22. Dominic
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Dominic
Bianca was asleep between us, her head in Liana’s lap, her feet kicked up against my thigh. A warm barricade of now-six-year-old limbs and tangled hair, positioned exactly where she had climbed after takeoff and refused to move.
Liana was curled toward the window, her forehead almost touching the glass, her eyes fixed on the clouds below.
She hadn’t looked at me since we boarded.
Yesterday had been Bianca’s. French toast the cook cut into little crowns, most of them falling apart, and Bianca ate them anyway.
Six candles in a cake on the sand, and our daughter blowing them out on the third try while Liana held her curls back from the flames.
She had made her wish out loud, because she was six and didn’t know yet that you weren’t supposed to.
She wished the three of us could live in the beach house forever. All in the same house.
Liana had laughed and kissed the top of her head, and she hadn’t looked at me then either.
The not-looking was deliberate.
That night played on a loop in my head. Her back against the wall. Her nails went down my spine.
The sounds she made when she came, muffled against my shoulder because our daughter was sleeping through the wall. The way her body had opened for me, welcomed me, fit around me like I had never been gone.
My hand twitched on the armrest, wanting to reach across her, to touch her arm, to make her turn and look at me. Force the conversation we needed to have.
But I kept my hand where it was.
Bianca shifted in her sleep, her feet pressing harder against my leg, and Liana’s hand came up automatically to smooth her hair.
She still wouldn’t look at me.
The plane began its descent into Newport, and Liana finally moved, straightening in her seat, adjusting Bianca’s position, gathering the scattered crayons and coloring books that had accumulated around them during the flight.
“We should wake her up.” Her voice was neutral, directed at the middle distance between us. “She gets disoriented if she sleeps through landing.”
“Bianca.” I leaned forward and touched our daughter’s shoulder. “Wake up, piccola. We’re almost home.”
Bianca’s eyes fluttered open, foggy with sleep, and she stretched her arms above her head with a yawn that showed all her teeth.
“Is the trip over?” She rubbed her eyes with both fists. “I don’t want it to be over. Can we go back to the beach house?”
“Maybe another time, baby.” Liana’s hand was still in her hair. “We have to get back to real life now.”
Real life. The words landed somewhere in my chest.
The plane touched down and taxied to a stop, and Liana was unbuckling Bianca’s seatbelt before the engines had fully quieted.
“Say goodbye to Papa.” Liana was already walking toward her car, Bianca’s hand in hers.
Bianca broke free and ran back to me, throwing her arms around my legs.
“Thank you for my birthday trip, Papa.” Her face tilted up toward mine, bright with the uncomplicated joy of a child. “It was the best present ever. Can we do it again next year?”
“We’ll see, piccola.” I crouched down and pulled her into a proper hug. “I’m glad you had fun.”
“I had so much fun.” She squeezed my neck tight. “I love you, Papa.”
“I love you too.” The words scraped out of me rough and raw. “More than anything in the world.”
She pulled back and kissed my cheek and then she was running back to Liana, her small hand finding her mother’s again.
Liana looked at me finally. Just for a second, her eyes meeting mine across the tarmac, and I saw something there I couldn’t name. Confusion, maybe. Conflict. The same war I had been watching her fight since that night.
Then she turned away and climbed into the car, and Bianca waved at me through the window as they pulled away.