The girl. Maria. Maria Murphy Adams.

My girl.

It was impossible not to fall for her almost immediately. That first day at the nearby diner, watching her nibble at her grilled cheese sandwich, my heart squeezed. Over the top of us, Connie squawked on and on about her time in Florida. About the men she’d dated, about her various jobs at Orlando dive bars. But all the while, I interjected, asking Maria questions. About school. About her friends. It felt strange, bizarre that I’d brought this entire brain into the world, brimming in that head of hers. She answered me playfully, her eyes filled with light. Something about them reminded me of Hank, when he’d been my older, yet still kid, brother. Mischievous. Always alight with ideas.

That first night Connie showed up, I dropped them off at a nearby hotel and paid the bill. As Maria fell into bed, I paused at the door, looking at Connie with guarded eyes.

“So. I take it you came all this way for money, didn’t you?” I said to her.

“Well, that simplifies things a bit too much, doesn’t it?” Connie said, her voice burning with a kind of vitriol. “Seems to me you rather liked meeting your daughter today.”

“I want you guys to stay for a while,” I told her, not even sure where these words came from. In the back of my mind, I felt sure that if I just tossed Connie some cash, she and Maria would be out of my life for good.

“Ah. So you really did like her, huh? She’s a charmer, isn’t she?” Connie said, gesturing with a thumb toward Maria. It looked like she was pointing at a specimen, something she’d picked up from the store. Leaning further toward me, she whispered, “If you want to, you can stay over. It’s been six years, Wesley. Want to see if we still have that old chemistry?”

Frankly, I didn’t remember a single flicker of chemistry between us, and I certainly didn’t feel it now. I burned to tell her this. To put her in her place. But instead, I just shook my head, stepping back. Remy’s eyes flashed in my mind. I so yearned to fall into bed alongside her. To whisper to her the events of the day.

“Oh, that’s right. You’ve got that girlfriend, don’t you?” Connie said, bringing her arms across her chest.

“Fiancée,” I corrected her, telling the lie that my father had informed her.

“Right. So she’s the one who’s going to get that partnership money. She and your new baby boy.” Connie’s eyes sparkled with jealousy. It was a rage I recognized. One that burned after years of being on the wrong end of the poverty line. My partnership money had shifted me far from that reality, making it a mere memory. But people like Connie, they existed across the entire continent. They’d been my people, if only briefly.

“You know I’m prepared to help you with Maria any way I can,” I began.

“But you want to dismiss us, don't you?” Connie demanded, drawing herself tall. “You want to get rid of us from your perfect little Bay Area existence and become just like your daddy, don’t you? Complete with your pretty little wife and your pretty little house and your pretty little son.”

Connie couldn’t have been further from the truth. At least, that’s how I’d started out my day—wanting to run as far away from the concept of fatherhood as I could. But I dragged my gaze to the corner of the room, watching as Maria’s breath rose and fell. With this image, I felt I could already see my baby, curling in Remy’s arms, sleeping. I imagined us whispering over the top of his head, not wanting to wake him. I imagined the love that so often sizzled between Rem and I—when we weren’t fighting—becoming even stronger in the wake of the baby.

“Do you think I can see her this week?” I asked, ignoring Connie’s anger. “Get to know her. Think about what this means.”

Connie must have known this would give her more time to increase how much money she could leech out of me. But in this moment, I didn’t give a fuck. All I wanted was to know Maria. To find solace in the fact that I’d created a human who wasn’t a mess, who wasn’t selfish, who was genuinely pure and eager and wide-eyed. It seemed to negate all the darkness within me.

Maria and I spent nearly every day together over the next several—hitting up mini golf courses, licking ice cream cones, going to the ocean. I learned that Connie still hadn’t put her into swim lessons—something that filled me with a strange, paternal rage—and I eased us into the water on the bay, holding onto her and teaching her to kick.

As she lay there in the water, floating and gazing up at the bright blue—the same exact color of Hank’s eyes—I asked her what she wanted to call me. So far, she hadn’t uttered my name. Nor had she called me “Dad.”

“I don’t know,” she said, sounding contemplative. As if this were a difficult, nuanced question, unanswerable from Google or an encyclopedia. One that required years of thought. “Mom says that you’re my father. Right?”

“That’s right,” I told her. “What do your friends call their fathers?”

“I guess they call them Dad. Or Daddy,” Maria said. The water frothed around her cheeks, making her look daydreamy. “I always liked Papa, though. That’s what my friend Carine calls her father. They’re from France.”

“Papa?” I said, chuckling. I whirled her around in the water, my heart feeling light, giddy. “Do you want to call me that?”

“Yes,” she said, sounding certain. “You’re my Papa.”

Suddenly, she burst up from the water, wrapping her thin arms around my neck. She pressed herself tightly, quivering in the chilly waves. I recognized, in that moment, that I had been a hollow form in her life, all this time. That while her friends had fathers, daddies, papas, she’d had nothing but shrill Connie. Connie, who’d probably told her rueful things about me, before dragging her across the continent to meet me.

In fact, Maria more or less affirmed this.

“She said you would be mean, but that I had to be nice to you so that we could get money,” she whispered, wiping her hands over her eyes as we eased onto the sand. “But I don’t think you’re mean, Papa. I think Mommy’s wrong.”

That night, after dropping Maria off at the hotel, I leaped onto my bike and sped toward the Mission. I felt my thoughts dribbling out behind me, uncertain, no longer framed with the opinions I’d constructed throughout so much of my life. Fatherhood. Being Maria’s “Papa.” It suited me. I felt a strange sense of purpose coursing through me.

But Jesus, how could I explain this to Remy? I hadn’t spoken to her in the four days since I’d sped away from her movie set, so centered on ruining us. My rage had spun out of control. Each step away from her had shoved a wedge deeper into our quasi-relationship. How to fix it? How to explain to her that perhaps fatherhood was something I wanted to give a try?

But of course, I still simmered with the knowledge of who I was, or what I was capable of. Lurching my bike against the curb near Station to Station, I scrubbed my fingers through my hair, demanding question after question of myself. Would I abandon Remy and our kid? Would I never see Maria again after giving her and Connie the cash? Would I really never hear her say “Papa” again—or teach her or my son to swim? Would I be the empty hole in these children’s lives for good?

Station to Station Pub was popping, music spitting out of the outdoor speakers. Trudging toward it, I set my jaw, knowing I needed to approach Quintin carefully. Throughout Remy’s and my relationship, we’d been on no-speaking terms frequently, with Quintin tossing back and forth between us. “It fucking sucks, man,” Quintin had said to me, of that situation. But I knew he loved us both without hesitation. That he’d do anything for us. Including blast a fist across my face, if necessary.

As I approached the bar, Quintin trudged outside, digging his hand into his back pocket for a pack of smokes. Immediately, his fox eyes caught me. I stepped back, recognizing his look was like a dagger.

“Q. Hey,” I said.

“So you came. For the wrap party,” Quintin said, tilting his head. “Rem definitely didn’t think you’d make it. And frankly, I don’t know that you’re welcome.”

Shit. The wrap party. My eyes turned to the window of the bar, watching as Gwen and Sam tossed back brimming shots, crying out to the bartender for another round. In the corner, Remy sat alongside Eric, the cameraman. I saw her in profile—that swoop of her nose, with its feminine point, her eyes alight, showing a brimming, inner creativity. Her hair swam in curls down her back, and her hands were stretched over her belly, protective. Immediately, I felt smacked with the reality of what I’d done. I’d abandoned her, swimming in my own fears and insecurities. Fuck.

“I just want to talk to her,” I said, covering up the fact that I hadn’t remembered the party.

“I really don’t think it’s a good idea, man,” Quintin said, his voice firm. “Seriously. Normally, I don’t want to get in the middle of you guys. But—she thinks you don’t give a shit about the only two things she cares about. This film and that baby. Not sure you can come back from that easily. And certainly I don't think you should try tonight.” Quintin placed the cigarette between his lips, clicking open a lighter and puffing at it. “She’s having a good time tonight, man. Trying to forget you. Maybe you should just let her, you know?”

“Quintin, some stuff has changed.” I took a step toward him. My throat filled with adrenaline. I wanted to tear through the bar and grab Remy by the shoulders. To tell her how fucking confused I was.

But as I spoke, Remy’s face flashed toward me. Blinking wildly, she churned from the stool and sped toward the door. Quintin grunted to himself. “Jesus Christ, here we go.”

She stormed from the bar, her nostrils flaring. She articulated wildly. “What the fuck are you doing here, Wesley?”

I stepped forward, splaying out my fingers. Her anger made a familiar rage of my own perk up. But I tried to stamp it out, reminding myself of what really mattered. Telling her about Maria. Helping her understand.

“Wesley, I haven’t heard from you in days,” Remy sputtered. She whipped her finger through the air, pointing it. “And now you’re just going to come in here and ruin one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time? No. I don’t fucking think so.”

“Remy, I really need to talk to you,” I began, shaking my head.

“Well, you should have thought about that before you brought your barreling ignorance and arrogance and fucking assholery to my movie set,” Remy continued. “If you want to talk to me, make an appointment. We’re contractual partners. Think of this as a business transaction, and nothing more. It never was anything else, anyway.”

Her words burned like a slap. Quintin darted forward, drawing a line between us. His chest grew firm before me. Spewing cigarette smoke as he spoke, he muttered, “Listen man, as I said. Tonight’s not a good night, OK? Take the hint. Get lost.”

Inside, the cast and crew turned their eyes toward us, watching the chaos. Remy continued to steam. Tears coursed down her cheeks, which were blotchy, red. I remembered the way she’d cooed into my ear, weeks before, as I’d wrapped my arms around her pregnant form. “I wish we could like each other this much all the time,” she’d said. I’d never felt anything ring truer in my life.

“All right. Fuck it,” I said, unable to halt the confusion, spinning in my stomach. “Fuck it, Remy. I’ll leave you the hell alone. For now. But Jesus, I really have to talk to you—”

“Leave. Me. Alone,” Remy said, scowling. She placed her hands on her stomach, putting up a boundary between my son and me. It felt too similar to the boundary between Maria and me. A boundary of six years and an entire continent. Something I was trying to stamp out, each minute I spent with her. But there was already such a chasm.

I lurched back, swept my leg over my motorbike, and sped back toward Connie’s hotel. The wind whipped through my hair, casting it across my bearded cheeks and the nape of my neck. Rain spat against me as I warped through the darkness.

I knocked and waited for a few minutes before Connie appeared, dressed in a light pink robe. She’d removed much of her makeup and looked almost kind, pleasant—just a country girl, with her hair tied up in a bun. “What the hell is going on?” she asked me, her voice harsh. “Maria’s asleep, and you know that. You’re going to wake her up. And then what? Tell her you’re going to take her out in the middle of the night?”

I pressed my hand against the edge of the doorframe and felt words froth from my mouth. “Listen. I’ll give you any amount of money you want. I just don’t want to lose Maria, OK? We’ve already lost so much time.”

Connie placed her hand along my upper bicep, trying to draw me closer to her. My heart burst with emotion. But I stepped, shaking my head. “Please. Don’t.”

“Baby, you’re upset,” Connie whispered, bringing her finger to my neck and feeling at the thick beard, tracing my face. “What is that fiancée doing to you to make you so upset?”

“She’s not—she’s not my fiancée,” I mumbled, drawing my eyes toward the far edge of the hallway. “Everything’s just a fucking lie, Connie. Went down to Station Pub just now and saw her and… I just don’t know how to tell her about Maria. About any of this. She didn’t sign up for this.”

“You’re saying we’re ruining your life, are you?” Connie asked, her voice growing taut. “You’re saying that little Maria back there is going to rip through your San Francisco bubble—”

“No! I’m just saying… It was a contract, Connie.” There was nowhere else to go. No one to speak to. No way to vent. I could barely think straight, see straight. Remy had blurred everything for me. Or perhaps I had.

“A contract?” Connie asked me, her eyebrows lowering over her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I told her I’d pay her to have my kid. But now, it’s all this big, fucking mess—what with Maria coming, and me not knowing what to do or what to tell her. But goddammit, I love her. I love her, Connie. And now—”

“Love, huh?” Connie said, her eyes sizzling. “You mean you made some poor woman sign a contract saying you’d pay her to have your kid—”

“Dad needed an heir to the fortune,” I said. Suddenly, I couldn’t imagine why on earth I’d come all the way here to tell her this. Had I really thought Connie would give me any kind of closure? Had I really thought she would deliver the next steps? Just a country, backwoods girl from Florida. Just another girl on the road, when all I’d wanted was Remy—the only girl fiery enough to run circles around me, both mentally and physically. To put me in my place.

I felt I saw it so clearly now. That I needed to explain to Remy that if I had to choose between giving her and our baby up and the open road, I had to choose her and the baby. All the years I’d struggled, lost, a vagabond, they could finally come to an end now. If it wasn’t too late.

“I just want to make sure everything’s understood,” I began, my eyes drawing back to Connie’s. “I want Maria and my son to know one another. I want Remy to be—Well, the only woman in my life—”

“I ain’t your psychologist, Wesley,” Connie said, smacking her hand against her thigh. It shook slightly. “I’m just here to make sure my daughter gets what’s coming to her. And me, too. I know your type. You’re apt to forget about one person as soon as another comes your way.”

“Not this time,” I began, making my hand into a fist.

But Connie reacted too quickly, her rage cutting the air between us.

“Save it,” Connie said. She shoved the door closed in my face, right up against my nose. I leaned my forehead, so heavy, against it, letting out a deep sigh. My heart jolted against my ribcage. For the first time in my life, I felt wayward, lost—in a way I hadn’t chosen. I wanted to be Maria’s father. I was finally strong enough to be a good partner to Remy. But Remy’s anger was a force of nature, something I felt sure was a different breed this time around. It wasn’t spitting banter at the taco place. It spoke of years of hurt and confusion. I wasn’t sure if I could make it right.