22. Dominic
TWENTY-TWO
Dominic
I sneak into Frankie’s room and fold myself into her twin sized bed, on the wall side, and gather her into my arms. She snuggles in. I bury my nose in her hair, inhaling the sweet scent of her scalp, and try not to get her hair wet.
* * *
I was telling the truth when I told Lina I was done feeling angry and just feeling tired. I’m not sure if it’s a coping mechanism though, emptying myself of feelings, disassociating. It’s more of a dull, sore pain this morning, like a bruise, instead of the meticulous stab and twist of a few days prior.
I don’t say anything to Frankie because I don’t know what to say. I left a message with Dr. Fung, but she hasn’t gotten back to me. The best move, I think, for right now, is to let Lina fade out of our lives naturally. The ‘rip off the bandaid’ strategy won’t work because Frankie will have to see Lina every day.
I lied. There’s still some lingering anger, but it’s all directed at myself, for putting Frankie in this fucking situation.
But I don’t say anything and let Frankie go to school the next day, pretending life is just really fucking fantastic, packing her a Totoro-shaped sandwich and one thousand blueberries with a note that says I love you more than anything in the universe . I draw a big heart surrounded by a bunch of planets.
I need to get some shit done at the school for the Fall Festival this Saturday, and this makes me even angrier at myself. I’m going to have to be in the school every fucking day this week, hanging flyers, organizing the PTO team, meeting vendors. Meeting Lina. Running last-minute things by her.
On second thought, maybe I deserve to have her beauty and tenacity rubbed in my face every day. Penance for the third big mistake my dick has made in my lifetime.
No, that’s not it , another part of my brain tells me. You loved her. You love her.
These are the intrusive thoughts racing through my head as I slowly climb up the stairs to the school at five thirty and walk directly into Ollie.
He looks at me after I almost bowl him over. “The fuck?”
I scrub my face. “Hey.” I look around, actively willing my brain to process information and form connections. I give up. “Why are you here?”
We stand to the side of the front doors so people can walk in and out. “What do you mean, why am I here? Would you like a list of reasons?”
“No.”
“This is my old school,” he says anyway. “I was the principal here for years. I like saying hi to my old staff.” He begins to count off on his fingers. “My girlfriend teaches here, so I’m picking her up from work. Your girlfriend now has my old job, and she also happens to be a close friend of mine, so I’d like to check in and see how she’s doing. My niece also goes here, and I’d like to say hi to her, too. In fact, it’s highly likely that all of these people will be in the same place.”
“Okay,” I mumble.
He narrows his eyes at me. “Why do you look like shit?”
“I—” I sigh, and try again. “Could you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Can you get Frankie for me and bring her out here? She’s probably sitting in Lina’s office.” Because I am a coward. I can attempt to face Lina tomorrow.
He studies me. “Oh,” he says finally. “It’s like that?”
I blow out a breath. “It’s like that.”
“Does Frankie know?”
“No.”
“Are you going to tell her?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s going to figure it out, eventually.”
“Yep.”
He studies me some more. “Remember what I said to you on the beach?”
“You were wrong,” I tell him. “Lina ended up being exactly like them.” No , that part of my brain whispers again, that’s not right .
He frowns at me now, because he knows it’s not true. “Really?”
“She left,” I tell him.
“What do you mean, she left?” He points into the school, towards her office. “She’s right there.”
I sigh. “Okay, that was dramatic. I ended it because of my own insecurities. Happy?”
“…No?”
“Can you get Frankie or not?”
“Can we talk about this? Want to grab a drink Friday?”
“No,” I tell him, because I’m never leaving Frankie with anyone else ever again. Until she goes to college. And that might have to be at Columbia or NYU.
“Well, my parents always have that big family dinner after the Fall Festival. So I’ll see you Saturday,” he says, politely ignoring my rudeness.
I sit down on the top step. “I’ll wait here.”
He shakes his head at me and walks in.
Five minutes later, he walks back out. “Lina looks even worse than you do,” he tells me quietly, just before Frankie walks out behind him and climbs into my lap.
It takes an ocean’s worth of self-control to resist the immediate urge that I have to jump up and run to her office to make sure she’s okay.
“Thanks,” I mumble at Oliver. “See you Saturday.”
Frankie drags her feet on the way home, triggering all sorts of alarm bells. “How was school today?” I try.
“Good.”
I peer at her face. “It doesn’t look good.”
“Lina said I don’t have to talk about anything if I’m not ready,” she shoots back.
“Talk about what?” I try.
“Nothing.” She doesn’t fall for it.
I’m going to have to talk to Lina about this. And then I’m going to have to stab myself in the eye.
* * *
A few days later, I’ve never walked slower moving to Lina’s office. I pretend to be very interested in the student art hanging in the lobby. I stop and have a ten-minute conversation with Agent Ethel Anderson. And Frankie’s Pre-K teacher from last year. And four parents I find on the way. I make sure, for the seventeenth and most unnecessary time, that the parents are all set with their roles and responsibilities for Saturday.
I take a deep breath when I finally reach Lina’s door, then swing it open.
“Hey, Daddy!” Frankie pipes up from her little book nest in the corner. She seems to be in a better mood.
“Hey, anak ,” I tell her, but I’m looking at Lina.
Who’s smiling at me.
But it’s forced, strained, fake. I know this, because I’m normally knocked the fuck over by the power of her smile and this is a very cheap imitation. I can’t prevent my eyes from dragging across her face, zeroing in on the dark circles under her eyes, her pale, chapped lips. I don’t ask her when the last time she ate was, or if she’s properly hydrating or sleeping. “Hi, Dom!” Even the timbre of her voice is a touch too high.
“Hey.”
I stand there and shuffle my feet like a ten-year-old while Frankie assaults us with her daily Titanic facts. Both Lina and I stare at her as if she’s divulging the secrets of the world, nodding our heads enthusiastically. This is the absolute worst, especially because throughout this, the two of us keep sneaking peeks at one another.
“Frankie, Lina and I have to talk about some Fall Festival stuff,” I finally say, when it’s gone on for a bit too long and the skin crawling feeling gets to be a little too much.
“It’s okay, Dom,” Lina responds quietly. “I trust you. I approve of anything you have planned.”
I look at her, which is a mistake, because she is looking at me like she does in fact trust me and like I am her entire world. I busy myself with looking in my bag. “I just have a few things you need to sign, then. Rental agreements, insurance things.” I thrust a handful of papers into her hand.
“Aren’t you coming home with us Lina?” Frankie asks. “Can’t we just do this there? Daddy promised us Sassy Shrimp.”
I’m surprised that the crack that snaps through my chest isn’t audible.
“I’m not coming over tonight, Frankie,” Lina says quietly. I cut my eyes to her again. She picks up a pen and starts signing the papers. She’s blinking a lot and taking deep breaths. “I have a lot of work to do.”
“You work too hard,” Frankie frowns at her. “You look tired. You have to eat,” she says, sounding like a seventy-year-old lola. And my subconscious. “Just come over and have Sassy Shrimp. It’s your favorite.”
“Don’t push, Frankie,” I reprimand my daughter forcefully.
Frankie whirls towards me, outraged that I’m not taking care of this woman who I presumably love.
“It’s okay, guys,” Lina says. She places her pen down and pushes the stack of papers towards me, then busies herself with the contents of one of her desk drawers. “I really have a lot of work to do. Thanks Frankie. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Frankie huffs and picks up her things, unreasonably irritated now, and strides out of the office.
It’s so silent in here that I hear Lina swallow. “Dom,” she tries, in a voice barely above a whisper, and it’s like someone rips my ribcage open.
I clear my throat. “Thanks. I’ll text you if anything else comes up before Saturday, but I think we’re all set.”
She’s silent while I stuff the papers back in my bag. I’m glad I’m halfway out the door when I hear her whisper, “I’m sorry,” in a voice so unlike her own, broken and defeated instead of bright and ferocious. I’m glad I don’t look at her, because seeing it would be a totally different experience than hearing it, and I’m not sure I’d be able to pry myself away.
“I know,” I say into the hallway instead, stopping just outside her office and looking for Frankie. “I’m sorry, too.”
* * *
The rest of the week is much of the same.
Me picking up Frankie from Lina’s office.
Lina and I being generally miserable but keeping it together for Frankie.
Frankie in a terrible mood and not yet comfortable telling me why.
Dr. Fung tells me to broach the subject slowly. To answer Frankie’s questions immediately and honestly if and when she asks them, but otherwise to take it slowly. To talk about it when I’m ready. Frankie luckily hasn’t noticed or asked any questions about it, but I think it’s because she’s been so preoccupied with whatever’s been bothering her at school. I don’t think I’m ready to talk to her about it yet, because I’m still in the denial phase, or whatever it is, of the stages of grief.
I try to lose myself again in the mundane routine of parenthood, but it’s nearly impossible. Now that we’ve had a taste of color, it’s nearly impossible to go back to black-and-white.
But I do it for my daughter.
* * *
The Fall Festival fucking sucks.
Fuck the perfect weather, a brisk sixty degrees, no cloud in the sky. Fuck all the money we raise. I know, from previous conversations with Lina, that the school’s finances look good this year, and we will probably be able to use these funds to redo this shitty excuse for a school yard. But fuck it.
Fuck all the pleased parents. Fuck the happy Fort Greene community. The kids are fucking thrilled, or at least it sounds like they are as they hurl their bodies down the fifty foot tall bouncy slide.
You know who else looks happy?
Lina.
But today I’m not actually sure if she’s turned it on just for the event. If she’s faking it or if she is really and truly over it. Because I’m certainly faking every back slap and hand shake and smile I share with the fucking people around me.
The color has crept back into every inch of her body. In her posture, in her face, in her smile. The saturation’s been turned up. She looks like the beach siren I met in Westerly, the one holding my hand as we danced down the shore in hysterical laughter. Hi-def. High-def. Her hair is loose and flowing down her back. She’s wearing makeup, heels. Floating around the yard, every ounce the beloved school principal, shaking hands and doling out hugs and sharing her laughter.
She shines. She’s incredible, and I gave her up.
But really, I shouldn’t have started anything with her in the first place.
Protect your daughter, Dom. Don’t be selfish.
The hair on the back of my neck raises when I see some fucking dude approach her. It’s that very successful, handsome fucking guy who owns the fancy restaurant a block away from the school. I feel positively feral when she gives him that shit-eating grin that she used to direct at me. I almost tear his fucking face off when it looks like they exchange numbers. Just kidding. I almost burst into tears. But fuck that guy, too.
She deserves to be happy with someone hot and cool and uncomplicated and unattached. Someone who isn’t the neurotic, boring father of a young child.
I walk away.
* * *
I almost wish that Tita Gloria and Tito Ben didn’t live twelve feet below us, that we didn’t have to pass their home on the way up the stairs to ours. Because there’s no feasible excuse for us to not attend the big Flores dinner they’re having.
Frankie loads the last bit of decoration from the festival into one of the bins. Oliver ties up another garbage bag. My other cousin Izzy, Oliver’s sister, takes the last banner down. Tita Gloria claps her hands. “Let’s go,” she announces.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lina slowly backing away towards the school. I hope she’s successful, but obviously nothing gets past the women of our family, because Izzy snatches her hand. Lina’s other side is quickly flanked by Tita Gloria.
“Oh,” Lina says brightly. “I have to go back to the building. Lock up and stuff. I’ll… see you guys later.”
“We’ll wait for you,” Tita Gloria tells her, while winding her arm through Lina’s. “The boys can go ahead and start setting up. The girls will stay behind.”
Frankie has attached herself to Lina’s waist.
Lina is now quite literally corralled by Flores girls. Until this very moment, I had forgotten how touchy feely our family was. I’m feeling quite jealous of Frankie right now.
I haven’t shared our breakup with anyone in our family except for Oliver, but now I’m wondering if word has spread.
“Ma…” Ollie attempts.
“Go,” she commands.
He looks at me helplessly. I shrug, avoiding eye contact with Lina. “Let’s go.” As long as that fucking restauranteur guy isn’t invited.
“Ready to tell me about it?” he asks, when we’re a few blocks away.
“No.”
“Because even if you’re not,” he continues cheerfully, “you’ve gotta stop with the self-flagellation. It’s quite pathetic.”
“I seem to remember your own Great Depression after Georgia broke up with you. Let me have my moment.”
We wait at a crosswalk for the light to change. “So,” he continues, as if I haven’t said anything, “she left, you said? Was that metaphorically? Or actually?”
I know how relentless Ollie can get, so I know he’s never going to drop this. “Physically, I guess. We were on a date, had an argument, she snuck out of our hotel room while I was sleeping, and I didn’t hear from her for two days.”
“Seriously?” he asks, incredulous.
“Seriously.” I’m pleased he gets it.
“She didn’t leave you, you drama queen. She took two days of space.”
He doesn’t get it. “She dropped off the face of the planet for two days, Ollie. What the hell was I supposed to think? This has happened twice to me and Frankie already, that’s not okay for someone to do to us.”
He shakes his head. “That’s not fair, Dom. Just because you had a bad string of luck with?—”
“ Bad string of luck? ” Now I’m incredulous. “Is that what you call getting a whole-ass baby dumped on you? And Viv?! Viv playing house with us for a year, for fun, before leaving us too?”
We dodge a group of kids bouncing their basketballs down the sidewalk. “Fine, poor choice of words, but what I’m really saying is just because two women did really shitty things… well, that’s not Lina.”
“Maybe not, but it happened, and she’s sorry now, but I can’t take that fucking risk again, Ollie.” I rub my eyes. “You weren’t there,” I say more quietly. “You weren’t there when Frankie asked me if her mom left because of her. You didn’t hear her voice, you didn’t see her face. And thank god she was too young to know about Viv. But I think a part of me broke that day. I’m not doing that again. I’m not taking that risk.”
We’re silent for a few more blocks.
“You know, Mike really fucked Lina up,” he finally says. “I’m not excusing what she did, but… For as long as I’ve known her, she’s put everyone else before her. Maybe that was her come-to-Jesus moment. Maybe she’s finally looking out for herself.”
I know this is the case. I truly do. “That’s great, and I’m happy for her, but she’s going to have to deal with that without us.”
He nods slowly. “She’s dealing with her part,” he says tentatively, “but sounds like you need to deal with yours.”
* * *
Lina does a much better job faking it than I do, for Frankie’s sake, and I wonder if it’s because that’s who she is as a person. Naturally friendly, outgoing.
The way she makes people feel comfortable around her, not afraid to be themselves, more confident because of the lack of judgement and general positivity that she radiates.
It’s worked a little too well with Frankie, the two of them thick as thieves, boss-ass bitches who aren’t afraid to tell it like it is, feeding off one another to be the two coolest people I know. It’s extraordinarily painful tonight, watching them continue playing in this girl band. The way Frankie gravitates towards Lina, always holding her hand or sitting on her lap or touching her. The way Lina participates in it, enthusiastically and lovingly, every time, regardless of what’s happened.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lina check her watch, then whisper something to Frankie. They both look at me. I look at my watch. It’s Frankie’s bedtime.
Frankie looks like she argues with Lina for a second, but Lina shuts it down real fast. Moping, Frankie shuffles over to me. “Can Lina do my bedtime routine with me?” she grumbles.
This stings for many different reasons, but I know Frankie is getting older because she reads the look on my face and softens her tone. “You can come, too, I guess,” she amends.
“Wow, a ringing endorsement,” I tell her. I cut my eyes to Lina, who is looking at me with an eyebrow raised. Boldly daring me. I learn at this moment that she is not faking it. Maybe she is over it. And if she is, then there’s no way I can pretend to play mommy and daddy with Frankie right now.
“You can go up with Lina. I’ll come up in a minute to kiss you goodnight, okay?”
Frankie happily skips away. Lina looks at me apologetically before taking her upstairs.
I may or may not chug an entire beer (or two) in the ten minutes I wait.
“Really?” Georgia asks, eyebrow raised, as I place the maybe second bottle down on a side table.
“Enough from you,” I hiss, with the attitude of someone who has chugged two beers in ten minutes. I storm upstairs.
There’s murmuring from Frankie’s bedroom.
“You have to be kind to her, yes, but more importantly, you have to be kind to yourself,” Lina is saying. “And that means believing in yourself, that you are intelligent and brave and strong. You have to make sure that you’re okay first, before anyone else. Protect yourself. And if that means standing up to her if she does or says that to you again, then I think that’s what’s most important.”
I lean on the doorframe, ignoring the feeling in my chest. Because of all the things I’ve seen today, this is the most painful.
Both girls are tucked under the covers and squished into Frankie’s bed. Lina’s sitting up with her back against the headboard, stroking Frankie’s hair with her tiny frame tucked into her side. “Hi, Daddy,” Frankie says when she sees me.
“Hey,” I tell them.
Lina peels herself away, and it looks like it’s a hardship for both of them. She leans over Frankie, drops a kiss in her hair.
“Love you, Lina,” Frankie tells her.
Lina darts her eyes to me, just for a second, before saying quietly into the room, “I love you. So much,” and I try not to let those words seep into my skin and into my bones and absorb it into my life force.
She walks past me out of the room, careful to avoid touching me, and I get a whiff of her summer and coconut smell, am hyperaware of the individual hairs on her arm, a wayward curl sticking out of the top of her head.
I kneel at the side of Frankie’s bed and bury my face in her armpit. “What were you talking to Lina about?” I attempt, for what feels like the hundredth time this week.
“Stop pushing, Daddy. I’ll tell you when I’m ready,” she says confidently, with a condescending pat to my head.
I sigh dramatically. “You know you can tell me anything,” I remind her.
“I know. But I want to tell Lina. She gets it. Not you.”
Now is definitely not the time to tell her that Lina is going to have to start naturally fading out of our lives. For many reasons. Because Frankie’s clearly not ready, and after seeing all of this, maybe I’m not, either.
“Okay. I love you. Sweet dreams. I’m going to go back downstairs to say bye to your aunties and uncles, but I’ll be right back, okay?”
Her eyes are already closing. She nods. “Love you,” she murmurs.
I give her a kiss on the forehead, right on top of where Lina left hers.
I turn off her lights, turn on her white noise machine, and walk out of her room.
Into the living room, where Lina sits on the couch patiently.
“Is it something I need to be concerned about?” I ask Lina, so awkward, because this has somehow turned into some sort of co-parenting situation.
She shakes her head. “I’m handling it.” She thinks for a moment. “I’m trying to decide how much to divulge without breaking her trust.”
I wait patiently and take a seat in the armchair. Mostly because I want to look at her.
“She’s having an issue with some of the girls in her class. We’re working on it together,” she decides to tell me.
I don’t respond.
“I know you feel like you can’t trust me, Dom, but for this, for things that involve Frankie, you will always be able to trust me. Okay?”
That’s not it , that voice in my head says. “You’re the professional,” I say instead.
Lina gathers herself. I watch her do it, know what she’s doing, know what it looks like. Her spine straightens. Her gaze is direct. Fierce. This is the woman I fell in love with. I greedily drink it in.
“I want to do a better job apologizing,” she begins.
She may have it, but I don’t think I have the energy, the strength, to do this again. “Lina?—”
“Please hear me out. Let me get this out,” she insists. She looks at me, eyes on fire.
“Okay,” I say, because I don’t have the energy to fight anymore.
“Thank you,” she murmurs. “I’m sorry. I left because I panicked. I got scared. I left because I needed to take care of myself, for once. I needed to be kind to myself,” she says, repeating the words she just gave to my daughter. “I needed a second to myself, and I should have communicated that with you.”
I nod. “I would have given you space.”
She winces. “I know you would have. And I am so, so sorry for not talking to you. From the bottom of my heart, truly. I regret it more than you would ever believe. But I wasn’t leaving you, Dom. Can you see that? Do you see that? That I would never do something like that to you? Or to Frankie? Never in a million years.”
“It just highlighted the fact that this is all a risk I can’t afford to take, Lina. I can’t ever, ever put Frankie in a situation where another important person in her life could leave her.” It’s not you, it’s me , and all that bullshit.
She’s silent for a moment. “I don’t think it’s fair to compare me with them,” she says finally.
She knows me too well.
“How can I know that?” I murmur.
“I’m not like them.”
“How can you know that?”
“I know, because you and Frankie are everything to me.”
It’s a supreme effort to swallow the serrated lump in my throat down. “Lina?—”
“I made a mistake, Dom. I’m so sorry.”
Mistake, mistake . She made a mistake, I made a mistake, I can’t stop making them, apparently. All these mistakes at what cost? At the cost of my daughter’s happiness. I hear Frankie’s voice, did she leave because of me? I steel my spine. I stand up.
Lina’s face looks hopeful, just for a second. But then I move away.
She shatters, her carefully constructed walls crumbling.
It’s an instinctual feeling to comfort her. I walk towards the door instead, needing to put physical space between us. “Believe me, Lina—this isn’t easy for me, either,” I say to the floor, the only thing I can give her. But I open the front door.
Her feet enter my line of vision. “I wish you would take for yourself, Dom. I wish you could trust me,” her voice cracks. “The risk is worth it. We may be new, and we may be small, but we’re big love,” she tells me anyway, because she is brilliant and brave and probably right, and then she leaves.
I close the door behind her again, but far less confidently this time.