chapter 11

Isabella

I never imagined Leo and Rex together. To protect myself.

Okay, that's not true.

I've blocked the imaginings out. They happened constantly while I was pregnant and even more often than that when Leo was a newborn. Seeing anyone hold Leo, I'd get a flash of what it might be like to see Rex hold Leo.

He might not have been ready to be a dad. But I don't know if it's fair that I've assumed he'd have been a bad one.

Because as I watch Rex and Leo building this Lego set from the next room, listening to the way they negotiate the pieces and the moments they talk about life and the way they can make each other laugh...

It's clear I've made a mistake.

"A piece of him," my mother says in Spanish, her hand on my shoulder.

I don't shrug her off the way I have so many times when she's mentioned Rex. The mentions are sparing over the years because she knows how it upsets me. "A man deserves the opportunity to become a father," she told me. And when I'd inevitably blow up at her, she'd add