At night, I lie awake, remembering how it felt to hold her, to believe her lies.
Occasionally, I consider that I’m being too hard. I know she’s had a difficult four years.
But then I replay how she’d lied about dying. How she’d kept knowledge of my child from me.
How’d she’d run from my bed after I’d offered her the world.
Never again.
When Mirabella asks why Mommy and Daddy don't sleep in the same room like they used to, I tell her sometimes, grown-ups need space.
I'm building walls around my heart, brick by brick. Eva won't breach them again. I won't let her. My daughter deserves my love. Her mother doesn’t.
This is the new normal. Close but separate. Together but apart.
I can live with this. I have to.
I toss Mirabella into the air again, catching her effortlessly as she shrieks with delight. Her laughter is magic, a sound I've quickly become addicted to.
"Again, Daddy! Higher!" She claps her tiny hands.
"One more time," I say, launching her skyward. "Then we build that castle, remember?"
From the corner of my eye, I catch Eva sitting by the window, pretending to read.
She's been doing that a lot lately, keeping her distance while remaining close enough to intervene if needed.
As if I would ever hurt our daughter.
Mirabella tugs at my hand, leading me toward the pile of building blocks I brought home yesterday.
Her little face scrunches in concentration as she explains her elaborate vision for our fortress.
I listen with exaggerated seriousness, nodding at all the right moments.
"The princess lives in the tower," she instructs, placing a yellow block carefully atop our growing structure.
"And where does the dragon live?" I ask.
“Dragons are outside. They’re too big.”
I laugh, catching Eva's gaze as she watches us over her book.
A smile lights her face, making her look like the woman I fell for years ago.
Before the lies.
Before she let me believe she was dead.
Why did she resist this?
We could have been a family.
I swear it’s something she wants.
I see how she looks at me sometimes.
The same heat, the same connection still simmers between us.
