18. Luisa
— ? —
Luisa
He showed up to Thursday’s class with a black eye.
I noticed it the moment he walked in, the dark purple bruise spreading across his left cheekbone, the swelling that made his eye look slightly smaller than usual.
He moved carefully, like someone who had recently discovered that the world contained hard objects and they were all conspiring against him.
“What the fuck happened to you?” It was out of my mouth before my brain caught up, loud enough that the entire class turned to stare.
Wade’s face went red.
“Nothing.”
“That’s not nothing. That’s a black eye.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. What happened?”
He shifted his weight, looking everywhere except at me. The grandmothers had stopped their pre-class stretching to watch, their expressions ranging from concerned (Doris) to delighted (Agnes).
“A plank hit me,” he muttered.
I stared at him.
“A plank.”
“A wooden plank. From the porch.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I was trying to remove some rotted boards and I… miscalculated the angle.”
“You miscalculated the angle of a plank.”
“The physics were more complicated than I anticipated.”
I kept staring. The image assembled itself in my mind. Wade Buckley, financial genius, mathematical prodigy, getting smacked in the face by a piece of wood while attempting basic home repair.
I snorted.
The sound escaped before I could catch it, loud and undignified. Wade’s face went from red to crimson.
Then Agnes started laughing.
Then Doris. Then Fern. Then Maude, her tiny frame shaking with mirth. Within seconds, the entire class was laughing at Wade Buckley’s black eye, and he was standing in the middle of them looking like he wished the floor would swallow him whole.
“I’m glad you all find this amusing,” he said stiffly.
“Oh, honey.” Doris wiped her eyes. “We really do.”
I composed myself with effort.
“Alright, everyone. Let’s get started. Wade, ice that when you get home.”
“I’ve been icing it.”
“Ice it more.”
The class went smoothly, more smoothly than Tuesday, actually.
Wade’s box step had improved, and when he partnered with Maude again, they moved together with a dignity approaching grace.
I caught myself watching him more than I should have, noting the careful way he held his partner, the concentration on his bruised face.
The tattoos were visible again. I still hadn’t asked about them.
After class, everyone filed out except Wade. He was helping me stack the folding chairs against the wall, moving with the efficiency of someone who had done physical labor before.
Wait. Had he done physical labor before? The Wade I’d known had never lifted anything heavier than a laptop.
“You don’t have to help,” I said.
“I want to.”
“Because helping with chairs is fun?”
“Because it means I get to spend three more minutes with you.”
I didn’t have a response to that.
We finished with the chairs in silence. I gathered my water bottle, my phone, my jacket. Wade waited by the door, patient as a statue.
“I have a contractor’s number,” I said finally.
His eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Tom Bertrand. He’s done work for half the town. Good rates. Fair.”
“That would be-” He stopped himself. Shook his head. “No. Thank you, but no.”
“Why not?”
“I want to fix it myself.” There was that stubborn set to his mouth I remembered too well.
“Wade, you gave yourself a black eye removing porch boards.”
“I’ll get better.”
“You’ll give yourself a concussion.”
“Then I’ll get better faster.”
I stared at him. He stared back, his jaw set in that stubborn way I remembered from years ago, from arguments about furniture placement and vacation destinations and whether pineapple belonged on pizza. (It didn’t. He was wrong.)
“Fine,” I said. “It’s your skull.”
“Thank you for your concern.”
I grabbed my things and headed for the door. Wade followed.
“Can I walk you home?” he asked.
I should say no. Every sensible part of my brain was screaming at me to say no, to maintain distance, to protect myself from this man who had broken me once and could break me again.
But Poppy was at home. Poppy, who had asked about “the giant” every day since the ice cream trip, and who had started drawing pictures of a tall man with blue eyes standing next to a black car named Meatball.
“Fine,” I said again. “But only because Poppy’s been asking about you.”
“She has?”
The hope in his voice was almost painful.
“Don’t read into it. She asks about everything.”
“Right. Of course.”
We walked in silence for half a block. The afternoon was cool, the sky that particular gray that meant rain was coming. I kept my eyes forward, hyperaware of Wade’s presence beside me, his height, his warmth, the way he shortened his stride to match mine.
Then we reached a puddle.
The puddle was small, easily steppable. But before I could navigate around it, Wade was shrugging off his hoodie and throwing it across the water.
“What are you doing?”
“So you don’t get your feet wet.”
“Wade, it’s a puddle.”
“Your shoes aren’t waterproof,” he said, like this settled the matter.
“I can step around it.”
“Now you don’t have to.”
I looked at the hoodie, expensive, probably, knowing him, lying in the middle of a Maine sidewalk puddle like some kind of medieval chivalry gone wrong.
“You’re insane,” I said.
“Probably.”
I walked across the hoodie. Because apparently that was my life now.
Wade fell into step beside me again, now hoodie-less and apparently unconcerned about it. He was walking on the outside of the sidewalk, I noticed. Putting himself between me and the street.
“Are you expecting a car to jump the curb?” I asked.
“What?”
“You’re walking on the traffic side.”
“Oh.” He didn’t move. “It’s safer.”
“It’s Bellhaven. Nothing happens here.”
“Things happen everywhere.”
His eyes were scanning the street as he said it, checking parked cars and alleyways and shadows with a vigilance that seemed completely disproportionate to the threat level of a small Maine town.
“What are you afraid of?” I asked.
He cleared his throat.
“Tons of things,” he said, still scanning.
His voice had dropped rough and low on those words, weighted with things he wouldn’t say, and I felt the questions I’d never asked pressing against my chest, questions about the past four years, about what had changed him, about why he flinched at sudden movements and slept (according to town gossip) with all the lights on in his half-destroyed house.
I didn’t ask.
Not yet.
We reached the carriage house. My apartment was above Birdie’s garage, accessible by a wooden staircase that creaked with every step. I climbed, Wade behind me, and opened the door.
“MAMA!”
Poppy came flying across the room like a small missile, launching herself at my legs. I caught her, swinging her up, breathing in the smell of her hair, apple shampoo and, faintly, peanut butter.
“Hey, baby. Were you good for Mrs. Birdie?”
“I was the BEST,” Poppy announced. Then she spotted Wade in the doorway. “GIANT MAN!”
She squirmed out of my arms and ran toward him. I opened my mouth to warn her that he might not be comfortable with-
She hugged his legs.
Wade froze.
For a moment, he stood completely still, his arms at his sides, his face a mask of terrified wonder. Then, slowly, carefully, like he was handling the most breakable treasure on earth, he crouched down and hugged her back.
“Hey, Poppy,” he said. His voice was rough.
“Hi.” She pulled back, examining his face. “You have an owie.”
“I do.”
“Did you fall down?”
“Something like that.”
“Mama kisses my owies when I fall down.”
Wade’s eyes flicked to me.
“Does she?”
“Uh-huh. It makes them better.”
“I bet it does.”
I definitely wasn’t blushing. The heat in my face was from… the walk. The exercise. Absolutely nothing to do with the image of kissing Wade Buckley’s bruised cheek.
“Are you staying for dinner?” Poppy asked.
Wade looked at me again. Waiting. Hopeful in a way that made my chest ache.
Saying no was the smart move.
I should maintain boundaries.
I should-
“Yes,” I said before I could stop myself. “He’s staying for dinner.”
The next hour was strange.
Good strange, maybe. Or terrible strange. I couldn’t tell anymore.
Wade helped Poppy set the table while I made pasta, nothing fancy, just spaghetti with marinara, but he watched me cook like I was performing miracles. Poppy chattered constantly, telling him about her day, her toys, her friend Lily from dance class, the spider she’d seen in the garden.
Wade listened to every word.
He asked questions. He remembered details. When Poppy mentioned that her stuffed elephant’s name was Professor Buttons, he nodded seriously and asked about the elephant’s area of expertise.
“Hugging,” Poppy informed him.
“That’s very important research.”
“I know.”
We sat down to eat. I watched Wade twirl spaghetti onto his fork with the same precision he brought to everything, watched him wipe sauce from his mouth with a napkin, watched him ask Poppy if she wanted more bread.
He remembered how I took my tea.
He didn’t even ask, just made it automatically when I got up to pour a cup, adding the exact amount of honey I liked, stirring it three times because I’d told him once, years ago, that three was the right number of stirs.
He noticed that I ate my crusts first.
“You still do that,” he said quietly.
“Do what?”
“Eat the edges first. Save the middle for last.”
“It’s the best part.”
“I know.” He smiled, soft and sad. “You told me on our third date.”
I stared at him.
He remembered our third date, how I ate bread. Details about me that I’d forgotten telling him, filed away in that mathematical brain of his for years and years.
And I didn’t know anything about him anymore.
The tattoos. The flinching. The way he checked exits when he walked into rooms. The vigilance on the sidewalk. The black eye from a plank, which meant he’d never done manual labor before, which meant the last four years had changed him dramatically.
I had so many questions.
I didn’t ask any of them.
After dinner, Wade helped with dishes while Poppy showed him every single toy in her collection, providing detailed backstories for each.
The stuffed octopus (Bubbles) was apparently in a committed relationship with the stuffed cat (Dr. Whiskers), and they were raising a family of smaller stuffed animals together.
“It’s very progressive,” Wade said seriously.
“They love each other,” Poppy explained.
“I can see that.”
When it was time for him to leave, Poppy hugged him again. He hugged her back, less frozen this time, his eyes closing briefly.
“Bye, giant man,” she said.
“Bye, Poppy.” His voice cracked.
I walked him to the door. We stood on the small landing, the evening air cool against my skin, the lights of Bellhaven twinkling below us.
“Thank you,” he said. “For tonight.”
“Don’t thank me. It was just pasta.”
“It was everything.”
I looked away.
“Goodnight, Wade.”
“Goodnight, Luisa.”
He walked down the stairs. I watched him go, watched him cross the parking lot, climb into Meatball the rental car, drive away into the Maine evening.
I went back inside. I got Poppy ready for bed. I read her a story, kissed her forehead, turned on her nightlight.
Then I sat on my couch in the dark and called him.
He picked up on half a ring.
“Lu?”
The sound of my name in his voice, my real name, my nickname, the name only he had ever called me, hit me like a punch to the chest.
I hung up immediately.
My phone buzzed.
Call anytime. I’ll run to you whenever you want.
I stared at the screen.
Then, very quietly, I started to cry.
How long had I wanted him to say that to me? How many nights had I lain awake, pregnant and alone, wishing he would show up and explain everything? And how many years wondering if he ever thought about me, if he ever regretted what he’d done?
And now he was here. Saying everything I’d wanted to hear. Being everything I’d wanted him to be.
If only it wasn’t so fucking late.