DARIO
“Yes. Obviously yes.”
Something in my chest releases that I didn’t know was that tight.
Not the surface tension—I’ve been managing that all night—but something deeper, meaningful. The last time I felt anything like it was in a hospital corridor when I was twenty-three, a doctor coming out to tell us my father’s bloodwork had improved, and we had more time. I remember exactly what I felt in that moment—the thing loosening, the breath that came out of nowhere.
I didn’t know until now that I’d accumulated that kind of weight again in the same spot. In the same part of my chest, grief and hope share a zip code and always have.
I get up from my knee.
She doesn’t step back to give me room. She steps forward, both hands coming up to my face, and she looks at me. Not quickly. She takes the full measure of me. Then she kisses me.
Not the way we’ve kissed before, in the dark, rushed and desperate. This is different. This is slow and certain, the kiss of a woman who has just saidobviously yesand means it.
My hands find her waist. She makes a sound low in her throat that goes straight through me. The wordobviouslykeeps ringing in my chest like a bell that doesn’t know it should have stopped.
We’re still there—her hands on my face, mine at her waist—when a small voice from the doorway says, “Dario.”
We separate in a hurry.
Opal stands in the doorway in her pajamas, her blanket wrapped around her shoulders like a queen’s cape, hair pressed flat on one side from sleep. She looks at her mother. She looks at me. “Are you getting married?”
“Yes,” Lena says.
Opal nods. She considers this for a moment—seriously, giving it its actual weight. “Can I be the flower girl?”
I nod. “To borrow a phrase, obviously yes.”
Lena snorts and smacks my chest.
“Okay.” Opal holds for one more beat, apparently satisfied that the situation is as she thought, and turns and pads back down the hallway. Her door closes softly.
Lena laughs, a little surprised by the sound. I look at her, and she has both hands pressed over her mouth, her eyes bright with something that’s partly laughter and partly something else entirely.
“She really takes everything in stride, doesn’t she?”
“When she has the option, she does.”
I think about what just happened. “How did she know?”
“She was probably listening just outside the door. Have you never noticed that she does that?”
“Not once, actually.”
Lena nods. “She’s a bit of a sneak. When I called her on it, she said that’s the only way she’d ever learn anything, since we don’t tell her anything.”
“She will have to learn to be okay with us not telling her everything. Right? Am I… Are we supposed to tell her everything? I’m not sure how to do this.”
She steps toward me. Takes my hand in both of hers and turns it, the way she does when she’s thinking—looking at my knuckles. Then at my face. “You’re going to be good at this. Being a dad. You already are.”
Something wells in me. I don’t like it. It feels unfamiliar, like danger coming from inside. “I don’t know that, Lena. What if I fuck up? What if I’m not good at this? I didn’t think about that part of things before, and I should have, and what if that means I’ll be a lousy dad, because I didn’t take that into account before I proposed? I’m a sociopath—what if she ends up on a stripper pole because of me? What if?—”
“You’re already a good dad. You have the right instincts, Dario. You’ve been determined to get to know Opal since we got here. You’re the first to jump in and help her with her homework. When you tuck her in, you always look so happy when you come out of her room, like you were just lucky to be there.” She cups my face in her hands. “I have watched you with Opal every stepof the way. Sociopath or not, you are amazing with my daughter. You get her. She gets you. That’s all I care about.”
I take a quick breath. “Are you sure that’s enough?”
She smiles sweetly. “Absolutely not. If you haven’t noticed, she’s my first kid.”
