The Paper Swan(97)

“What are you doing?” I didn’t know what he was playing at, but it made me uncomfortable.

“Catching a ride.”

Ugh. He was impossible.

“I got Sierra started on her homework,” he said. “She has a math test tomorrow.”

I felt a pang of jealousy. The two of them bonding. Every day after school. I had to work around the prison schedule, which meant I got home late. When Sierra first started school, I had a babysitter pick her up and cover the gap. It didn’t last long. Sierra was her own person—stubborn and fiercely independent. Just like her father. I could relate to MaMaLu’s exasperation now.

Estebandido! she used to shout.

When our bus arrived, Damian glowered at a young man, until he got up and offered me his seat. I settled the bags on my lap as I squeezed in between a mother doing her toddler’s hair, and a man holding a glossy red rooster. We’d made six totes in stylish dark-red leather with camel-colored straps that I still had to stamp with my standard logo: WAM!, in memory of Warren, Adriana and MaMaLu. The lady beside me left the comb sticking out of her daughter’s hair to run her hands appreciatively over the hand crafted bags. Damian swayed over me, holding on to the overhead bars through the bumpy ride to Paza del Mar. Most of the passengers got off at the main square. As we left the storefronts and cafes and art vendors behind, Damian took the seat across from me.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he replied. “Just sitting here thinking how far you’ve come, and I’m overwhelmed with how much I love you.”

He stared out the window and my entire world flipped over as the bus rattled on. I looked down at myself and saw a dull, plain version of the person I’d been. I hadn’t had a pedicure in years. My toes were sticking out of a pair of low-heeled sandals that hadn’t made the cut when I’d first designed them. The straps were too bulky, but the soles were soft and durable, so I’d decided to keep them. My thick, waist-long hair was tied back in a careless braid, and I wore a breezy tiered skirt with a crop top. I was a far cry from the fashionista he’d abducted. I wished I could see myself through his eyes. Then again, Damian never looked at me with his eyes. He looked at me with his soul.

I didn’t say anything when he got off the bus with me. He took the bags from my hands and carried them up the stairs to my condo.

“You want to . . . come in?” I asked when he turned to leave. I didn’t want him to go even though a part of me was chanting: don’t let him in, don’t let him in, don’t let him in.

“When you mean it, güerita.” He was gone before I could say anything.

“Was that Bandido?” asked Sierra when I opened the door.

“Yes. And you need to stop calling him that.”

“Bandido,” she repeated.

“Ban-Dad-o.” She mulled over the word as she bent over her books.

“Dad.” She stopped what she was doing and stared off into the distance. Then she picked up her pen and nodded.

“Dad,” she said softly, tasting the word in her mouth again.

For the second time that day, my entire world flipped over.

Was I wrong to shut Damian out? Was I keeping us from being one big, happy family? I didn’t have the answers. All I knew was that loving him had shattered me. I would never be able to piece myself together a second time if I let him break me again.





DINNER AT CASA PALOMA HAD always been served in the courtyard. I didn’t remember when my mother had been there, but the traditions she’d set carried on long after she was gone. My mother had always preferred dining under an open sky. I remembered the last time my father and I had dined there, surrounded by fragrant trees and soft, twinkling lights.

It was odd returning as a guest now, seeing my childhood home after all these years. The last time I had come to see Damian, I hadn’t stopped to admire its beauty—the tall ceilings that had echoed with our laughter, the kitchen where MaMaLu had made us sweet potato flautas. The renovations had given the mansion a new life, but its bones were still the same. I breathed in the nostalgia of another time as I walked through the house. No amount of paint or sanding could strip away the smell of Casa Paloma. It was in my soul.

“Damian?” I popped my head into the dining room. The table was now a sleek affair in dark wood, but the hutch that Damian used to hide in was still there.

“Sierra?” I followed the sound of her laughter outside, and found them sprawled out under a tree—father and daughter, looking up at the clouds.