By the time I get back from dropping Maya off with Seb, the house is quiet. Blessedly, perfectly quiet. I take a deep breath, soaking in the silence, before grabbing wine glasses and setting them on the coffee table. Two bottles of red sit beside them, already breathing.
Mariana arrives first, holding a pink pastry box in one hand and a bottle of sparkling water in the other.
“I brought the goods,” she says, waltzing in like a bakery fairy godmother. “Coconut shortbread, guava turnovers, and some new dulce de leche bars I’m testing. I need honest feedback and zero judgment on sugar intake.”
“You had me at guava,” I say, taking the box from her and placing it on the table.
“You okay?” she asks softly, slipping off her shoes.
I nod. “Getting there.”
She doesn’t push. She just smiles and says, “Then we eat,” and starts arranging the pastries on a dish.
Anna bursts in ten minutes later, wearing hoop earrings and holding a Tupperware container above her head. “Arepas con queso, bebés! Fresh. From. My. Mom. We need to enjoy all the arepas we can get from her before she moves back to Colombia,” she declares. “And I have questions. So many questions.”
She hands me the container, kicks off her sneakers, and immediately pours herself a very full glass of Cab.
“You look good,” she says, eyeing me up and down. “Suspiciously good.”
“She does,” Mariana agrees, smiling. “TheI’m getting laidglow.”
Anna waggles her eyebrows. “We’ll get to him in a second. But I want to talk about the cursed man first—what the hell? When did he come back? And what does he want?”
I pour my own glass of wine, settling onto the couch with a guava turnover in one hand. “He showed up two weeks ago,” I say.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell us when he showed up. I would’ve egged his car!” Anna says, mouth full of arepa.
“He said he wants to be in Maya’s life. That he wants to have his family back.”
“His family? I don’t like it,” Anna says immediately, eyes narrowing. “I never liked him.”
“You and I both,” Mariana adds gently, picking at a piece of shortbread.
“And now he thinks he can just show up with that sorry little smirk and act like the last several years didn’t happen?” Anna goes on, hands flying. “Absolutely not. I’m telling you, just give me his license plate and a ten-minute head start.”
I take a sip of wine, letting the warmth spread through my chest. “It’s been…complicated. He showed up here, and she didn’t recognize him. Because she’s never freaking met him. And he looked so shocked, like it hadn’t occurred to him that disappearing before she was even born would actually mean something. What did he think I was doing? Showing her pictures of her long-lost shithead father?”
Anna groans. “Ugh, the male audacity.”
“Textbook,” Mariana says with a small nod.
“And then he has the nerve to show up at the festival. It’s bullshit, and I’m sick of it.”
“You need to set boundaries. He absolutely cannot show up whenever he feels like it. This isn’t good for you or Maya,” Mariana says, her voice calm but firm.
“I know,” I sigh. “It just pisses me off. He shows up acting like everything he missed out on—the pregnancy, the diapers, the sleepless nights, the first words, all of it—can just be erased because he suddenly wants to play dad.”
“Too little, way too damn late,” Anna mutters, biting into an arepa. “He doesn’t get to call himself a father just because he remembered he has a kid.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Maya doesn’t even know who he is. I’m not letting him confuse her just to soothe his ego.”
“And what did he expect?” Mariana adds. “That you’d just open the door and roll out the welcome mat? He’s delusional.”
“I would’ve accidentally spilled hot coffee on him,” Annamutters.
“Tempting,” I say, swirling the wine in my glass. “But I have a kid to protect. And he doesn’t get to drop in and make things harder for her.”
“Good,” Mariana says. “Because he will if you let him.”
