Holland

I couldn’t just leave. Seeing her for those few seconds lit a part of my heart that has been dark for so long. I needed to touch her, smell her, and feel her warmth close to me to believe she was real.

While King comforted her, I slipped into the bedroom next to Juliette’s and tiptoed back in when he went looking for me.

She is already asleep, and since she can’t hear, I’m able to sit in a chair behind her and watch her for a few minutes, but I can’t stand it. I press my knee into the mattress, and the movement wakes her. She rolls over and I freeze. She gazes at me for a few seconds, and just when I’m sure she’s going to yell for her daddy, she reaches out her chubby little arms, inviting me closer. She’s seen me in pictures and on video. I’m not a complete stranger. Our hearts and souls know one another. She lived inside of me, she kicked and grew, and she felt my love for her.

I crawl closer, and she takes my hand and rolls back to her side until we are spooning. She fits perfectly in the curve of my body. She feels like home. I bury my face in her hair and breathe her in, and she wiggles closer to me. Lord, I’m in heaven with her in my arms again. The planets align and the stars are all in their proper place in the sky. Every molecule of my body relaxes when I melt against her. The exhaustion and worry of three long years without her falls away, and a peace I have never known blankets us both.

Her breathing is slow and regular, her grip on my hand relaxes, and the steady beat of her tiny heart lulls me to sleep.

Before I even open my eyes in the morning, I feel the calm in my soul. I slide my hand across the sheet, half asleep, in search of her, but find a cool, empty pillow instead. When I jerk awake and sit straight up in bed, I’m face to face with a wild-haired three-year-old sitting on her knees in soft pink fleece pajamas, watching me intently. She raises her hand to wave hello, and I do the same and smile. She smiles back.

I don’t know what to do now. I have no way to communicate with her. I don’t know sign language, and I have no idea if she reads lips. Do deaf children read lips?

Juliette touches my lips with the tip of her finger, as if to answer my question.

“Do you read lips?”

She nods her head up and down and holds out her fingers as if to say just a little. Well that’s something.

“Do you know who I am?”

She nods again, and I scramble to think of a way she can respond other than nodding. She’s too young to text back and forth with. There’s an app for everything. There must be an app for this. I sit up to retrieve my phone from my back pocket, and she surprises me by crawling into my lap.

“Oh . . .” My arms move to make way for her, and she snuggles in, pulling the comforter around us both. It’s sort of strange that she’s so comfortable having a semi stranger in her bed. King has done a good job familiarizing her with me.

When she’s settled, I hold my phone in front of us both and search for some sort of app that helps the hearing and deaf communicate, and voilà, there it is. She recognizes the app’s logo and turns to smile up at me. I pause and look into her eager eyes until she returns her attention to the phone and impatiently taps the screen, but suddenly I realize that I don’t need an app to say what I want to say. I turn her in my lap and point to myself and cross my arms over my chest, and then I point to her.

Juliette’s eyes light up like the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. She repeats the sign and throws her arms around my neck in a long overdue embrace.

I hold her so tightly that I can’t believe she doesn’t fuss. The emotions I’ve been holding back for so long come rushing to the surface, and I begin to cry. My shoulders shake, and she turns around and places her hands on my wet cheeks. When I open my eyes, her face is full of concern, and I watch as she flicks her index finger up, raising her eyebrows. She’s signing something, so I search the bed for my phone to learn what she’s just said. I wish I knew how to tell her that these are happy tears. She finds the phone first, though, and scrolls until she finds a picture of a woman shrugging her shoulders in question and turns the phone to show me she is confused.

Explaining via sign language that I’m overwhelmed with happiness because I didn’t ever think this day would come seems too difficult, so I just smile and sign I love you, I love you, I love you until I can’t sign anymore because my hands are full of her.

“Ahem.”

King is standing just inside the bedroom door, watching us with tears in his eyes.

Good.

Asshole.

“I can help you if you’d like.”

Juliette notices my rigidity and turns to see what I’m looking at. When she sees her daddy, she leaps off the bed and into his arms, taking my heart with her. The pain her reaction causes me is unintentional, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less, and it’s totally not her fault—it’s his. He is the monster I used to live and breathe for, the man who I would have given anything, the man who ripped out the lifeline feeding my soul, the man who singlehandedly ruined the best part of my life by making decisions for me that were never his to make, the father of my little girl . . . King.

He swings her into his arms and hugs her tight. I take the opportunity to speak freely while her face is turned away. I don’t know how good she is at reading lips, and I definitely don’t want her reading what I’m about to say.

“You’re an evil, vile monster. I don’t need your help. You’ve done enough already. The only thing I want from you is my little girl. Nothing else. You make me sick. I can’t imagine hating someone more than I hate you.”

That’s not all true. The sight of him feels more like a KitchenAid mixer set on high, with a bread hook blending all my insides together. I hate him, yes, but miraculously, somehow I don’t think the love I once felt for him is completely dead. Can that even happen? Can I love and despise the same person at the same time? I think I can. I think I do. I also think it doesn’t matter.

“I’m glad to see you two are getting along.”

“Fuck you, King.” I swing my legs off the bed and walk around him so Juliette can see me. “Are you hungry?” She reads my lips and nods yes.

“Why don’t you order some breakfast, King, and I’ll get acquainted with my daughter?”

I smile for Juliette, but my tone is full of venom. He’s not used to being told what to do, and he’s never seen me angry.

“Holland, I’m not going to argue with you in front of her. We can have breakfast, but after that we need to sit down and figure out what to do next.”

“There’s nothing to figure out. You’ve deprived me of her for three years. I want back into her life . . . permanently.”

“Like I said, after breakfast. Sebastián is coming up. I’ll order for him too.”

“Did he know? Has he known all along?”

“Yes. He helped me, he had no choice.”

“Everyone has a choice, King. He just didn’t want to die. That’s how you deal with problems, isn’t it?”

“Not now, Holland.”

“Not now . . . not now. When do I get to decide anything, huh, King? When will you allow me to live my life the way I want to?”

Juliette has squirmed from his arms. She may be deaf, but she can sense the tension between us and she doesn’t like it. Her little hand slides into mine, and she pulls me into the living room. King is in the bedroom on the phone, ordering breakfast and calling Sebastián, the traitor, to come up and eat with us. He must be staying in the same hotel. Of course. He travels with King everywhere, he knows all of King’s business, he’s been in on this from the beginning. Ugh. Another asshole. He was so concerned when King disappeared. I should have known.

Juliette leads me to the couch, where she motions for me to sit. She drags a basket of toys and books between our feet. She begins to pluck toy after toy from her collection, showing me each one and watching my reaction. I love that she wants to share her things with me, but I’m distracted by my anger. Getting through breakfast with these two rats is going to be hard.

Sebastián walks through the door not five minutes later, smiling ear to ear when he sees Juliette and me sitting on the floor where she’s set up tea for two . . . not three or four. It’s juvenile, but I’m reveling in her undivided attention. I ignore Sebastián and focus all of my attention on the sweet girl handing me a cup of pretend tea.

“Good morning, Holland,” Sebastián says.

Juliette notices my sideways glance and looks to see what’s taken my attention away. When she sees Sebastián, she jumps up exactly the way she did when she saw King and flies into his arms. He squats down eye to eye with her for a hug, and she signs something to him.

“How’s my beautiful granddaughter?” he says, signing at the same time.

Granddaughter? What the hell? I snap my eyes to his, and he realizes he’s let a secret out of the bag. King steps in to rescue him. The assholes have to stick together, I guess.

“This is another reason we should have talked before all of this happened,” King says, pinning Sebastián with a livid glare.

“Come on, princess, let’s have breakfast with Mommy and Daddy. I saw the man pushing the room service cart our way,” Sebastián signs to her. He ignores us both and swoops Juliette up over his head.

After a huge, over the top breakfast, of which Juliette hardly ate a bite, Sebastián offers to help her get dressed and go for a walk.

“No way,” I say.

“Holland, I told you where they were. Why would I try to take her away now?”

“Ah gee, I dunno, Grandpa. I’ve developed some trust issues over the past three years. Wonder why?”

King sighs, and Sebastián looks at him with raised eyebrows as he pushes away from the formal dining table. Who needs a formal dining room in a hotel?

“I’ll just take her into her room and find her some clothes and brush her hair and teeth,” Sebastián says, offering Juliette his hand. She looks back and forth between us. He releases her hand and signs that I’m not leaving, but Mommy and Daddy need some time to talk. She narrows her eyes suspiciously until I nod. She signs something back to him and he translates for me.

“She says she doesn’t want you to go . . . ever.”

I bite my lip to keep from crying again. I don’t want her to think that’s all mamas do.

“Tell her I’m not going anywhere.”

I watch Sebastián sign my response to her, and when she’s satisfied that I’m not leaving, she follows him out the door, only to run back in and launch herself into my arms. She stands between my legs, and I press my face against the top of her head and burn her scent into my memory. Her little face tilts up, and she quickly kisses me on the cheek before she runs back after Sebastián. My heart swells a thousand times its normal size. She doesn’t want me to leave, and she kissed me for the first time.

I lean to watch them disappear behind Juliette’s bedroom door. I don’t care what they say. I don’t trust either of them beyond my sight.

“Let’s sit in the living room,” I say, leading the way.

King sits on the couch, and I choose the chair furthest from him. He unbuttons his suit coat, shaking his head back and forth.

“I don’t bite,” he says, glancing at the space I’ve put between us.

“I know,” God, I don’t want to talk to him. I just want to be with Juliette. I haven’t been in a room alone with King for a long time. It feels so different, so foreign that I can hardly remember how it felt to be comfortable and relaxed with him.

“You don’t have to sit clear over there.”

“I know.”

“Suit yourself.” He shrugs, smoothing his tie.

“I will.” I cross my arms over my chest, shutting him out as much as possible.

He sighs and rolls his eyes.

“Well, I guess I’ll start at the beginning.”

“Yes, that would be good. I’d like to hear how you try to rationalize all of this.”

He takes a deep breath and begins.

“You were a target for every enemy I’ve ever had. You were in serious danger when my associates learned I was going to cut off their supply so I could get out of the business. I had to separate myself from you. I did it because I love you. I wanted you to be safe and successful, and the world deserved to hear you play.”

“The world deserved to hear me? What about what I deserved, King? What about me? Don’t you think I deserved to have a say in how I wanted to live my life? Why didn’t you talk to me about the danger? Why did you have to take Juliette? Why couldn’t you just disappear and leave us together? You sacrificed my relationship with my child without even discussing it with me.”

“She was safer with me until I got things under control, and she would have been a distraction for you.”

I’m stunned. A distraction? Safer with him? He’s not going to be safe from me in a second, because I’m going to kill him myself. My entire body is trembling with fury. It’s all I can do not to launch myself at him and claw his eyes out.

He bows his head for a moment and takes a deep breath. When he looks up, he looks past me over my shoulder. I can hardly hear him when he speaks. His voice cracks and wavers on the edge of tears.

“I saw you doing what I knew you could do, what you wanted to do when I met you, and it validated my decision. When the danger was gone, you were so happy and I didn’t want to blow it all out of the water by returning too soon. I swear, I was planning to bring her back to you. God, Holland, I was so sure I was doing the right thing, but then last night . . . the two of you curled in that bed together . . .”

His quiet, gravelly voice breaks, and my cold, angry heart lurches, but I shove that pity far away, because the pain and loss I’ve experienced at his hands can’t compare to his sudden realization.

“King, the life you thought I wanted isn’t the life I wanted. I love music. My dream was to be a professional musician, but dreams change. You should have told me about the danger, you should have given me some choices, you should have come back the instant the danger was gone, but instead you railroaded my life, twisting and molding it into what you thought it should be.”

I cover my face with my hands and rest my elbows on my knees. I’m so angry and hurt. I don’t want to talk about this right now. I just want to start making up for lost time with Juliette.

King is quiet. When I look up, he’s slumped back into the couch with one elbow on the arm holding his head, with his hand shielding his face. I see a tear fall from behind his hand and land somewhere in his lap, and I wonder how many tears he left me. They can’t compare with mine. I could have filled an ocean with my tears, maybe two. I cried every day for six months. I cried when I woke up, and then in the shower, I cried when I moved to New York, I cried in the bathroom between classes at Juilliard and on breaks during performances, and finally, every night, wherever I was in the world, I cried myself to sleep until one day, I just stopped. I can’t say I gave up hope because I never did, but something inside of me was broken.

I surrendered to my fate and became a robot. I accomplished goal after goal, but I never enjoyed the rewards. I had no one to comfort me when I moved to New York, but King had Juliette, and that’s a bitter pill to swallow.

I stand to leave. I’m finished talking. There isn’t anything left to say really. I know why he did what he did, and I realize he was protecting me, but he knows the way he did it was wrong. He doesn’t move until I pass him, and he reaches out to grab my wrist.

“Don’t go.” He doesn’t even look at me when he speaks. He has no right to ask me to stay.

“I wish I had been given the chance to say those words three years ago,” I say and shake free of his grip.

“I’m sorry.” His words dissolve in the air behind me as I walk across the living room and open Juliette’s door.

Sebastián is almost finished dressing her in a grey and pink jumper with grey tights. He’s buckling her little black Mary Jane shoes. Her hair is parted perfectly down the middle and French braided down each side. I’m impressed.

“You’re pretty good at that.”

He looks up, and Juliette follows his eyes to me.

“Thank you, lots of practice.”

I wince, and he drops his eyes.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to rub it in.”

“It’s okay. I know you didn’t have a choice. King gets what King wants. So tell me why you refer to yourself as Grandpa Sebastián. I never took you for much of a family man.”

He stands and helps Juliette down from the edge of the bed. She runs to me and I pick her up. She snuggles against my neck, and when she pulls away, she signs something in the space between us. Her signs are so small and cute. I wish I could understand what she’s saying.

I look at Sebastián for help.

“She says she wants you to go with us to the ballet. We are going to see Cinderella this afternoon. You’re welcome to join us, of course.”

I nod yes, and a smile that would light up the darkest night spreads across her face.

“Would you like to go home and get changed and cleaned up first?” he asks.

I cock my head to the side and give him an ‘are you out of your fucking mind’ expression.

“We can go with you, Holland. I swear I’m not trying to keep you apart anymore. I never was. I told him to talk to you, but you know him, he wouldn’t listen. I’m his father, Holland. I had an affair with his mother, and we could never tell anyone he was mine. Arturo would have killed me—her too, probably. I had to stand on the sidelines and watch Arturo put his drug business ahead of him when I wanted to claim him as my own. I participated in his life as much as a security guard could without looking suspicious, so believe me when I tell you that I want you to be with your daughter.”

“You’re . . . his father?” Juliette has been swinging her eyes back and forth between Sebastián and me, trying to catch some of our conversation. She takes my face between her hands, forcing me to focus on her. When she has all of my attention, she begins to sign again.

“She wants to go to your house, she caught that much of our conversation. If you have more questions, we can talk in the car.”

“Okay.” I nod so Juliette knows we are leaving. She squirms out of my arms and bolts out of the room. She’s probably going to tell King our plans.

“Is King going to the ballet?”

“Yes, he takes her every year when they come to watch you play on her birthday.”

“They come every year?” I think he mentioned that before, but things are just now starting to sink in.

“How many of my performances does he come to?”

“Since you became concertmaster, all of them. Before that, he came to as many as he could without disrupting Juliette’s schedule.”

That’s a lot of traveling. I’ve been in almost every country at least once over the past three years, playing in concerts and auditions. I can’t believe he followed me everywhere.

“I know you don’t want to hear it, but he loves you, Holland. He loves you so much, and he’s so incredibly proud of you. He never shuts up about how talented you are, and he constantly fills Juliette’s head with stories about you. He shows her photographs and videos. He wanted her to know you. He was planning on contacting you this year, but I was tired of his plan. She was growing up, and you were missing it. She needed you, and so did he, so I betrayed him, and I don’t regret it for a second.”

I pace back and forth while he talks. He’s right. I don’t want to hear that. I don’t care what he wanted or why he wanted it. His plan robbed me of three years with my daughter, and I’ll never forgive him.

“I’m glad she knows me, but I was never allowed to know her, and I can’t forgive him for that . . . ever. There were other ways. He could have talked to me. He could have kept us safe together. I didn’t need to be a fucking professional violinist. I would have chosen Juliette a million times over my career. He has a fucked up way of loving people, and I don’t want to be on the receiving end of that kind of love. I just want my daughter back. I want to get to know her, learn how to communicate with her, and have her in my life.”

I stop and turn to face Sebastián. His eyes are sad and defeated. He must have thought there was a chance for King and me.

He was wrong.

“I was afraid you’d feel this way.”

“Can you blame me?” I cross my arms over my chest and stare at him hard.

“No, I guess I don’t. You have no idea of the danger you were in, though, and I just hoped . . .” He slides his hands in his pockets and looks at the floor.

“I can’t believe you’re his real daddy.” I narrow my eyes and look closer at Sebastian’s features. King has his strong chiseled bone structure and his dark eyes. I can see the resemblance now.

“I know; it’s been so good to finally get it out in the open. It’s what got him out of the drug business.”

“He’s out of the business? How?”

“He wasn’t a Romero. His connection didn’t trust him anymore. He was of no value to the cartels anymore, so they backed off.”

“When? When did they know?”

He shuffles his feet.

“A year ago.”

“A year? He could have brought her back a year ago?”

“I’m telling you, Holland, everything he does, he does it for you or that little girl in there. You were doing so well he—”

“Sebastián, just stop. I don’t care anymore. I stopped loving him a long time ago. I almost died when he left. And then when Dax gave me hope, he swooped in and squashed that too.”

“Dax? You should thank King for getting rid of him. He wasn’t worthy to breathe the same air as you. He was a major player. He saw you as a challenge, and when he conquered you he would have left you more broken than before.”

“I couldn’t have been more broken than I already was.”

“I hear you're going to the ballet with us,” King says, entering the room with an ecstatic Juliette.

“Ah, yeah . . . I need to go home and get cleaned up first, but I’m not letting her out of my sight, King, not for a second, do you understand?” I’m standing my ground on this. I may never let this child out of my sight as long as she lives.

“Of course, absolutely. The car is waiting for us downstairs. Are you ready?”

“I’ve never been more ready in my life.”