Only Love (36 page)

“Javier Ruiz,” he said quietly, I believe more to himself than to me. Still, I responded.

“Yeah, that’s Rissa’s dad.” I rubbed the back of my neck and wished he’d never made this discovery. Not today. Today was supposed to be easy and light. Losing Javi, moving past his death, was neither of those things. “I thought to show it to you back when everything was all still happening, but then I figured there really was no point.”

Adam said nothing, just gave a slow nod.

Wanting to put an end to this… this
awkwardness
,
I suggested that we make our way to the front of the apartment toward the kitchen so we could do breakfast and then watch Rissa open her presents. To my surprise, Adam hesitated a moment longer, and then finally put Javi’s obituary back where he found it. Neither of us spoke a word as we walked the hall.

Rissa’s face lit up when the two of us appeared in the doorway of the kitchen where we found her with a mouth full of Cheerios and one stuck to her chin. I wiped it away and washed her hands then sat at the table beside her while Adam pulled out the eggs, bacon and the other items he’d need. He was quiet now. Different. When we finished eating, we headed toward the lit Christmas tree. After sitting Rissa down in the middle of the floor, I glanced at Adam again. Something was still off and I assumed it had to do with seeing Javi for the first time, which ironically happened within hours of Rissa starting to call him Daddy out the blue. That was the only thing I could think it would be.

Finding a small box with shiny, green wrapping paper that I knew held one of Rissa’s gifts, I handed it to her. Before leaving her to rip it apart on her own, I tore the side flap to show her how it was supposed to be done. She fought with the tattered piece for a moment before becoming frustrated.

“Here, baby. Like this,” I said, reaching to help.

However, to my surprise, and Adam’s too judging by the look on his face, Rissa protested with a well-timed, “Noooo. Daddy, do it.” She pointed at Adam and everything when she did.

I stared at Rissa for a moment, feeling the water welling in my eyes again, and then looked to Adam. Whatever had him distracted only a moment ago seemed to recede to the back of his mind at the sound of that one word Rissa just uttered.

She truly did have him wrapped around her finger, even more so now. Adam had a grin on his face the entire time he assisted her with opening
that
gift and each one that followed while I took over with the camera. It seemed like every time the word
‘daddy’
hit the air, both Adam’s heart and mine filled with so much love. He’d come into my life and gave me everything I wanted. Watching him with
my
daughter, my thoughts went to Abby, though, hoping that one day soon Adam would allow himself to have her in his life as well. He deserved that and so did Abby.

Thanks to Rissa, our morning eventually returned to normal. Things were once again lighthearted and focused on the holiday like it should’ve been. Adam and I decided to wait until later that night, once Rissa was asleep and it was just the two of us, to exchange gifts. After straightening up the living room again and getting Rissa dressed, we were all ready to visit Joan and Cindy.

We were bundled up and toting gifts for Adam’s moms when he stopped me, my hand on the doorknob. My gaze met his and it was then that I realized that, while he was acting like himself again, there was still something behind his eyes, something troubling.

“Aubrey, I…” he stuttered.

I stared. I waited.

Adam chose to train his eyes on the floor instead of my face.

“Yes?” I asked.

Silence. A few seconds passed and Rissa was starting to wriggle anxiously in my arms. When Adam was finally able to look at me again, he forced a smile.

“I love you,” he said, still seeming troubled in my opinion.

Confused, one corner of my mouth turned up. “I love you too.”

He took my hand and I realized his were trembling a little. “No matter what, I just need you to know that,” he concluded.

Everything was not okay
;
something was definitely going on.

Aubrey’s sudden hand in mine garnered my attention. She’d pushed her hand across the console of my car, sliding it into my own and mingling our fingers together. With her touch, she’d broken up the tone of this ride to my moms’ house, the one filled with silence, aching silence. Other than Rissa, the journey to the suburbs would have been completely silent. Every once and a while she’d giggle, point to a beautiful white-washed home and say, “See!” She’d always follow the word with a “Mommy” or, to my anxiously beating heart, a “Daddy.” I would always make eye contact with her through the rearview mirror no matter what she said, smile at her, but every time she said the name she’d given me, the role she allowed me to have in her life, the statement reminded me greatly that I was a filler, and worse, that I’d taken something that didn’t belong to me. I hadn’t felt that way before when she originally called me her dad last night, but something changed from then and until today.

Something that had her mom put her hand in mine now.

Aubrey knew something was wrong, that something changed. She wasn’t saying it but she didn’t have to. There was a sudden awkwardness between us, one in which I knew I very much put out there. Her eyes kept escaping the road in front of her and the buildings passing by her to me.

Squeezing her hand, I tried to stay cool, tried to be normal again. I kissed the back on her hand while I drove, my lips lingering for longer than I meant to. I didn’t mean to kiss her like that; as if I’d lose her if I stopped. Her eyes went to me, and I passed off what I did with a smile, dropping her hand to my lap.

I have to say something. I have to make things normal—for now.

“You never told me how the party went last night,” I told her, my gaze steady on the road. She never did and that would allow me to ask more questions. Things I needed to know.

I felt her eyes on me. My stomach flipped a bit and not in a good way, but then, I glanced and caught her lips moving into a smile. The anxiety in my gut dwindled, though only just a little.

“No, I didn’t. Did I?” she said with a laugh. A laugh so beautiful, so goddamn beautiful. “It was great. Though I think Joan and Cindy spoiled my child for her entire adolescent life with their attention and gifts. Tell me again why we’re going over there today so Rissa can get even
more
?”

I actually laughed at the teasing in her voice and it was genuine. “You’ll have to forgive them. They haven’t had a baby around in a long time.”

I turned my head and watched her smile in a way that sent my heart soaring. God, how had things turned in this direction so quickly, and on today of all days? But then I realized something, since the jump, Aubrey and I had to leap through hurdles, her not trusting me, not trusting anyone, in her life, and then later with Rissa’s dad passing. Her dad. Javier Ruiz…When I opened Aubrey’s closest that morning, saw that program…

I knew those hurdles were here to stay.

“Your moms may have mooned over her,” Aubrey continued, breaking me out of my thoughts. “But I think Javi’s mom took the cake last night.”

And there came back my anxiety. She mentioned Javi, his mother. I dampened my mouth. “Oh, yeah? How so?”

She lifted her hands, animated with her story. “The woman gave her a handmade rocking horse. So beautiful, like the ones you’d see on a carousel. I don’t think you saw it. I put it in her closet.”

I shook my head, confirming I hadn’t.

“Rissa and Emelia spent hours playing on it.”

I closed my eyes slowly, opening them back to the road. “Emelia?” I asked. I had to ask. I had to, though I think I knew my answer.

“Yeah, that’s her cousin, Javi’s niece. Josephine, Javi’s mom, brought her over. Emelia’s mom had to work. But I told you they’d all be coming over.”

The names all passed before, looping around like a wild web. Though seeming in disarray at first, they all rested flat in front of me, completely connected and perfectly symmetrical. They fit together snuggly like pieces in an intricate puzzle, and my heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. Aubrey’s hand suddenly felt heavy in my lap and I lifted it, feeling that weight at first. But then, it was gone, as if sand in an hourglass slipping through my fingers. I no longer felt her. She was there. I could see her hand in mine, but I couldn’t feel her. I had a similar feeling that night I made love to her, the night before she wanted distance from me. I knew though, today she wasn’t the one fading away.

It was me.

I tried not to stare at the empty finger on her left hand. Aubrey said she wanted to save our gift exchange for tonight. But after today’s realization, I knew I couldn’t give her gift to her right away. I tried not to think about the fact that I might never get to give it.

“Adam, are you okay?”

My eyes flashed from the road to her worried gaze, but she couldn’t have been more so than me. She pushed some of her dark curls behind her ear, her hand brushing her dangling earring on the way back down to her lap. “Do you not want to talk about them? Does it bother you if I talk about Javi and his family? I know he’s my ex.”

The guilt hit me hard, deep inside my chest. It had been building upon me slowly, but now, it was even heavier. “No, I want to hear about them,” I told her. “Please keep going.”

And so she continued.

“There’s my baby girl!” My mom’s hands went under Rissa’s arms and the next moment she had her pressed against her chest. Rissa giggled at the repeated kisses to her cheeks, so rosy from being outside in the cold.

“Mom, at least let us get her coat off first,” I said, but there was no annoyance in my tone. If anything there was a bit of heartache there. In fact, I knew there was. My moms wanted grandchildren for so long. Because of me, they lost Abby. God, would I cause them to lose Rissa too?

Mom ignored me while Joan shooed off my words with her hand, her other going to Rissa’s face while my mom rocked her, a song in her voice. I found I couldn’t look at them all together without that ache in my chest growing, but I forced myself to.

Aubrey didn’t mind my parents at all, helping her daughter out of her jacket around my moms’ hands. She placed it over her arm, but I took it from her.

“I can hang it up,” I said. “And yours too.”

She gave it to me willingly and I left her, heading toward the closet down the hallway. What I didn’t expect was for her to follow me.

“God, I can’t get over how beautiful this place is,” she said, marveling at the house I grew up in. The living room could be seen from the hall, its large windows letting in the day’s afternoon light. A roaring fireplace to the left of that crackled away, my moms’ Christmas tree’s lights flickering. Cindy’s dog, Sammy, lain lazily in front of the gifts. The collie was so old, but still trying to protect the bounty behind her.

Aubrey went to her immediately. Sammy lifted her head and I was glad she had the energy to entertain. I feared for a moment Aubrey followed me for a reason to the closet, wanting to be alone, to talk, and the collie saved me from that. Even if only for the time being.

Moving over to the pair, I watched Aubrey move her hand over Sammy’s fur. The ham that she was, Sammy fell to her back and let Aubrey rub her stomach, making her let out an “Aww” at the dog’s sweetness. I never got to know Sammy as well as I would have liked as my moms got her after I left home and went out on my own. They never would say it, but I think they got Sammy because of how empty the house was after I was gone.

“Doggy! Doggy!” Rissa’s excited steps thumped across my moms’ linoleum floor as she passed through the kitchen to get to the living room. Her feet silenced when she went to the carpet, all grabby hands toward Sammy.

“Oh, dear. She found the dog,” Joan joked, tagging along after her.

Rissa slammed into her mom as Aubrey wrangled her, intercepting her to help her play with Sammy. “Gentle hands, baby. Gentle hands,” she said, stroking the dog as an example.