I love you so much and I am so proud of the woman you have become. You are brave and kind. Sweet baby love, if there’s one thing I never had time to teach you it was that there are only two things you never let go of: love and yourself. Hold tight to both of those. Thank you for being there for me when you shouldn’t have had to. Watching you grow up was a great privilege. Your life, my greatest accomplishment. I love you. I’m so sorry. I love you.
Forever love,
Mom
Tears dropped onto the page, onto her words. Words I will cherish for the rest of my life. Truths that tear open my chest and steal my oxygen. My eyes seek out one sentence again and again. He wants to have a family with you and take care of you and any future children. How? Why wouldn’t he tell me this? He thought I couldn’t have children. Knew it wasn’t ever going to be in the cards with a relationship with me. Shaking my head, I let the rush of pain inside. I push it away most days because it makes me weak and my daughter needs a strong mother.
“You doing okay in here?” Shirley strolls in, Luna on her hip, grabbing her hair. Her gaze dips to the piece of paper shaking in my hand.
I hold it out to her but resist handing it over when she tries to grab it. “It changes everything,” I cry, taking Luna from her and hugging her to my chest. “I’ve been cruel. What have I done?” I whisper into my baby’s ear, inhaling her sweet scent. She looks at me and I have to close my eyes to banish Leif’s face.
Shirley reads the letter a few times, her eyes growing large as she finishes the third time, letting the knowledge soak in. “Fuck.”
“Language,” I bark at her. “I know,” I say in the same breath.
“What are you going to do?”
I shake my head. “I have to go to him, Shirley. I have to tell him. This letter changes everything. I’ve ruined it, I’m sure.”
“You did what you thought you had to do. For Luna. You couldn’t have kids and he didn’t want a family. You made a selfless decision, Malena. Don’t beat yourself up over this.” She holds the piece of paper up between us. The words give me comfort and tear me apart at the same time. I grab it from her and set it on the bed for later. I’ll read it a thousand times.
I swallow hard. “I have to call him. Or email him. Tell him the truth. He deserves the truth. I did what I thought would be easiest, Shirley. Not what was right,” I reply, shaking my head. “I didn’t give him the option for fear of him feeling trapped.”
Moving fast, I bypass Shirley and head for my open laptop. With his baby in my lap, I tap out a quick email asking him to call me and apologizing for not getting into contact sooner. I don’t say anything about Luna or my lies. That’s a conversation I need to have in person.
“I told you from day one he was a good guy,” Shirley says, both hands on her hips.
Narrowing my eyes, I say, “Please, now you’re going to tell me this. You agreed with not telling him about Luna.”
“I’d say anything to get my friend back, Malena. You abandoned us here when your mom died.”
Closing my eyes, I place a kiss on the baby’s head. “I had to. The gossip was easier to control when I came back and she was already here. I didn’t have to make up any stories.” I send off the email and hold my breath as I watch it leave my outbox. “His sisters,” I say.
“They haven’t been around here since he left. They cleaned out his house and helped move Mr. Olsen’s stuff out after he died, but they’re gone, Malena. Without Leif here, they had no reason to hang around.” Wincing, I remember discovering Mr. Olsen passed away and I wasn’t here to help. I was very pregnant and there was no way I could risk seeing Leif’s sisters, so I stayed away. Like a selfish, awful person.
I scroll my cellphone until my finger is hovering over Celia’s name. I press the green button without thinking twice. She answers on the third ring, out of breath.
“Hello?”
My breath catches. She must hate me. The bitch she thinks cheated on her brother. “It’s Malena, Celia. Hi. How...are you?”
She sighs. “Malena,” she says. I hear her swallow. “I’m good. How are you doing? I was sorry to hear about your mother.”
My heart trips. “Thank you,” I reply, meeting Shirley’s eyes. She nods, exaggeratedly, urging me on. “That’s sort of why I’m calling, Celia. I just came across a letter she wrote and I was hoping you could tell me the best way to get in touch with Leif.” Saying his name out loud slices. It’s unfamiliar and that fact makes me break out in a cold sweat. “If you don’t mind, telling me, that is. I need to clear something up and fast.”
“Malena,” Celia whispers. “You don’t know?”
“I don’t know what?”
She laughs. “Why would you know? You broke his heart and left him. Why would you care?”
“You don’t understand. I’m so sorry,” I say. “Please. Please, Celia. Tell me.” I already know it’s not good.
“He was almost killed in an attack off base nine months ago. He’s been in a coma every day since, unresponsive. They’re pulling life support on Monday. They’ve done everything they can for him and we can’t fight the hospital’s attorneys anymore. It’s over.”
“What?” Half of my brain has processed the tragedy and the other half refuses to accept it as truth. “That can’t be. There’s no way. Where is he?”
“I won’t tell you. You don’t deserve it. I saw the photos.”
“It wasn’t what you think, Celia. I need to see him. His daughter needs to meet him. Please.”
“What are you talking about, Malena? I’m at work, and I don’t have time for bullshit today.”
“It’s not bullshit. It’s a very long story, but I do have Leif’s baby. She’s four months old now and looks just like him. He didn’t want kids, Celia. You know that. I broke up with him so he didn’t have to take on that burden. I did it because I love him. I wanted him to live the life of his choosing and now I find out that not only has he not been living, he’s almost dead. Please, if what you say is true it won’t hurt for me to visit him, to bring Luna to meet her father before he dies. She deserves that. Please, I’m begging you. I’ll do whatever you say.”
“You’re serious,” Celia says. “I can’t believe this. The guy in the photos?”
“Was my ex-husband. An ex because I couldn’t give him a baby. There was never anything between us after the divorce. I went there to tell him I was pregnant and to…to prove that it was never my fault, or maybe to get closure or something of the sort. I know what the photos made it look like and I’m sorry, but I had to use those to make a break from Leif. I saw it as my only way out. The only way he’d let me go without a fight.”
“It never occurred to you to tell him the truth? That he would be happy about having a child with the woman he loves?”
My stomach roils. “No,” I say, shaking my head as I wipe tears from my eyes. “He always told me how adamantly against children he was. You have to believe me.”
“Eva is going to lose her fucking mind when I tell her this.”
I sigh. “Don’t tell her. Let me see him first. Where is he?”
She blows out a breath. “He’s in Bethesda, Maryland. I’ll meet you there otherwise, they won’t let you in. How fast can you get there?” I’m already on the computer booking airline tickets when she asks the last question. “You’re really going for shock factor, aren’t you? I don’t know how you were going to keep this secret.”
“I have already booked tickets. We’ll meet you there at five P.M. Please, just let me visit him before you alert every living relative of Luna. I’ve kept the secret this long because it means something to me. I want to protect her. I know I was wrong by keeping her from him and you guys, but I need this to be on my terms. Leif told my mother he wanted a family with me. It’s what spurred this and why I need to make amends. I can’t take back the past, but I can make things right going forward.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Celia says, voice harsh. “Malena?”
“Yeah?”
“Be prepared for the worst. He’s not the same person. He looks like he’s already gone.”
I let out a silent sob, covering my mouth. “I’m so sorry. I’ll see you soon.”
Chapter Seventeen
Malena
I slide Luna’s sleeping body into Celia’s waiting arms. “Your niece,” I say, looking at Celia in her glassy eyes as she runs her hand over Luna’s Leif colored hair. “She has his eyes. The exact same shade.” Leif’s sister has aged since I last saw her. A lot. So much that it pains me to see the severity of the agony she’s endured without my knowledge. Pain I should have been sharing.
Celia slides her finger gently over her cheek. I see her falling in love. “She looks just like him,” she remarks, unwrapping the blanket to look at her tiny fingers and toes. She rewraps her quickly as the hospital waiting room is freezing. Celia shakes her head. “I didn’t believe you. It’s a lot to take in, but there’s no denying this is Leif’s child. He would be so in love with her.” A pang of regret hits me square in the chest. “I’ve arranged for the nurse to take you up to Leif’s room. Go by yourself first. I’ll stay here with her. Okay?” She meets my gaze, like she’s wondering if I’ll take the baby from her.
I nod. “That’s fine. Here’s her diaper bag just in case. She likes it if you hum when she’s fussy,” I say, gazing at my sleeping daughter adoringly. “You’re her aunt, I’m sure you’ll have the touch,” I add. Celia beams down at the baby.
“This means so much. Having a piece of him. Thank you, Malena,” she says, earnestly. “Luna lessens the blow of losing him.”
She talks as if he’s already gone and it’s painful. I haven’t had enough time to digest the severity. I glimpse over my shoulder once more before entering the elevator with the nurse, and Celia begins swaying back and forth with Luna. Luna loves that. She’ll be fine I think to myself as the elevator begins its climb to Leif’s floor. The nurse preps me when we’re outside Leif’s room. When I enter, I’m hit with a gust of warmer air and the typical antiseptic scent that belongs to hospitals. The man in the bed, hooked up to machines isn’t my Leif. Celia was right. He is pale and wasted away to almost nothing.
His lashes flutter as I sit down on the edge of the bed, and take his skeletal hand in mine. The machine that breathes for him is loud and overbearing. Running my thumb across his knuckles, I say, “Sorry I haven’t been by yet.” The pit in my stomach forces the tears to fall. “I didn’t know about the attack. I didn’t know a lot of things, Leif.”
I squeeze his hand and run my other hand across his pallid forehead. “They say they’re taking you off life support because you can’t live without it. I can’t believe that, though.” His hand twitches a bit, but the nurse said that may happen and not to think anything of it. His muscles spasm on their own. I wipe some of my salty grief from my face. “Leif, I came here to say hello and goodbye. I came here to tell you the truth even if you don’t hear me, you deserve for me to say it out loud before you go.”
Another squeeze of my hand and my heart skips. I can see why his family has fought for his life for this long. “I lied to you when I told you I was in love with another man because it was an easy way to let you go. My love for you is so strong that it can’t even be compared to what I felt for Dylan. I visited him to tell him…to tell him…that I was pregnant with your baby. To shove it in his face. I’m sorry you saw the photos and thought something different was going on. I’m sorry I let you believe something else was going on between us. I haven’t seen Dylan since that day. I don’t even know if you got the email I sent. I assumed you did because you never contacted me. Now I see why,” I say, sobbing. “I’ve only ever been in love with you, Leif.”
Leif’s monitor beeps and it startles me into a jump. “We have a daughter and she looks just like you,” I tell him, stroking his face with my own tear-stained fingers. “She has blonde hair and blue eyes like you. She has my lips and ears. I think she has your appetite.” I laugh, a small moment of happiness thinking about Luna’s belches after she feeds. “I wish I got to see you hold her. I wish you could see her. What our love created. It’s the coolest thing in the entire world. She’s a real, live miracle. I think maybe this is why I was granted this miracle,” I whisper, looking at the equipment keeping him alive. “She might be a parting gift from the world.”
I swallow hard, leaning down to press my lips against Leif’s forehead. My touch is as light as a feather. His eyelashes flutter. I kiss each closed eye. “I’m going to make sure she grows up and knows how awesome her daddy is, Leif. Don’t worry. I got this. I’m going to do right by her…by you. I’ll make you proud.”
There’s light music playing, the radio, I realize and it happens to be the song that was on the jukebox at Bobby’s Bar when Leif introduced himself to me. I smile, a sweet memory. The door creaks open and Celia moves into the room with a crying Luna.
“Sorry to interrupt, but I think she’s hungry,” Celia says, eyes apologetic.
I hold out my hands for Luna and she drops the crying baby into my arms. She soothes right away when she smells me. “Meet your daddy, Luna Love,” I coo, bouncing her up and down in my arm, one hand still on Leif.
“I feel like he knows I’m here, Celia,” I say.
She shakes her head. “We all feel the same way. You can’t argue with tests, though. It’s maddening.”
“I wasn’t supposed to be able to have a baby,” I whisper. “We need one more miracle in our corner,” I say. Celia sits in the chair next to me. “One more,” I plead. I set Luna in the crook of his arm and the sight makes me weep for all of the memories she’ll never have with him. Memories I never had with my own father, and ones I did have that are marred by his abandonment. It’s not fair. Life is never fair, I remind myself.
Leaning over, I kiss Leif again, lingering longer this time and grab Luna when I stand up. “Let’s go,” I tell Celia. I hand the baby back now that she’s settled and turn to the lumbering man in bed. Celia closes the door again to give me privacy. Leaning over I whisper into his ear. “Love me, Leif. Love me.”
A tear falls on his face and it almost looks like it belongs to him and that upsets me even further. “I love you. Forever and always.”
I take his hand again, hoping maybe he’ll squeeze it, or a muscle spasm will give me a false, warm feeling. “Come back to me. Luna needs a daddy. Please, come back.”
He doesn’t, though. We leave the hospital with the knowledge that he didn’t hear anything I said. That in a few days what little existence he has left, will be extinguished.
______________
Celia is playing with Luna on the hotel bed, a serious game of peekaboo. I’m wistful as I watch them together and I realize this is something to be thankful for. Family coming together in the face of tragedy. The only family I have left.
“Have they tried to take him off life support?” I ask Celia, cradling the hand that Leif held.
She nods. “A few times. It’s always been disastrous. These past nine months have been the worst of our lives. I think when Monday rolls around we will be relieved that he will finally be at peace. He’d hate that we haven’t let him go yet, but we’re stubborn like that.”
“Can I be there? When he passes?” I ask, fighting back tears.
Celia looks wistfully from me back to the baby. “It would only be fair. You were there when he first started living.”
Closing my eyes, I turn away. “I can’t believe this happened.”
“He killed him,” Celia says like it’s a consolation. “The guy he’s been after all these years. The one he said he’d die trying to kill.” Celia laughs. “Never thought that would be funny, but it is now that it’s coming true.”
It’s not funny, but I guess if that’s how she’s processing who am I to deny her the joke? “I feel like I should have known. Should have felt that something was wrong when he never got in contact with me.”
“Eva took over his personal inbox, but eve
rything SEAL related stayed secure.” Celia states.
I nod. “You guys have hated me all this time.”
She shrugs. “Nothing was what it seems, so it doesn’t matter. Eva is on her way here. We have a room next door, and Mom and Dad are in the room next to ours. We might as well pull the plug tomorrow morning instead of Monday while we’re all here.”
Her no-nonsense talk about the act is jarring and comforting at the same time. They’ve come to terms with this already whereas I’m just starting to understand what will happen. If anyone has fought for Leif, I know his sisters will have put up the best fight in his honor. “If that’s what you want,” I agree. “It’s so much all at once for me.”
She picks up Luna and kisses her belly. “Why the name Luna?” she asks, sliding her gaze to mine.
“Stars,” I say, twisting my ring. “The sky.”
She nods like she understands. “He told us about the ring. I wanted to make sure. I love her name. It’s perfect.” How much did he tell them?
“Thanks,” I say. Eva barges in as we have the door propped open for her impending arrival.
“I cannot believe this,” she shouts, but then puts a hand over her mouth when she sees Luna wince at the loud screech. “Malena, how could you keep her from us?” she seethes out through clenched teeth.
“I had to keep her from him,” I say. It’s the only explanation I need. “To give him a life.”
“Meanwhile, in actuality, he’s been fighting for his life. You should have called us sooner. My God, I’ve missed so much already,” Eva cries, rounding the bed to look at Luna. With a hand on her mouth her eyes water, the same reaction Celia had. “She is his spitting image. Leif looked identical to her as a baby, well, except your features have softened her a bit, made her pretty,” Eva amends. “Let me hold her.”
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