13. Lake
thirteen
An Hour Later
It’s two-fifteen in the morning.
I’m standing in front of the wall of glass overlooking Lake Washington. A ribbon of red taillights crawls across the floating bridge. Traffic has thinned to truckers, insomniacs, and people who’d rather keep driving than go home.
Somewhere on the other side of the lake, Levi is asleep. Noa probably is too, by now.
Part of me wishes I’d stayed.
The other part needed distance to be with my own thoughts.
I let myself into the condo twenty minutes ago and haven’t done much beyond stand here. Linus talked me into buying the place after the first record took off.
Madison Park. Four bedrooms. A fireplace I’ve used twice. A kitchen designed by somebody who clearly expected me to cook more than eggs. Diego’s wife took one look at the furniture I’d picked out and informed me it looked like a waiting room, then hired a designer before I could object.
The only room I wouldn’t let anyone touch sits at the end of the hall.
Levi’s.
I press my forehead against the cool glass.
She let it slip that she loved me.
Then I confirmed I felt the same way when I texted her before I drove home.
Since I’ve been here, I’ve read those words half a dozen times. In the parking garage. In the elevator. Standing here watching headlights drift across the bridge.
Me: I love you too.
The words should settle me. Instead they leave me wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do.
I turn away from the window and sink into the couch. The room looks exactly the way it did when I left for the studio yesterday morning, but it doesn’t feel the same.
The framed vinyl from my first album hangs above the fireplace.
A backstage photograph from London is beside it.
Below, Diego and Vanessa grin out from a picture taken on the front porch of the little craftsman I bought them in Tacoma before the youth center opened.
Their girls are climbing all over both of them.
Nobody’s looking at the camera or posing.
They’re just…together.
My eyes stay there.
Diego built that life one ordinary day at a time. Nothing glamorous about it. He met Vanessa a few years ago and they immediately got married. He’s worked whatever jobs kept the lights on, showed up for his daughters, then got up the next morning and did it again.
Like me, he lost his mom before he was old enough to miss her. Never knew his father. Endured foster homes that would’ve broken most people. None of it stopped him from becoming the man in that photograph.
It’s like he was born to be a husband. A father.
I don’t know if I can be like him.
Until a few years ago, I’d never watched two people love each other without somebody leaving or destroying everything in their wake. Diego and Vanessa are the closest thing I’ve ever had to a blueprint. Now that things have shifted between me and Noa, I’m wondering if I can walk the walk.
I glance at the clock. Good. He’ll be at the security office. He answers on the second ring. “Brother.”
“Diego.” Hearing his voice allows me to relax.
“Levi okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Noa okay?”
I scrub a hand over my face before dropping onto the couch. “I don’t know.”
He waits. One of Diego’s many gifts is he never fills silence just to hear himself talk.
“How the hell do you know if you’re good enough for somebody?” I tip my head back on the cushion and stare at the ceiling.
A beat passes. “You don’t.”
I groan. “Come on.”
“Well,” he laughs, “you asked.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” His chair creaks on the other end of the line. “Nobody wakes up knowing how to build a family, Lake. You show up. You screw up. You own it. You do better next time. One day you look around and realize you’ve built something worth protecting.”
I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “How’d you figure your shit out?”
“I didn’t.” He says it so simply I almost laugh. “Vanessa called me on my bullshit. We took parenting classes. Read books. Asked questions. I sat on the nursery floor plenty of nights trying to figure out why one of the girls was crying. Half the time I guessed wrong.”
“You?” I smile despite myself.
“Oh, I was spectacularly wrong.” He chortles. “But I stayed. Started seeing a counselor every Saturday.”
His confession catches me off guard. “You have?”
“You inspired me.”
I sit back. I’d never have guessed.
He doesn’t let me stay surprised. “So what’s really going on?”
I stare at the dark television across the room.
“There was a moment tonight.” I swallow. “Noa and I kissed and it started to go further.”
He doesn’t interrupt.
“Then she told me everything. A part of her life she was scared for me to know.”
“Heavy?”
I nod before remembering he can’t see me. “It’s a lot, Diego.”
“I figured.”
His acknowledgement surprises me. “You figured? How?”
“A woman from a wealthy family like hers doesn’t end up in rehab at twenty-two by accident.” He pauses for a moment. “I figured there was a story. It wasn’t my business, though.”
I rub my thumb along the edge of the coffee table. “We decided to try, um…seeing each other, I guess. Ever since I got home, I’ve been spinning. Wondering if she’s ready to start something permanent with me.”
“I think you already know the answer.”
I don’t respond, but get up and sit at the kitchen island.
He lets me think for a second and continues, “The woman you conceived Levi with wouldn’t have been ready. You’re in love with the woman who survived it.”
My eyes close. He’s so wise.
“Don’t make surviving the thing she spends the rest of her life apologizing for,” Diego states with conviction. “If she disclosed the ugliest chapter of her life tonight, she wasn’t asking whether you’d approve. She was wondering whether you’d leave.”
“I keep thinking about Levi.” The marble of the counter feels cold beneath my palms. “What if somebody looked at him twenty years from now and decided who he was by the worst thing that ever happened to him?”
“You’d lose your mind.”
“Yeah. I know.” Truth is, I’d tear the world apart before I let anybody reduce my son to one terrible chapter. “I’d never let anybody judge him for his reaction to trauma.” The sentence hangs in the air. “So how could I do it to her?”
Diego doesn’t rush to answer. When he finally speaks, his voice has softened. “She knows all about your past, Levi. Noa’s given you more grace than most people ever get. Give it back.”
I lower my head until my forehead rests against my forearm. “I love her so much.”
“I know.”
“I love him,” I choke out. “I want them to be my family.”
“I know.”
Neither of us says anything for a while. Finally he breaks the silence. “Get some sleep, brother.”
“Okay, I will.”
We hang up, and I sit in the quiet for a long minute.
Then I walk down the hall. Levi’s bedroom waits at the end, the door still open from this morning when I straightened the little quilt I had made custom for him.
I crouch beside the bed and run my hand over the race car track I’d finished setting up yesterday.
One little car sits upside down where I left it.
I turn it over. Small thing.
Nobody but me would think it mattered.
Maybe this is what being a father looks like most days. Taking care of the details.
I switch off the moon-shaped nightlight, leave the bedroom door open, and head toward my own.
Tomorrow they’ll finally be here.
I’m ready.