16. Luisa
— ? —
Luisa
The phone rang four times before my mother picked up.
“Luisa?” Sue Erickson’s voice was sharp with concern. “It’s eleven o’clock at night. What’s wrong?”
“He found me.”
Silence. Then: “Who found you?”
“Wade.”
More silence. I could hear my mother breathing on the other end of the line, processing.
She was in Arizona now, retired, living in a condo with a pool she never used and a book club she complained about constantly.
We talked every Sunday, but I hadn’t called her on a Tuesday night since Poppy had the flu last winter.
“That son of a bitch,” she said finally.
“Mom-”
“No, I mean it. That absolute son of a bitch. What does he want? Money? Did he finally spend through all his family’s blood money and come crawling back?”
“He wants…” I pressed my hand against my eyes, trying to find the words. “He wants forgiveness. He wants another chance. He bought a house here.”
“He what?”
“The old Henley place. The Victorian that’s been falling apart for years. He bought it. Cash.”
“Of course he did. Because why just show up and ruin your life when you can also buy property and really commit to the destruction?”
I laughed despite myself. It came out watery and broken.
“There’s more,” I said.
“There’s always more with that family.”
“He knows about Poppy.”
The silence this time was longer. Heavier.
“Sue?” I whispered. “Mom?”
“I’m here.” Her voice had changed, softer now, the anger replaced by a heavier concern. “He saw her?”
“At Birdie’s diner. He just… walked in. And he saw her. And he knew, Mom. He looked at her and he knew she was his.”
“Well, she does have those eyes.”
“I know.”
“And that stubborn set to her jaw when she’s concentrating.”
“I know.”
Another pause. I could hear my mother moving around her condo, the clink of ice in a glass, the soft thud of her sitting down on her leather couch.
“Luisa,” she said finally. “I need to tell you something, and you’re not going to like it.”
“That’s never stopped you before.”
“Your father is a complicated man.”
I blinked. “What does Dad have to do with-”
“Let me finish.” She took a breath. “Your father and I had our problems. Lord knows we had our problems. He worked too much. He drank too much. He made choices I didn’t understand and some I couldn’t forgive. And for a long time, I wondered if having you was a mistake.”
“Mom-”
“I said let me finish.” Her voice cracked slightly.
“But here’s the thing, baby. If someone had kept you from me, if I’d never gotten the chance to meet my own daughter, to hold you, to watch you grow up, I’d have been devastated.
Not just hurt. Devastated. Like a piece of me had been carved out of my chest.”
I closed my eyes.
“Don’t fall for him,” Sue continued. “Don’t fall for his charms or his apologies or whatever bullshit story he’s cooked up to explain why he broke your heart. He doesn’t deserve your trust and he sure as hell doesn’t deserve your love.”
“But?”
“But he’s Poppy’s father. And she has a right to know him. Even if he’s a piece of shit, she has a right to decide that for herself someday.”
“So what do I do?”
“You set boundaries. You protect yourself and you protect her. But you don’t deny her the chance to have a father just because he hurt you.”
I was crying now. Silent tears sliding down my cheeks.
“I hate this,” I whispered.
“I know, baby. I know.”
We talked for another hour. She told me about her book club drama (Marjorie was apparently staging a coup over their selection process). I told her about Poppy’s latest obsession with naming everything in sight. We didn’t mention Wade again, but he was there in every pause, every silence.
After we hung up, I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling.
My rage shouldn’t outrank Poppy’s right to know her father.
I hated that it was true.
***
The next morning, I called him.
He picked up on the first ring. “Luisa?”
“Don’t-” I took a breath. “Don’t say my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it means something.”
A pause. “It does mean something.”
“We need to talk. Meet me at the studio. One hour. Alone.”
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“I said one hour.”
“I’ll wait outside.”
He hung up before I could argue.
The Dancing Place was cold when I arrived. I’d turned off the heat last night to save money, and now I regretted it as I unlocked the door and stepped into the dim space. Morning light filtered through the windows, catching dust motes in the air.
I heard his car pull up exactly thirty-two minutes early.
I didn’t look outside. I busied myself turning on lights, adjusting the thermostat, checking my phone for messages that didn’t exist. Anything to avoid acknowledging that he was out there, waiting, just like he’d said he would.
At exactly one hour, he knocked.
I opened the door.
He was wearing dark jeans and a gray sweater with the quiet, logoless look of real money. His hair was pushed back, still damp from a shower. Those tattoos I’d seen yesterday peeked out from under his sleeves, dark lines against pale skin.
For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
“Can I come in?” His voice was careful. Hopeful.
I stepped aside without answering.
He walked past me slowly, his eyes taking in the studio, the mirrors, the barre, the small speaker system I’d cobbled together from secondhand equipment. I watched him catalog everything, saw the numbers running behind his eyes the way they always used to.
“You built this,” he said quietly.
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I’m not surprised. I’m…” He turned to face me. “I’m impressed. I’m proud.”
“You don’t get to be proud of me.”
“I know.” He didn’t argue. Didn’t push. Just accepted it like a blow he deserved. “So. You wanted to talk.”
“I wanted to set terms.”
His eyebrows rose slightly. “Terms?”
“If you’re going to be in Poppy’s life, and I haven’t decided you will be, there are going to be rules. Non-negotiable rules.”
“Name them.”
I’d written them down last night, a list on my phone that I’d agonized over for hours. I pulled it up now, scrolling through with fingers that weren’t quite steady.
“Supervised visits only. You don’t see her without me present.”
“Done.”
“No gifts over twenty dollars.”
“Luisa-”
“Twenty dollars. I mean it. I won’t have you buying her affection.”
The skin around his eyes pulled tight, but he nodded. “Fine.”
“No press. No photographers. No magazine interviews about your ‘secret daughter.’ If I see one headline with her name in it, we’re done.”
“There won’t be any press.”
“And no promises you can’t keep.” My voice cracked on the last word. “Don’t tell her you’ll be here forever if you’re going to leave. Don’t make her love you and then disappear. Because I can handle you breaking my heart again, but I will not let you break hers.”
Wade stared at me.
His eyes were bright. Wet. That terrible almost-smile was gone, and what was left was raw and real.
“I’m not leaving,” he said.
“You’ve said that before.”
“I know. And I know you don’t believe me.
But I’m going to prove it. Every day, for as long as it takes.
” He stepped closer, near enough that I could smell his cologne, different from before, woodsier, like he’d changed everything about himself.
“I will spend the rest of my life making this up to you. Both of you.”
“You can’t make it up to me.”
“Then I’ll die trying anyway.”
We stood there, inches apart, near enough to feel the warmth coming off his chest and catch the rain-and-cedar smell that had always, unfairly, been him.
My whole body swayed a degree toward his before I caught it.
I wanted to scream, or hit him, or fist my hands in his shirt and drag his mouth down to mine, and I honestly couldn’t tell the three urges apart.
My pulse was slamming so hard I could feel it in my fingertips. I should step back.
I stepped back.
“Birdie’s watching Poppy,” I said flatly. “We’ll go get her. You can take us for ice cream.”
His whole face lit up.
“Really?”
“Don’t make me regret this.”
Birdie’s Diner was busy with the late-morning crowd when we walked in. I saw heads turn, saw the whispers start. Wade Buckley, the stranger who’d caused a scene yesterday, walking in with Luisa Erickson like nothing had happened.
Birdie was behind the counter, Poppy perched on a stool coloring a picture that was either a horse or a tornado. When she saw me, she scrambled down and ran across the diner.
“Mama!”
I caught her, swinging her up into my arms. “Hey, baby. Did you have fun with Auntie Birdie?”
“I made a dragon!”
“I see that. It’s very… purple.”
“Purple is his favorite color.” Poppy twisted in my arms, her eyes landing on Wade. She studied him with the intense scrutiny of a three-year-old encountering a new species. “You’re the giant.”
Wade’s throat worked. “I am.”
“You were at the diner yesterday.”
“I was.”
“You were crying.”
I felt Wade flinch beside me.
“I was,” he said quietly. “I was very sad.”
“Why?”
“Because…” He glanced at me, uncertain. I gave him nothing. “Because I missed someone very much. And then I found them again.”
Poppy considered this.
“I cried when I lost Bubbles,” she said seriously. “But Mama found him under my bed.”
“Who’s Bubbles?”
“My octopus.”
“You have an octopus named Bubbles?”
“He’s purple. Like my dragon.”
Wade’s mouth twitched. “That’s a very good name for an octopus.”
“I know. I name everything.”
The ice cream shop was three blocks away, a tiny place called Scoops that had been serving Bellhaven since 1952. Poppy insisted on walking between us, holding both our hands, which meant Wade and I had to coordinate our steps in a way that felt painfully intimate.
“What flavor do you want?” I asked her as we approached.
“Chocolate!”
“Chocolate what?”
“Chocolate chocolate chip!”
“That’s a lot of chocolate.”
“I know!”
Inside, Wade ordered for all of us, chocolate chocolate chip for Poppy, mint chip for me (I didn’t tell him that was still my favorite; he just knew), and nothing for himself.
“You’re not getting anything?” Poppy asked, scandalized.
“I’m not really hungry.”
“But it’s ice cream.”
“I know, sweetheart. I just want to watch you enjoy yours.”
We sat at a small table by the window. Poppy attacked her cone with enthusiasm, getting chocolate on her nose, her cheeks, her chin. Wade watched her, wonder in his face, maybe. Or grief. Or both.
Then he reached over with a napkin and gently wiped the chocolate from her face.
“Better,” he said softly.
Poppy beamed at him.
“Are you cold?” Wade asked, noticing her shiver. “Here-” He shrugged off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders. It swallowed her completely.
“I’m a burrito,” Poppy announced.
“A very cute burrito.”
“The cutest.”
Wade laughed. It was a real laugh, surprised and genuine and so much like the sound he used to make when we were happy that my chest ached.
Poppy finished her ice cream and declared she needed to use the bathroom. I took her, leaving Wade alone at the table. When we came back, he was staring at her little jacket, which had a stuck zipper I’d been meaning to fix for weeks.
“May I?” he asked, gesturing at it.
Poppy nodded.
I watched as he worked the zipper free with careful fingers, his brow furrowed in concentration. It took him thirty seconds to fix a zipper I’d been fighting with for days.
“There,” he said. “Good as new.”
“Thank you,” Poppy said. Then, with the complete non-sequitur mastery of a three-year-old: “What’s your car’s name?”
Wade blinked. “My car doesn’t have a name.”
“Everything has a name.”
“It does?”
“Yes.” Poppy said it like he was being very slow. “What color is it?”
“Black.”
“What shape?”
“It’s… car-shaped?”
Poppy sighed heavily. She pressed her face against the window, studying the rental car parked outside.
“His name is Meatball,” she announced.
Wade went rigid.
“Meatball,” he repeated.
“Because he’s round and dark. Like a meatball.”
“Cars aren’t round.”
“Meatball is.”
I watched Wade’s face as he processed this. Watched him connect the dots. Poppy naming everything, Poppy giving objects personalities, Poppy treating the world like it was full of things waiting to be loved.
“You name things,” he said quietly. Not to Poppy. To me.
I shrugged. “She gets it from somewhere.”
“I remember.” His voice was rough. “You named the coffeemaker at our old apartment.”
“Gregory.”
“Gregory.” He laughed, but it sounded broken. “And the plant on the fire escape.”
“Fernando.”
“And my car. My first car, the one I had in grad school.”
“Beatrice.”
Wade turned to Poppy, his eyes bright.
“It’s adorable,” he said. “The naming thing. It’s absolutely adorable.”
A slow twist went through my chest.
“It gets old,” I said, the words coming out harsher than I intended. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”
Wade looked at me.
The whole world narrowed to his eyes, that impossible blue, swimming with tears, burning with what I was afraid to name.
“I’ve never meant anything more in my life,” he said.
We stared at each other.
Four years of silence and distance, of trying to forget the way he looked at me, and now here he was, looking at me exactly the same way, like I was the only thing in the universe worth seeing.
“Can he come eat French toast?” Poppy’s voice cut through like a bell.
I blinked, breaking the moment.
“What?”
“At our house. Can he come eat French toast with us?”
“Another day, honey.”
Wade nodded, accepting it without argument.
“Another day,” he agreed.