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“You’re my father.” Portia said the words as a statement not a question.
Cheryl and Nick exchanged a nervous glance. “Ahh, yes,” Cheryl squeaked out. “This is Nick Santoro, your father.”
Portia leveled Nick with the same dark, penetrating eyes as his. “I remember seeing you last week and thinking you looked familiar or like someone I should know.”
Cheryl gawked at her daughter amazed at her clarity. “I want you to know Nick didn’t know about you until recently. It was my decision to keep him a secret.”
Portia turned her gaze on Cheryl. “Why?”
From there the conversation took many turns, but the main theme was honesty, and allowing Portia to ask any and all questions about their relationship and a future relationship with Nick. After the initial explanation, they allowed the child to do most of the talking.
Cheryl didn’t go into the gory details of her time in Brooklyn, but she explained her circumstances in a way a ten-year-old mind could absorb and handle. As Portia grew older, Cheryl would expect more in-depth questions about their situation, but for now she kept to the basics. She finished the story by telling Portia they would no longer be living with Johnny, leaving out the grisly details of his demise. More details Cheryl would store away until Portia matured.
“Will Nick be living with us now?”
“Yea—”
“We still have to iron all that out,” Cheryl interrupted. “My main office is still in L.A. so we might have to go back there.”
“But I’ll get to know you, visit you,” Portia said.
“Absolutely,” Nick and Cheryl said in unison.
Portia leveled Nick with a long look. “I never really liked Johnny, but you seem different.” Then she turned and left the room.
After Portia went to bed, Cheryl sat in the living room staring at the colorful lights of the Vegas Strip.
“Kids are fuckin’ amazing, huh?”
“The one thing you can be sure of with a child—you’ll never know what they’ll say or do.”
“She really seemed to listen and get it.” Nick joined Cheryl on the couch. “It went way better than I expected.”
“They say children are more resilient than adults.”
“Probably true.” Nick focused on the view. “But telling Portia hasn’t changed how you feel?”
She shook her head unable to look at him for fear she would fall into his dark eyes and never return. She longed to reach out to him, cuddle into him and rejoice at their beautiful daughter, but she was too weak when it came to Nick. The easy solution would be to fall into bed again. Go with their primal feelings and not look to the future, but that wasn’t an option.
“It was a lot easier when we used to hit the sheets and screw each other stupid.”
Her head popped up. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Get into my head and read my thoughts.”
“Magic. Or, just shows how in sync we really are.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t get any ideas. I’ll be sleeping in the guest room tonight and tomorrow I’ll be going back to Country Club Hills until I sell it.”
“Big house like that you might get lonely. Also might be hard to sell in this market.”
Cheryl smirked at the lilt in his voice. “I’ll manage.” She pushed off the couch not wanting to start the banter which usually led to them hitting the sheets.
“If you get lonely tonight I’m only across the hall.” He waggled his dark eyebrows.
She huffed out a chuckle. “Again, I’ll manage.”
