“I saw the bottle in your bathroom when I was here last week.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “There were maybe four left. And I know storms trigger them for you sometimes, the pressure changes or something, so I figured you might need them.”
The rain was coming down harder now, soaking through his jacket, plastering his hair to his forehead. He still wasn’t looking at me
“There’s food in there too.” He gestured vaguely at the bag. “Rina made too much again. She frets when you’re not around to eat it, keeps cooking for four even though it’s just me rattling around that house now. It was easier to bring it than argue with her about it.”
I bent down and picked up the bag. It was heavier than I expected.
Inside I could see the orange prescription bottle and several containers of what I knew would be Rina’s cooking, the dishes she had been making for me since I was twenty-one years old and scared and trying to figure out how to survive in a monster’s house.
I didn’t know what to do with this version of him.
The grand gestures I could resist.
But this. A paper bag on the step and a man who wouldn’t even look at me while he gave it.
I had nothing prepared for this.
“Papa!”
Bianca came barreling past me before I could say anything, her small body slamming into Dominic’s legs hard enough to make him stumble.
She wrapped her arms around his thighs and tilted her head back to look up at him, rain already dotting her face.
“Papa, it’s going to thunder.” She said it with the absolute certainty of a child who had strong opinions about weather. “You can’t drive in thunder. Tell him, Mama. Tell him he has to stay.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Bianca’s grip on Dominic’s legs tightened.
“See?” She pointed at the sky. “Thunder. You have to stay now. Those are the rules.”
“I don’t think those are actually the rules, piccola.” Dominic’s voice was soft as he looked down at her. “I’ve driven in plenty of storms.”
“But you shouldn’t.” Bianca’s lower lip jutted out. “It’s dangerous. Mama says we don’t do dangerous things unless we have to, and you don’t have to, because you could just stay here until the thunder stops.”
Dominic looked at me over Bianca’s head, and I saw the question in his eyes.
“You should stay until the storm passes.” I heard the words come out of my mouth before I had decided to say them. “It’s supposed to be bad for a few hours at least. No point driving in it if you don’t have to.”
His eyes widened slightly, surprised, and I saw him swallow hard before he nodded.
“Okay.” He said it quietly. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m not sure of anything.” I stepped back from the doorway. “But Bianca’s right. Thunder is dangerous.”
Bianca grabbed his hand with both of hers and dragged him across the threshold, two small fingers wrapped around two of his, and the door closed behind them with a soft click that sounded louder than it should have.
The kitchen table felt smaller with Dominic sitting at it.
I heated up Rina’s food while the storm raged outside. Bianca had claimed the seat between us, her booster chair positioned so she could see both our faces, and she filled the silence with a constant stream of chatter that left no room for awkwardness.
“And then Sofia said that her cat had babies, but her mom said they couldn’t keep all of them, so they’re giving some away, and I told her we should get one but Mama said we had to wait until we were more settled, but I think we’re settled now, don’t you think we’re settled, Papa?”
“That depends on what your mama thinks. Getting a pet is a big decision.” Dominic said.
“But you would let me have a cat, right?” Bianca fixed him with those deep eyes that were so much like his. “If Mama said yes, you would say yes too?”
“I would say yes to almost anything that made you happy.” He reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “But Mama’s in charge of this house, so her vote is the one that counts.”
“That’s very diplomatic of you.” I set a plate in front of him and another in front of Bianca. “Pushing the unpopular decisions onto me.”
“I’m not pushing anything.” He looked up at me with something that might have been amusement. “I’m acknowledging the chain of command.”
“Since when do you acknowledge anyone’s chain of command?”
“Since I realized I’d been ignoring the most important one for years.” He held my gaze for a moment longer than necessary. “I’m trying to learn.”
I sat down across from him and picked up my fork, and Bianca launched into a detailed explanation of why cats were better than dogs, which somehow turned into a story about a boy in her class who had a hamster that escaped and lived in the walls of his house for a week.
“Mama, I’m tired.” Bianca yawned hugely, her whole face scrunching up. “But I don’t want to go to bed yet. Can I stay up until the thunder stops?”
“The thunder might not stop for hours, baby.” I started gathering the empty plates. “You need to sleep.”
“But Papa’s here.” She grabbed Dominic’s arm like she was afraid he would disappear if she let go. “He never stays for bedtime anymore. Can he do the story tonight? Please? Just this once?”
I looked at Dominic. He looked back at me, and I saw the hope in his eyes, the desperate wanting that he was trying so hard to hide.
“It’s up to your mama.” He said it carefully, giving me the out.
“Fine.” I stacked the plates in the sink. “One story. Then sleep.”
Bianca cheered and dragged him toward the stairs, and I stayed in the kitchen washing dishes while their footsteps faded above me.
He came down the stairs slowly, like he wasn’t sure what he was walking into.
I was standing at the sink with my back to him, watching the rain streak down the window, and I heard him stop in the kitchen doorway.
“She’s asleep.” His voice was quiet. “Went out before I even finished the story. I think the thunder wore her out.”
“Thank you for staying.” I didn’t turn around. “She misses you.”
“I miss her too.” He was quiet for a moment. “I miss both of you. The house is so quiet now that I can’t stand to be in it most nights.”
I turned around and leaned against the sink, my arms crossed over my chest.
“I know.” He held up his hand. “I know you don’t want to hear it. I know I don’t have the right to say any of this after everything I did. But I’m saying it anyway because I can’t keep pretending I’m okay when I’m not.”
He stepped into the kitchen, closer to me, and I saw the rawness in his face.
“I can’t sleep in our bed anymore.” He stopped a few feet away from me.
“I tried at first, but I kept reaching for you in the middle of the night and finding nothing. So I moved to the guest room, and then I couldn’t sleep there either because it doesn’t smell like you.
Nothing smells like you anymore. Even your perfume on your pillow is fading and I can’t stand it. ”
“It is over.” I said it quietly, without heat. “It’s been over for a long time. We were just both too stubborn to admit it.”
He took another step toward me. “It will never be over for me. You could divorce me and marry someone else and move to the other side of the world and it still wouldn’t be over, because you’re the only thing I’ve ever loved that wasn’t already broken when I got it.”
“You broke it yourself.” I felt the tears prick at my eyes and blinked them back. “You had something good and you broke it with your own hands.”
“And I would give anything to go back and do it differently. To come home for dinner instead of staying late at the compound. To defend you when Angela humiliated you instead of sitting there like a coward. To never say those words, those fucking words that I will regret until the day I die.”
“I miss you.” The admission slipped out before I could stop it. “I hate that I miss you, but I do.”
“Then come home.” He gripped my hand tighter. “Come back to me. Let me prove I can be different.”
“I can’t trust you anymore, Dom. I can’t trust that this version of you is going to last.”
“What if I showed you?” He cupped my face in his hands, his thumbs brushing away my tears. “What if I proved it to you, day after day, until you believed me?”
“I don’t know if that’s possible.”
“Let me try.” His forehead pressed against mine. “That’s all I’m asking.”
I closed my eyes and felt his breath on my face and the warmth of his hands on my cheeks and the decade of history between us pressing down on my chest.
“I can’t forgive you.” I whispered it into the space between us. “I want to. Part of me wants to so badly it hurts. But I can’t just forget what you said. I can’t pretend it didn’t happen.”
“I’m not asking you to pretend. I’m asking you to let me earn your forgiveness. However long it takes. Whatever I have to do.”
The storm raged outside, rain lashing against the windows, thunder rolling across the sky. Inside the kitchen was quiet except for our breathing and the hum of the refrigerator and the sound of my heart beating too fast in my chest.
“I don’t know how to do this.” I looked up at him. “I don’t know how to let you back in without getting hurt again.”
“Then we figure it out together.” He kissed my forehead, soft and lingering. “One day at a time. One conversation at a time. However slow you need to go.”
“And if I decide I can’t do it?” I searched his face. “If I decide that the hurt is too deep and I need to move on without you?”
“Then I’ll let you go.” He said it quietly, and I could see how much the words cost him.
“If you really want me to, if you look me in the eye and tell me there’s no hope at all, I’ll sign the papers and step back and let you live your life.
But I need you to be sure. I need you to know that I’m not going to stop trying until you tell me to. ”
“Stay tonight.” The words came out before I could think about them. “Bianca will want to see you in the morning, and I don’t want you driving in this.”
He nodded slowly.
He let go of my face and stepped back, and I felt the absence of his warmth immediately. I got him a blanket and a pillow from the hall closet and watched him settle onto the couch, too tall for it, his feet hanging off the end.
I walked upstairs to my empty bedroom and closed the door and lay down on the bed that was still too big without him in it. The storm was starting to fade, the thunder growing distant, the rain softening to a steady drum against the roof.
I could hear him moving around downstairs, settling in, and some part of me that I had tried so hard to silence wanted to go back down and curl up next to him on that too-small couch and pretend that nothing had ever gone wrong between us.
But I stayed where I was.