15. Luisa
— ? —
Luisa
The world narrowed to a single point.
Wade Buckley. Standing outside Birdie’s window. Looking at me like I was a ghost he’d been chasing for years.
He was supposed to be in Boston, married to Dolores Vandermeer by now, living in some mansion with their perfect children and their perfect life. He was, above all, supposed to be gone.
But he was here. In Bellhaven. Looking through the window of a diner in a town that shouldn’t even exist on his radar.
And he was staring at Poppy.
“Mama?”
Her voice cut through my paralysis. I grabbed her arm, probably too hard, but I couldn’t help it, and pulled her off the stool.
“We’re leaving.”
“But I didn’t finish my-”
“Now.”
I started toward the door, Poppy’s hand tight in mine, my pulse so loud I was sure everyone in the diner could hear it. But before I could take three steps, Birdie materialized in the aisle.
“Lu.” Her voice was sharp. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just need to-”
The door opened.
He was bigger than I remembered. That was the first thing I noticed, which was absurd, because I should have been noticing literally anything else. But he’d always been tall and lean, and now he was tall and solid. Like he’d spent the last four years doing nothing but working out and brooding.
His arms were covered in tattoos. His hair was longer, pushed back in a way that made him look like he’d just stepped off a motorcycle.
And his face, still that face, still the same bone structure I used to trace with my fingers in the dark, was harder.
Older. Like the years had carved away all the softness and left only sharp edges.
He looked like a stranger wearing Wade’s eyes.
He also looked like he might collapse at any moment.
“Can I help you?” Birdie stepped directly into his path, coffeepot raised like a weapon. “We don’t get many tourists this time of year.”
“I’m not a tourist.”
His voice. God. It was the same voice that had told me he loved me on a balcony in Nantucket. The same voice that had said I think we should separate in our kitchen four years ago.
“Then what are you?” Birdie didn’t move.
“I’m…” He trailed off, his eyes finding mine over Birdie’s shoulder. “I’m looking for someone.”
“We don’t have a ‘someone’ here. We have folks. And folks generally don’t appreciate strangers walking in and staring at people through windows.”
“Birdie.” My voice came out steadier than I felt. “It’s okay.”
“It doesn’t look okay.”
“I know him.”
The diner had gone silent. I could feel every eye on us. Agnes and Doris at their booth, Gus at the counter, Sheriff Pruitt at his usual table by the door. The entire population of Bellhaven, watching this play out like it was the evening entertainment.
Wade took another step forward.
Gus stood up.
He didn’t say anything. The silence handled it. He was six-two and built like someone who had spent fifty years hauling fishing equipment, and he positioned himself directly in Wade’s path like a wall that had decided to take offense.
“Problem here?” Gus asked.
“No problem.” Wade’s voice was carefully controlled. “I just want to talk to-”
“Didn’t ask what you wanted. Asked if there’s a problem.”
“There’s no problem if everyone would just let me-”
Agnes’s walker rolled into the aisle.
It happened with suspicious timing, the old woman “accidentally” losing her grip, the metal frame sliding directly into Wade’s shins. He stumbled, caught himself, and looked down at Agnes with an expression of complete bewilderment.
“Oh, dear,” Agnes said, not sounding sorry at all. “How clumsy of me.”
“Ma’am, I’m just trying to-”
“That car out front yours?” Sheriff Pruitt’s voice cut through the chaos. He was still sitting at his table, but his hand was resting on his coffee cup in a way that suggested he could stand up very quickly if needed. “The black one with the Massachusetts plates?”
“Yes.”
“Registered in Maine?”
“I just got here-”
“Gonna need to see some documentation. State law requires any vehicle operating on Maine roads to carry proper identification and proof of insurance.”
“It’s a rental.”
“Even more paperwork, then.” Pruitt didn’t crack a smile.
I watched Wade’s face go through a series of expressions, frustration giving way, reluctantly, to grudging respect.
The town was closing ranks around me. These people, who had taken me in four years ago without asking questions, were now making it as difficult as possible for a stranger to reach me.
I loved them so much my chest hurt.
But I couldn’t hide behind them forever.
“It’s fine,” I said again, louder this time. “Everyone, just… give us a minute.”
Nobody moved.
“Please.”
Birdie lowered her coffeepot. Gus stepped aside, grudgingly. Agnes retrieved her walker with a sniff that suggested she wasn’t done being hostile.
Wade and I faced each other across the narrow stretch of diner floor.
“Luisa,” he said.
Just my name. That’s all it took.
Goosebumps exploded across my skin. My stomach flipped. Every nerve ending I had lit up with the memory of how he used to say my name, in the dark, in the morning, in the middle of a crowded room like it was a secret only we shared.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
His mouth twitched. Almost a smile, but not quite. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“I live here.”
“I know. I looked for you. For years.”
“I didn’t want to be found.”
“I know that too.”
Poppy was pressed against my leg, unusually quiet. I could feel her looking up at Wade with the intense curiosity she applied to everything new, coffeemakers, stray cats, men who appeared out of nowhere and made her mother act strange.
“Mama,” she said. “Is he a giant?”
Wade’s eyes dropped to her.
For a moment, his face went completely blank. Then a fissure opened in that hard exterior, letting through a rawness that was devastating to look at.
He crouched down, bringing himself to her level. His eyes were shining. His voice, when he spoke, was barely a whisper.
“What’s your name?”
Poppy considered him seriously. She was usually shy with strangers, but Wade seemed to fascinate her.
“Poppy,” she said.
A tear slid down his cheek.
He didn’t wipe it away. He just knelt there, on the floor of Birdie’s diner, looking at a three-year-old girl with his eyes and his hair and his everything, and cried silently.
The diner was absolutely still.
“Poppy.” Birdie’s voice cut through like a lifeline. “Sweetheart, come here. I’ve got pie.”
Poppy’s head whipped around. “Pie?”
“Cherry. Your favorite.”
She was gone before I could blink, scrambling toward the counter with the single-minded determination of a child who had been promised dessert. Birdie shot me a look, I’ve got her, handle this, and I nodded gratefully.
Wade was still on his knees.
He looked up at me, his face wet, his voice breaking.
“I’ve been dreaming about this moment for four years.”
“Yeah?” I crossed my arms, trying to hold myself together. “I’ve been dreading this moment for four years.”
“Luisa-”
“No.” The word landed harder than I meant it to. “You don’t get to show up here after everything and say my name like it means something.”
“It does mean something.”
“It meant something four years ago too. And then you told me you weren’t happy. You told me we’d grown apart. You let me believe-” I stopped, my throat closing. “It doesn’t matter what I believed. We’re divorced. There’s nothing between us.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true. I signed the papers. You signed the papers. We’re done.”
“I’m not here to take anything.” He stood up slowly, his movements careful, like he was approaching a wild animal. “I’m here to beg. To grovel. To kneel and worship you until I die if that’s what it takes.”
“Takes for what?”
“For you to forgive me.”
I laughed. It came out harsh and broken.
“Forgive you? Wade, I’m not something you can ‘earn back.’ I’m not a project you can fix. I built a life here, a good life, with good people, and you don’t get to walk in and disrupt it because you’ve decided you want another chance.”
“I know that. I know I don’t deserve-”
“You’re right. You don’t.”
“But there is something between us.” His voice dropped, intimate despite the audience. “My feelings never went away. Not once. And we have…”
He glanced toward the counter, where Poppy was destroying a slice of cherry pie with enthusiasm.
“We have Poppy,” he whispered.
“No.” The word was ice. “We don’t. I have Poppy. You have nothing.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“She’s never even heard your name.” I stepped closer, my voice low and vicious.
“You want to know what she knows about her father? Nothing. Because I didn’t want her growing up wondering why he didn’t want her.
I didn’t want her asking questions I couldn’t answer.
I didn’t want her to know that the man who should have loved her chose someone else instead. ”
Wade flinched like I’d hit him.
“Luisa, it wasn’t-”
“Get out of my town.” I was shaking now, fury and fear and a third thing I refused to name, all tangled together. “Get out of my life. Or I swear to God, I will kick your balls so hard they’ll never work again.”
His mouth did that almost-smile thing.
“I don’t want them to work with anyone that’s not you,” he said softly. “So I don’t care.”
I stared at him.
Then I walked past him, grabbed Poppy, who protested loudly about her unfinished pie, and walked out of the diner without looking back.
The walk home was three blocks.
Poppy chattered the whole way about the giant man and the pie and why didn’t we stay longer, Mama, I was still hungry. I answered on autopilot, my mind racing, my hands trembling against hers.
He was here.
He’d found me.
He knew about Poppy.
Our apartment, the garage apartment above Birdie’s carriage house that had been home for four years, felt smaller than usual when we got inside. I settled Poppy with her toys and sank onto the couch, trying to breathe.
Twenty minutes later, there was a knock at the door.
“It’s me,” Birdie called.
I let her in.
She took one look at my face and went straight to the kitchen, returning with the emergency wine she kept in my fridge “for occasions.” She poured me a glass, sat down beside me, and waited.
“He never left,” she said finally. “After you walked out. He’s been sitting in his car outside the diner for twenty minutes.”
“Of course he has.”
“Lu, honey…” Birdie hesitated. Which was unusual. Birdie never hesitated. “There’s something else.”
“What?”
“He, um.” She took a drink of her own wine. “He bought the Henley place.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“The old Henley house. The one that’s been for sale since Mr. Henley passed last spring. You know, the big Victorian that’s falling apart?”
“I know what the Henley place is.”
“He bought it. Made an offer about an hour before he showed up at the diner, apparently. Cash. Over asking.”
I kept staring.
“He’s not just visiting, Lu.” Birdie’s voice was gentle. “He’s moving here.”
My wine glass slipped from my fingers and shattered on the floor.
“Seriously?”