Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
LUKAS
Félix falls asleep halfway through dinner with tomato sauce smeared across one cheek and his tiny fist still curled around a plastic dinosaur.
One minute, he’s talking animatedly about how sharks would beat crocodiles in a fight, and the next, his words start slurring together until his head tips sideways against my arm.
I look down at him, and my chest tightens as it always does now. I still can’t fully process that he’s mine.
Even after weeks of daycare pickups and bedtime stories and tiny trainers abandoned in my hallway, part of me still feels like I’m living someone else’s life. I’m scared I’ll wake up and discover this was all some brutal hallucination built from regret and exhaustion.
But then he sighs softly in his sleep, and instinct takes over before thought does. I lift him carefully into my arms, and his warm little body settles against my chest. And there it is again, that overwhelming feeling.
Mine.
Camille watches me quietly from across the small kitchen table while I carry Félix toward the sofa.
The flat is dim except for the lamp near the window and the muted glow from the television, neither of us is really watching.
Rain taps softly against the glass outside, steady and calming against the heavy silence sitting between us tonight.
I settle Félix carefully against my chest and pull the blanket higher around him. His curls smell faintly like strawberries from the shampoo Camille uses.
Two entire years without him. The grief still ambushes me sometimes when I least expect it.
Camille moves quietly around the kitchen gathering plates while I sit there holding our sleeping son like I’m afraid someone might take him away again.
Eventually, she speaks. “You’re getting better at that.” I glance up. She nods toward Félix. “The dad thing.”
A humourless breath leaves me. “I’m still improvising most of the time.”
“Yeah,” she says softly. “But you show up.”
Showing up should not feel like an achievement. It should have been the bare minimum from the beginning. I stare down at Félix’s sleeping face for a long moment before speaking quietly. “I would have from the beginning, if you’d given me the chance.”
Camille stills near the sink, then she nods once without turning around. “I know, and I’m sorry.”
I scrub a hand tiredly over my jaw, exhaustion pressing behind my eyes. Training this morning had been brutal; Félix refused daycare drop-off without crying for nearly twenty minutes, and somewhere beneath all of that sits the constant ache of Kate.
Always Kate.
I see her everywhere now. In grocery stores. In coffee cups left beside my sink.
In every quiet moment when Félix laughs, I instinctively think she would love this.
I miss her so much it feels physical sometimes.
Camille dries her hands slowly on a towel before finally turning to face me fully. “You saw her today.”
I blink once. “How did you know?”
A small, sad smile touches her mouth. “Because you came home looking devastated.”
Jesus. I look away briefly toward the rain-streaked windows. “She ran into us accidentally,” I admit. “At the garden centre café.”
Camille’s eyebrows lift slightly. “And?”
I think about Kate laughing while Félix held onto her cardigan as he’d already decided she belonged to him.
About the way she looked at my son with immediate warmth instead of hesitation.
About the future that flashed through my head so suddenly that it almost destroyed me. I exhale slowly. “Félix liked her.”
Camille actually smiles then. “Of course he did.”
I let out a quiet laugh despite myself. “He called her pretty approximately ten seconds after meeting her.”
“That’s your genetics.” Camille laughs.
“Unfortunately, that’s true.”
Félix wriggles against me with a sleepy sigh, and instinctively, my hand moves along his back in slow circles until he settles again. When I glance up, Camille is watching me with tears shining faintly in her eyes.
The sight catches me off guard. “Hey,” I say softly. “What’s wrong?”
She shakes her head quickly, looking down at the towel in her hands. “Nothing.”
“Camille.”
A shaky breath leaves her. Then quietly, almost painfully honest, she says, “You’re right, you would have been good at this from the beginning.”
The words hit like a punch to the gut. For so long, my anger towards her has been louder than everything else. The missed years and the stolen time. The first words, birthdays, and fevers I never got to witness.
But sitting here now, looking at her standing alone in this tiny kitchen after carrying all of that responsibility by herself for two years. Something shifts within me. It isn’t forgiveness exactly, but I understand, and that’s enough to hurt. “You were alone,” I say quietly.
Camille chuckles, except there’s no humour in it at all. She runs her sleeve under her nose, then her fingertips swipe over her cheeks, drying her tears. “Yeah. I hated you for a while,” she admits after a moment. “When you left Québec.”
I nod because I already knew that. “We were already falling apart,” I say carefully.
“I know.” She wipes quickly beneath one eye again before continuing. “But finding out I was pregnant right after you left…” Her voice catches slightly. “It felt cruel.” My chest aches. “I almost called you,” she whispers. “So many times.”
I close my eyes briefly, my hands rubbing over my face as I sigh.
“I kept thinking you deserved to know,” she continues. “Then I’d get angry again. Or scared. Or stubborn.” A broken little laugh escapes her. “And eventually, too much time had passed, and I didn’t know how to fix it anymore. It didn’t feel right.”
I look down at Félix sleeping peacefully against me. Two years of fear and pride and resentment wrapped around one tiny little boy who never deserved any of it. “I’m still angry,” I admit.
“I know.”
“But I understand it more now.”
Camille nods, her tears running freely now. “I never wanted to keep him from you forever.”
The fatigue in her voice destroys me more than the tears do. I know she means it. She’s not defending herself anymore; she’s just tired.
We both are.
“I missed everything,” I say finally, the grief cracking open again before I can stop it. “All of his milestones, teaching him things and watching him learn.” My voice roughens. “I don’t know if I’ll ever stop mourning that.”
Camille presses trembling fingers briefly against her mouth. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to fix this.”
And maybe this is the first time I truly believe she is sorry.
Félix stirs again, sleepy little face pressing closer into my chest. Automatically, I lower my head, kissing softly into his curls.
Camille watches the movement. Then, after a long silence, she says something that completely undoes whatever walls are still standing between us.
“He already looks for you first.”
I blink hard. “What?”
“When something happens,” she says. “Or he’s excited, or scared.” Her eyes shine again. “He looks for you now.”
Emotion crashes into me violently, and I have to look away. All I’ve wanted since learning he existed was a chance. Just a chance. And despite everything, Félix is already giving me one. The room falls quiet except for Félix’s soft breathing.
Then Camille speaks again. “You love her.” It’s not a question anymore.
I don’t even hesitate. “Yes.” The word leaves me instantly. “Yes, I do,” I say again with absolute certainty.
Camille smiles, like she expected nothing else. “She loves you, too.”
Pain twists low in my chest. “I hurt her.”
“You let her go because you were drowning.”
“That doesn’t make it hurt less for her.”
“No,” she agrees quietly. “But it matters.”
I stare down at Félix again, trying to untangle the impossible knot my life became in such a short amount of time. “I don’t know how to do both,” I admit finally. “Being his father and…” My throat constricts. “Wanting a future with Kate and Hudson.”
Camille’s expression alters in a way I haven’t seen in years. “Lukas,” she says gently. “Those things are not competing with each other.” She smiles sadly. “Kate clearly matters deeply to you.”
“She does.”
“You talk about her constantly.”
That earns the faintest huff of laughter out of me. “Do I?”
“Painfully so.”
I shake my head a little, but warmth flickers through my chest anyway. Camille leans back against the counter, then scrutinises me for a long moment. And when she speaks again, her voice is soft enough to break me completely.
“You look happier when you talk about her than you ever looked with me.”