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’tleavingyou, 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 areeverythingto 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.
