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Rafael climbed onto the hotel bed and stretched out. It had been a long day. He’d been at a conference in Denver all week and attended seminars that kept him busy most days, and had signed up for a variety of evening activities as well. But tonight he had a break--nothing until tomorrow morning. Tomorrow was Friday, the last day of the conference, and then he’d be on his way home on Saturday.
Closing his eyes, his thoughts drifted quickly to Amanda. They’d managed to touch base each day he’d been gone, but he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. He missed her, and he knew he missed her more because he was talking to her every day. They’d fallen into a pattern at home of him coming over most of the evenings she didn’t work. Normally, he’d be feeding the baby some cereal or sweet potatoes right about now while Amanda got Jesse ready for the next day. He smiled to himself, thinking of the four-year old running around the apartment wet from her shower with her Paw Patrol pajamas sticking to her. She’d be singing, “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”, even though she didn’t know all the words. Ever since he took her to see The Lion King, she’d been singing the soundtrack nonstop. He’d bought her the soundtrack, thinking it would help, but all it did was feed her more mispronounced lyrics. So he lay here now, with imaginary Jesse singing, “Tan You Feel da Wove Tonight….”, smiling and feeling a happy warmth in his chest. If he was honest with himself, he missed the girls almost as much as he missed Amanda. They’d become a big part of his life these days, too.
He didn’t know when he’d changed, when he’d become the kind of guy who thought four year olds singing off-key was adorable and looked forward to watching a baby try new foods. He was chuckling softly to himself when his phone rang. Amanda, it said.
“Hey honey,” he answered, a smile automatically on his face.
“It’s not your honey, Wafi-Taffy! It’s me, Jesse!”
He grinned. “Well hello, Jesse!” he replied. “How are you tonight?”
“I’m good,” she answered. “I just miss you. Momma said I could call you and say hello ‘cause I misseded you so much.”
That happy warmth filled his chest again. “That’s so nice to hear, Jesse. I miss you too.”
“Are you gonna be home soon? Billie misses you too. She won’t eat her baby food for Momma wike she does for you.”
“I’m coming home on Saturday. Billie’s not eating?” Amanda hadn’t mentioned any problems when he spoke with her the night before.
“She eats it. Momma says she wikes it better wif you is all.” He heard her fumble with the phone. “Hey Wafi, are you gonna bwing your girls here some pwesents? We wike pwesents! I always wanted some pwesents from...where you at again?”
He laughed. “Denver, honey. I’m in Denver.”
“Yeah!” she exclaimed. “I always wanted stuff from Denvuh! Hey--wait, Momma--stop, I just talkin’ to him--” He heard Amanda wrestling the phone away and a second later, his girlfriend came on the line. “I swear she did NOT tell me she was hitting you up for presents!”
“She’s good,” he grinned. “Besides, it’s already been done. Purchases for all of my girls, already made.” He could hear Jesse arguing in the background, still wanting the phone back.
“Well, thank you, but you know that’s not necessary--” he heard more scuffling--”She wants to say goodbye to you. Call me tonight?”
“I will,” he promised, hoping she heard before the phone changed hands and once again, Jesse said, “Hello, Wafi-Taffy, are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m here, Jesse,” he confirmed, and stretched back out on the bed.
“Otay. Well I just wanna say goodnight to you. I wove you, Untle Wafi! See you Saturday! Bwing pwesents, tay?”
His voice caught in his throat at her little proclamation, and he felt his eyes tear up. “I love you too, Jesse. Sleep well and I’ll see you soon.”
The phone clicked off and he lay it down on the nightstand.
He originally had put time and energy into a relationship with Jesse because she was his girlfriend’s kid, and to be honest, he wanted her to like him so that Amanda would like him more. But over time, he’d come to really enjoy being around both of the girls. Buying them souvenirs had been one of the first things he had done. He bought Jesse a book and the stuffed animal that went with it. But unlike before, he put time into it, thinking about what Jesse seemed to enjoy. He’d spent an hour in the bookstore, thumbing through a variety of children’s books, before settling on Olivia, a book about a little female pig who loved the arts. Dancing, singing, painting...and he got the little stuffed Olivia pig to go with it. He knew she’d love it, and he was confident in his choice. But he was realizing now, he was confident because he knew Jesse’s personality; he cared about the little girl as her own independent person. And he was suddenly realizing that, separate from Amanda, he cared about her kids. In fact, he loved them.
In his own childhood, he’d found love and peace in his grandparents’ home. Juan and Catalina Diaz adored their grandson and made sure he knew it, and he had. He’d often wondered if he would have made it through his childhood without them, particularly his abuelita. On many occasions, Rafael had found himself fleeing his own home for the safety of the home of his grandparents, and more often than not, he was alone. He knew his parents lived passionately, but he’d come to understand it was at the cost of his own safety, his security.
It was a warm summer night, and Mami was saying goodnight to their neighbors, the Garcias, who lived down the block. Rafael liked them. Senor Garcia was funny, and Senora smiled a lot and smelled good. Plus they had a little boy, Pedro, who always had candy and shared it with Rafael.
“Get in here, Mami.” Miguel was leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, holding what was left of the bottle of tequila the four adults had been sharing. Rafael tried to focus on what was left of his homework. He wanted to go to his room before it started, but Papi was in the way. He hated it when they drank like this--things always got bad.
Lucia swayed over to him, a teasing smile on her face. “Eh, Papi? What do you want?” She reached up to stroke his shoulder, but he grabbed her arm. Rafael continued to work on his math. Eight times seven…
Miguel’s face was inches from hers. “Puta,” he mocked, “Did you think I wasn’t going to see you?”
The slap was loud, and Lucia screamed. Rafael jumped up, out of habit as much as fear. “Papi!” He ran to them and tried to maneuver his eight-year old body in between the two wrestling adults. Miguel had a hand around Lucia’s neck, and she was swinging her arms quickly, trying to get him off.
Miguel used his free hand to grab Rafael’s shirt and toss him to the floor. Keeping one hand around Lucia’s neck, he leaned toward his son. “Maricon!” he sneered. “Get out of here, bastardo!”
Unsure of what to do, Rafael looked at his mother with wide eyes. She met his gaze with a blank look, saying nothing. She wasn’t fighting anymore.
“Get out,” Miguel hissed. Rafael pulled himself up and, once on his feet, he began to run. Out of the house and into the night, to his abuelita’s. It was the first time he had fled on his own, but it wouldn’t be the last.
Staring at the ceiling, he thought about his parents. His mother had changed over time, grown up, and they had a decent relationship now, he thought. He knew some people assumed that because he was a single man in his mid-forties who saw his mother weekly, that he was a momma’s boy. Considering how little he’d actually relied on Lucia in his lifetime, he was okay with that comically incorrect assumption. In some odd ways, they had grown up together. He started law school at the same time that she started college--both of them attending on scholarship, both working hard at part time jobs to pay for whatever the scholarships couldn’t. The anger and hurt he had felt toward her as a child, and particularly as a teen, weren’t as intense anymore. He felt like he understood her more now, understood a little better why she hadn’t been able to leave his papi. He used to believe it was because she loved his papi more than him. Now he understood that she just had trouble loving herself.
Miguel had died in Rafael’s junior year of college, and Rafael had taken a semester off to help Lucia care for him in his last weeks. He had had a stroke due in part to his alcoholism, and never woke up. He could still picture his mami sitting by the hospital bed, holding Miguel’s hands and praying for healing. He could still hear her asking him over and over, “What should we do, Rafi? The doctors say let him go, but I don’t know what to do...mijo, tell me what to do.” And he hadn’t been able to. Back then, he told himself that where there’s life, there’s hope. But now? If he was honest with himself, part of him had allowed his father to languish as a punishment. He locked him in a prison of his own body and wouldn’t release him.
Enter Drew Householder.
He still couldn’t explain why he did what he did, even to himself, other than he had come to believe that nobody should be trapped in a prison like that, especially an innocent baby. He and Amanda had never talked about it, what he had done and why he had left. She’d never asked him for details. She knew he had nightmares about it; he’d had two on different nights when she’d stayed over. But other than giving her vague information about those, they hadn’t discussed it. Sometimes he wondered how she trusted him around Billie, because he would understand any parent who didn’t trust him around their kids. But she did and without exception. Because of that, he had developed a wonderful relationship with her baby. He took great delight in Billie’s animated expressions, and loved to hear her giggle. He had confidence with her in a way he’d never had with a child before, and he could admit to himself that he actually loved every minute he spent with her. Feeding her, holding her, and laughing with her brought him a new kind of happiness.
As he thought about how his parents had contributed to who he was today, and how his life had led him to the Rollins’, he found himself hoping that he would be the kind of role model that Amanda would be proud to have in her daughters’ lives. Any fool would know Miguel was a nightmare as a father, but how could he ensure that he was any better? His abuelo had died when Rafael was nine, and it wasn’t like el barrio was full of great dads he could learn from. Al made time for Billie, a few days a month right now, but Declan’s contact with Jesse had been abysmally slight. If a little girl tells you that she loves you, does that create a responsibility for you to treat her well, to love her back?
Pondering that question, Rafael closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.
***
“Mello?” His phone was loud and startled him out of a nap he didn’t know he was taking.
He could practically hear her smile on the other end. “Hey baby. You’re sleeping already?”
He exhaled heavily and rolled over. “What time is it? I must’ve drifted off.”
“Ten-thirty here...so you’re, what? Two hours behind?”
“Hmph,” he grunted, rubbing his eyes. “Yeah.”
He heard her chuckle. “You want me to let you go?”
“No,” he said quickly. He’d missed her too much. “I’m here. I’m good. Tell me how your day was, querida.”
She launched into a story about taking down two fraternity brothers for an attempted rape they’d been investigating, and Rafael found himself getting lost in the warmth of her voice. He could imagine it being a typical night, the two of them curled together on the couch with the TV on, and her telling the story. He’d be stroking her hair, nuzzling against her neck, and she’d giggle like she always did…
“And then Fin said, ‘Are you sure Carisi’s enough to satisfy you while Barba’s gone? I can join in too’ but I told him I have my limits.”
“What was that?” He suddenly realized he’d been lost again and completely missed what she was telling him.
“Y’know, for somebody who made their livelihood on the details, you’re an awfully big daydreamer,” she teased. “You’re exhausted, aren’t you, baby?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Plus, I’ve just been thinking about some stuff.”
“Like what?”
He sighed. “Like your kids.” Hesitating for a moment, he finally said, “Jesse told me she loves me.”
Amanda laughed. “Are you feeling pressure, Barba? I hate to break this to you, but Jesse also loves her princess panties.”
He snorted. “I know that, Amanda. But I’ve just been thinking about it...you know my experience around kids has been limited. And I didn’t have the best role models in the parenting department...I just...I don’t know, I guess I just want to do right by them. I know I’m not the dad, I’m just the boyfriend---”
“Hey,” she interrupted softly. “Rafa, you’ve done more with and for her than her own father has. And maybe I’m teasing you because I’m worried you’ll psyche yourself out, convince yourself my girls are too much...but you’re not only the best thing to come into my life in awhile. You’re also the best thing to happen in theirs, too.”
He felt his eyes well as his chest warmed again. “‘Manda…”
“I know what it’s like to be a little girl growing up with a daddy she can’t count on,” she continued. “But with you around, I’m learning what it must be like to have a daddy who hangs around and plays with you, or reads with you, or sings and laughs with you. Do you know she puts on that damn tiara and those glitter shoes every afternoon and pretends she’s onstage singing something from The Lion King? As much as I wanna kill you for it, it’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. You’ve given Jesse a bigger gift than almost anyone else in her life. You’ve given her your time and attention. Of course she loves you.”
He wiped the tears on his cheeks and chuckled wetly. “I don’t know, it’s hard to beat princess panties.”
“Well,” she teased, “they ARE princess panties. It’s good to know when you’re outranked.” They laughed together quietly, until she said, “I love you, Rafael. More than all the princess panties in the world.”
“Wow,” he replied, still chuckling. That’s quite a statement.”
“You’re quite a man.”
For a second, he thought of the many men she’d been with just in the years he’d known her, and he decided to take that as a compliment. “If you’d like, I’d be happy to share with you what a man I am when I get back on Saturday. If you have the time, that is…”
“I would love that, but you’re going to have to demonstrate your manliness here, at my place, with the volume on low. My sitter is out of town this weekend. But there’s a lock on the bedroom door that’s excellent at keeping little wanderers out.”
“I don’t know if I should be excited to see the girls or disappointed to lower my volume,” he joked. “Although if I have to lower my volume, I guess you have to also, and we both know who’s the louder one.”
Now she snorted. “I would think that would make you pleased. You know, as evidence of your prowess or something. It’s not my fault you eat me so well.”
He felt his cheeks turn hot. “If you weren’t so delicious--”
He heard his stomach growl at that very moment, and apparently Amanda heard it too because she burst into laughter. “Maybe you should get some dinner, my manly man. Sounds like you really ARE hungry!”
“Amanda,” he replied, “I love you, honey.”
“I love you too, baby. Talk tomorrow?”
“You got it.”
***
The plane was late. He had expected to be in around two p.m. EST, but then he got held up by storms, and by the time they landed at JFK it was after seven in the evening.
“Don’t you dare try to bring the girls out in that,” he’d told her earlier when he found out about the weather and the delays. She had initially told him they were going to meet him at the airport and take him to a late lunch. He had thought they missed him too, but wasn’t sure until she told him that. Nobody hauls two kids under five to the airport to pick someone up unless they REALLY missed them, he told himself. But he couldn’t in good conscience not discourage it once he found out about the weather.
“Just get here when you get here,” she had told him on their last call. “I don’t care what time it is. You can do your laundry here if you need to. I just want you home.”
He thought about how good that sounded. Home. Somebody wanted him home. Somebody missed him. He’d agreed, and now he was trying to rush to baggage claim so he could get his stuff and get on his way--
He’d watched the carousel go around and around without his luggage until the crowd standing around was minimal, and so were the bags that were left. Of course he had packed presents in his luggage and not his carryon. And for the first time in forever, he found himself worried more about gifts than the designer clothes in the luggage. He filed a report and finally headed to the sidewalk to hail a taxi.
It was nearly nine in the evening when he dug his key out of his pocket and unlocked the door.
“WAFI!” Jesse squealed as he lugged himself through the entryway, dragging his carryon behind him. She ran up to him and threw her arms around his hips, squealing, “Wafi-Taffy! Wafi-Taffy! I misseded you, my wonderful Wafi! I’m so glad you’re HOME!”
He dropped the carryon and his messenger bag and wrapped his arms around the little girl, scooping her up. “I missed you too, Jesse! A whole, whole lot!” Looking out from the little arm wrapped around him, he saw Amanda standing by the couch, smiling broadly. He carried Jesse over to her, then leaned in to kiss her. “I missed you too, Momma.”
She giggled and kissed him gently, but pulled back upon hearing the distressed cries coming from down the hall. “She’s heard your voice,” Amanda told him. “She’s missed her Raffy-Taffy too!”
Rafael sat down in the recliner, pulling Jesse into his lap. “Jesse, I have to tell you something. Somehow, I lost my suitcase. It had everyone’s presents in it. Hopefully they’ll find it soon, but I don’t have a present for you tonight.”
Jesse frowned. “Bummer,” she said, “but I gotted YOU something. Wanna see?”
He looked at her, puzzled. “You got ME something?” he asked as Amanda appeared with a sleepy Billie. “Hi, sweetheart,” he cooed at her, and the baby’s eyes grew wide, then a smile covered her face and she reached for him. “It’s so good to see you,” he told her, and she giggled, then pressed an open mouth to his cheek.
“That’s her new thing,” Amanda explained. “Open mouth baby kisses. Jesse did it too. Kids are weird.”
“Here it is!” Jesse exclaimed as she handed him a set of colorful markers. “These are just for you!”
“Thank you,” he said, perplexed and turning to Amanda for an explanation.
“She said it must be boring to always use the same color, and that your students would like it if you used other colors.”
He couldn’t help but grin. “I see.”
“Yeah!” Jesse said. “You can give dem WOTS of different colors to make dem happy! Wike you could use wed, or blue, or gween. Or maybe pink. But you can use the purple for my momma ‘cause dat’s her favorite, ‘member?”
“Yes I do,” he nodded. “Thanks, Jess. And hopefully my suitcase will be here soon so I can give you your present.”
“You lost your suitcase?” Amanda asked, going to the kitchen and pulling out a couple of beers.
“ I didn’t lose my suitcase,” he corrected her.
Amanda passed him a beer as he told his story, and Billie began to snooze in his arms. Jesse curled up with her mother and Rafael realized he felt the most relaxed, the most content he had felt in ages. He was home, and there really was no other place like it.