Chapter 10 Vance
VANCE
It was nearing nine by the time the movie finished. Margot tried to hide a yawn, but I knew she was exhausted. So was I. The kind of bone-deep tired that comes from emotional highs and lows and everything in between.
“Bedtime,” Lila said. “Mia, take Margot upstairs and show her the bathroom and where to brush her teeth.”
“Vance, do you want to tuck us in?” Mia asked, her voice more vulnerable than I’d ever heard it.
She might be a teenager, but she still longed for a father who made her feel safe and loved.
And I was going to be that man. Maybe I’d known it from the start—but tonight, I felt it deep in my bones. This was all meant to be.
“I’d love to,” I said, my throat tight. “Go on up. I’ll be right there.”
The girls headed upstairs, their footsteps soft overhead, followed by the sound of running water and quiet laughter.
Lila and I rose from the loveseat. She wrapped her arms around my waist. “How you doing?”
“Amazed.”
“Mia’s been waiting her whole life for a father who wants to tuck her in.” She touched my face. “And here you are—falling from the clear blue sky.”
“Mia set this all in motion,” I said. “Isn’t it crazy?”
“It is. The good kind of crazy.” She kissed me softly. “Go. They’re waiting. I’ll pour us some more wine.”
I climbed the stairs, my heart doing complicated things in my chest. The air upstairs felt hushed, almost sacred. The door to Mia’s room was ajar, soft lamplight spilling into the hallway.
I knocked gently. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah, we have our jammies on already,” Mia called.
The room was pure Mia—art supplies everywhere, fairy lights strung across the window, a cork board covered in photos of her friends.
The bunk beds stood against one wall, and both girls were already under the covers.
Margot had chosen the bottom bunk, her arms wrapped around the stuffed bear.
Mia was on top, her head hanging over the edge so she could see us both, dark hair covering half her face.
I sat on the floor, my back against the dresser.
Margot watched me with those serious eyes, curious but guarded.
“Did you like the movie, mon c?ur ?” I asked.
“Mon c?ur ,” Margot said softly. “I remember. And you were ‘Papa.’”
“That’s right.” I had a sudden image of the morning fog dissipating in the morning sun. That’s what she’d called me when she was little. “What was your favorite part of the movie?”
“I liked the part when the seeds grew,” Margot said. “And they did the dance, and all the trees sprouted.”
“That’s my favorite part too,” Mia said, still hanging over the side of the bed. “The magic was there all along. They just had to find it.”
“Yeah,” Margot agreed.
Mia rolled to her side and closed her eyes. From outside came the faint chirp of a cricket, then the low hoot of an owl.
“Vance?” Mia asked, her voice suddenly shy.
“Yeah?”
“Would you sing that song? The French one? That you used to sing to Margot?”
I looked up at her, surprised. She still had her eyes closed, perhaps too shy to look at me when she asked.
“You want me to sing?”
“I thought it would make Margot feel at home,” Mia said.
Margot nodded. “Yes, please.”
“I’m a little rusty,” I said, my voice rough. “But here goes.”
I took a breath and began to sing softly, the words of ‘Fais dodo, Colas mon p’tit frère’ coming back to me like they’d never left.
Margot’s eyes drifted closed, her breathing deepening, her small face relaxing the way it had when I’d sing to her all those years ago.
When I finished, the room was quiet except for the cricket outside, still singing into the night.
“That was perfect,” Mia whispered. “Thank you.”
“Thank you for asking me,” I whispered back.
“Goodnight, Vance,” Mia said, settling into her pillow.
“Goodnight, Mia.”
I started to stand, careful not to make a sound, when Margot’s small voice stopped me.
“Goodnight, Papa.”
An answered prayer. I had to swallow hard before I could respond. “Goodnight, mon c?ur . Sleep well.”
I made it to the door before I had to stop, one hand braced on the frame, trying to hold myself together.
I was Papa once again. The very best job in the whole world.
Lila waited for me at the bottom of the stairs.
I made it to the last step and pulled her to me, then sat and buried my face in her shoulder and wept.
Silent sobs so the girls wouldn't hear me.
My tears soaked through her blouse and into her skin, but she did not let go, and I imagined she absorbed them into her own bones so that I would no longer carry this burden alone.
The grief I'd held for so long—that I'd learned how to live with—had made me forget what it felt like before Nicole had taken the person I loved most in the world away from me.
And now, finally, by some miracle, I'd been given a second chance with my child.
I cried until there were no more tears left.
And Lila just hung on, as if for dear life.
When I finally lifted my head, it was to find her eyes staring right into mine.
Those blue eyes that had beguiled me even in her photos, even before I understood what she would mean to me. How entwined we would become.
“Lila, I can’t quite believe it’s all true.”
“I can imagine.” Lila smiled, caressing the sides of my face with both her hands. “But it was real. I saw you. You were there, sitting on the floor, singing a French lullaby as if you’d written it just for her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful.”
“It was all Mia—” My voice broke, tears starting again.
“She suggested it. Like God whispered the idea in her ear.” I pulled back to look at her.
“She said it would make Margot feel more at home. Who, at fourteen, has that much empathy? I’d not believe she were for real if I didn’t have her mother in my arms. Because now I know, there are two of you.
And I’m in your home. With my daughter. Do you know how long six years is when you’re away from your child? ”
Before she could answer, I stood, lifting her easily and wrapping her legs around my waist, kissing her. I kept kissing her as I crossed the room to the couch. We sank into it, half-wild, hands desperate and trembling—until, finally, she came to her senses.
“Not like this,” she said, panting, placing her hands on my shoulders. “One of them could wake.”
I fell to the floor in front of the sofa, resting my overheated face in my hands. “You’re right.” I looked up at her. She was curled up in a ball now, her legs crossed and close to her chest, her eyes enormous. “You make me lose all sense of control.”
Her mouth fell open slightly. She licked her top lip. I nearly lost my mind.
“There’s time for all this soon,” Lila said. “And God, I wish it was now, but it’s not right. The timing’s not right.”
I chuckled, joining her on the couch, pulling her onto my lap. “You’re right. You always seem to be. And we cannot jinx the perfect timing we seem to have going for us. Right?”
Her eyes glistened. “Yes. We have it going for us. Everything lining up. When I’ve been so lonely. So afraid. All the time. Now here you are, making my house seem too small.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s a good thing. It means I’ve let you in. I opened that door and let you walk right in. To my home. My safe haven. Into my daughter’s life.”
“This day. None of it would have worked if she hadn’t been with us,” I said. “Sweet, smart Mia. And you, Lila. Your heart is so big and open.”
“It’s trite to say,” Lila said, “but I keep thinking I’ve dreamt you up. But no, you’re actually here.” She pinched the skin on one of my wrists. “See there. Real flesh.”
I kissed her again, this time gently, without the urgent need I’d felt just minutes before.
But she’d held me so fiercely, letting me cry, and it had broken something loose inside me, and now I could see everything as plainly and clearly as I ever had in my life.
Lila Morgan was my true love. My soulmate.
I knew this woman. My tears had leaked into her skin.
“You are magnificent, Lila Morgan.” I stroked my thumb over her bottom lip and made her shiver. My touch made her shiver. It made me nearly delirious to understand that I had the power to move her.
“I can’t imagine not knowing you, now that I do,” Lila said.
“Do you know what else? I don’t know that I’ve ever liked anyone as much as I like you. And I don’t mean just that I’m falling in love with you. It’s just you. Everything about you transfixes me.”
“I like you too.” She smiled, gesturing to the open bottle of wine on the table. “Let’s have a glass, shall we? Distract ourselves from wanting to rip the other’s clothes off.”
I laughed, deep in my chest, but quiet because of the girls.
We settled on the couch with our wine, each on one end of the loveseat, with our heels touching like a bridge across the cushion. I lifted my glass. “To this day. And you. And Mia. And my sweet girl finding her way back to me at last.”
She clinked her glass with mine.
“You have our hearts in your hands,” Lila said. “Both Mia and me. But I’m not scared. I don’t know why.” She rubbed a circle across her chest. “All I feel is peace. Right here.”
“That’s because you see me for who I am.
You’ll never have to wonder where I am or who I’m with.
Nor will Mia. Even with everything going on—the show drama, the gossip posts, someone watching the house—it can’t really touch us.
No one can make this less important. This is it, Lila. You and me and the girls.”
“Do you think you could love Mia like you do Margot?” Lila asked, voice like a feather, soft and downy.