“You have. Of course you have a daddy. You know that. Remember how a baby’s made?”
She raised her hands, making one hand into a circle and her other fingers twiddle in its direction. “Daddy sperm swims to the Mommy egg and wiiiiigles inside,” she said, her voice getting tiny and high at the wiggling, which she studiously displayed with her hands in a mildly disturbing adult gesture. “That makes a baby.” She made a ta-da hand gesture.
“Right. And you can’t make a baby without the sperm part, and only daddies have that.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Is he nice?”
“He’s very nice.”
“Is he pretty?”
Another laugh. “He’s very pretty.”
She smiled. “And he’ll live with us?”
My smile fell. “No, baby. For now, we’ll all be friends.”
“You’re not his friend?”
“I am, but you’re not yet, bug.” I pinched her tummy.
She giggled, swatting my hand away. But she sobered. “Will he like me, Mama?”
I took her little hands and pulled her closer. “He’s going to love you.”
“Promise?”
“I promise. I don’t know if you know this, but you’re impossible not to love.”
She held my face in her chubby little hands and said, “You too.”
I gathered her up and kissed her about twenty times until she caught on and getting away from me became a game.
“Stop it, Mama.”
“Okay, fine,” I cheesed.
“When is Daddy coming?”
That flutter happened again. It was like a flock of pigeons had taken up permanent residence in my torso. “Do you want to see him today?”
She nodded with no small amount of enthusiasm.
“Want to meet him soon?”
“Want to meet him now!” I’d hyped her up so hard, she was bouncing.
“Okay. Let me text him.”
I pulled out my phone, and she hovered at my elbow, watching me as I texted him. “I can see a picture?”
I opened his contact and showed her my favorite picture of us, the same one he’d spent so long looking at last night.
Her eyes widened in wonder. After a second, she pointed at his smile. “That’s Daddy?”
“That’s your daddy,” I confirmed. My guts were all twisted up in knots made out of nerves, relief, and a whole heap of love.
“Will he read books to me?”
“I bet he will. Want to pick one out for when he comes?”
She nodded and grabbed my hand, tugging me toward our room. “I wanna wear a dress. A twirly one.”
“Done.” I stood and let her drag me to the closet.
“You wear a dress too,” she said, digging around in the closet like it was the jungle.
I inspected my jean shorts and tank. “What, this won’t work?”
She rolled her eyes. “No. This one.” She tugged some sparkly dress I wore on New Year’s Eve probably five years ago.
“How about something more like this?” I pulled out a sundress.
Priscilla assessed me, tapping her lip. It took all my willpower not to laugh. “Twirl,” she commanded.
I spun.
“No. Need more twirly.”
“Like this one?” I exchanged it for a red shirtdress with a circle skirt. When I twirled, she clapped.
“Twirlyyy,” she said and spun in a circle, stopping on a dime when she’d completed a single rotation with her hip popped and her Beyoncé face on.
With a laugh, I knelt with her dress in hand and made to help her, but she pushed my hands away.
“No, Mama. I do it.”
“All right, Miss Independent.” I handed her dress over and stood to change, trying not to laugh as she fought her way out of her t-shirt.
I’d momentarily forgotten what’d happened over the last eighteen hours, and it hit me like a slap in the face. Sebastian was on his way right now to meet Priscilla, and I didn’t know what would happen. It would be okay, that much I knew. But I was unprepared for how I’d feel. Overwhelmed, that was a given. It would definitely hit me in the baby maker, but that was a regular day with Sebastian. Never mind him with our child.
Our child. Now that I was here, the reality of that statement was too much to process. He’d always been unreachable—literally—a faraway truth, a story I told myself. And now he was right here in front of me after five long years. I barely knew what to do with myself.
I was pretty sure my cousins were still standing in the kitchen where I’d left them with their jaws on the ground. They’d taken turns asking questions, blinking, and gaping like trout. There were also hugs, some tears, and plenty of chastising for not pushing them to help find Sebastian.
It left me with unwieldy guilt. For so long, I’d been alone in this, other than Mom. And now so many people who loved Priscilla knew the truth I’d kept from them. And Sebastian’s family had grown by one—two, if you counted me. Which I didn’t.
I felt like I owed everyone an apology for a sin I could never fully atone for. For not finding him. For not making sure Priscilla knew her father, his family. For inadvertently keeping her from them under what felt like a shoddy excuse of not wanting him to find out from anyone but me.
But I could deal with that later.
Today was for my daughter and her dad.
SEBASTIAN
The blazing sun had nothing to do with the sweat of my palms gripping the steering wheel.
Between Priscilla and Abuela, I’d just experienced one of the most fucked up twenty-four-hour stretches of my life, and I couldn’t be entirely sure how I felt about it.
I was glad Presley and I waited to talk about the future of our relationship. Because if she’d told me last night that she didn’t want to be with me, I don’t know how I would have handled it. At least this way I’d have her for the summer, even if she didn’t want me for more than that.
The truth was, I really did have to defer to her on what we should do, at least until I got my bearings. I might have contributed biologically, but Presley was Priscilla’s mother. I had too much to learn to push back, and if Presley didn’t want to be with me for the long term, I knew better than to try to convince her otherwise. It was a genetic trait she shared with her cousins, upholding a long line of women who wouldn’t be told what to do under any circumstance.
And here I’d thought she was going to tell me she loved me. Instead, she told me we couldn’t be together.
There were some points I knew she was right about. I was technically still married, even though we’d been separated for more than half a year—six months in marriage time was nothing, even if it was a quarter of our marriage. And Marnie wasn’t some faraway concept, a faceless woman in another town. She was right here in Lindenbach, making sure to find her way into Presley’s space.
I shuddered to think what she’d do when she found out about Priscilla. I realized then that I needed to be the one to tell her, and the thought made my stomach turn. I’d do it without question, but it wasn’t going to be pretty. And the fallout would affect Presley in some way or another. I just couldn’t count on how. The very future that ended my marriage was now a reality. A reality that I shared with Presley instead of Marnie.