Page 72 of The Bookbinder's Guide to Love

“What’s going on?” Sera’s heart was in her throat. Was Liberty ill? Was something wrong with the business?

“Nan told me the name of my father.”

“I thought you didn’t want to know him,” Sera said.

“I didn’t. She thought I was Mom again, and today when I visited her, she called me Lourdes. I corrected her, but she never really... Anyway, when I got up to leave she...she said, ‘I’m glad you aren’t with that John Jones—you and the baby deserve better.’”

Liberty was shaking and Sera had no idea what to do to help her friend. “Okay. So now that you have the name, what’s next?”

Liberty shook her head. “I really don’t know. I mean, I was happy not knowing anything about him. Same as he didn’t know anything about me, but now...”

Poppy put her arm around Liberty and Sera did the same, the three of them hugging each other close.

“We’ve got you, Liberty,” Sera said.

“That’s right. You are in control here. Do you want to try to find him?” Poppy asked.

Liberty sighed, and then Sera realized her friend was crying. She was trying not to let them see it. Strong, bold and brassy, Liberty was the strongest of them all. She’d never been bothered by anything that happened to them. Even when Sera freaked out, Liberty always had her back. Like when Sitwell & Associates had sent that letter weeks ago.

“We can curse him. I just got a new book in, and I think with your skills we can find a good curse or charm for you,” Sera said.

“We totally can,” Poppy added. “The next new moon, when the energy is right.”

Liberty lifted her head and they all scooted back. “Thanks, guys. Maybe. First, I have to figure out if I should tell Mom I know.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” Sera asked. Liberty and her mom were super close. Sera envied their bond and admired it. It wasn’t like Liberty to keep anything from Lourdes.

“When I was six, I asked her about him,” Liberty said. “Mostly everyone at school knew their dads. So I was curious. She told me he didn’t want a child, told her to abort it or keep it but he never wanted to know anything about me.”

Immediately Sera hated the man. No matter what Liberty decided, Sera was tempted to write about him in her journal and hope karma found him.

“I can’t believe your mom told you that,” Poppy said. “My mum couldn’t even tell me Santa wasn’t real.”

Liberty smiled, but Sera was still consumed with...Hatewas too strong, but it was close. She had no family. No one. And she had always craved a connection to the blood relatives who were lost to her. How could Liberty’s biological father just walk away from her?

Sera had met other foster kids who knew their parents were alive or even knew their names and also knew their parents wanted nothing to do with them or couldn’t handle raising them. But seeing strong, capable, wonderful Liberty like this... Fuck that man who didn’t want her to exist.

“I pushed and she was crying the whole time. You know how she is,” Liberty said.

Her mom did cry easily. And always came with big feels for everything Liberty did. She’d taken Sera and Poppy in as surrogate daughters. Including them in the shelter of her motherly love. Sera felt bad that Lourdes had to make the decision to raise Liberty on her own.

For the first time, Sera thought her parents’ deaths might have been for a bigger reason. If they’d lived, who knew what she would have become. Maybe she’d have turned to drugs to escape life, the way they had. She’d never have met Poppy, Liberty, Ford or Wes. She’d never have moved to Maine and opened WiCKed Sisters either.

“Did she ask if you wanted to know his name?” Sera asked.

“Not at six,” Liberty said, rubbing her eyes. “But when I was sixteen a letter arrived, and she got really mad at first and then asked me if I wanted to know anything about my sperm donor... That’s how we always referred to him. There was something in my mom’s eyes, and I knew the letter had to be from him. But I thought, why now? And you know how I am. I also thought,Screw you, dickhead.”

“Thought?” Sera said.

Liberty laughed. “I said it out loud. Mom repeated it and we burned the letter from him, did our cleansing ritual with sage to get his spirit out of our house and our lives. That was it. And I was good with it. I’d made my choice, you know?”

Sera did know. Making a decision like that was what had saved her own sanity when it came to moving on from her parents and from every home she’d ever been placed in. It made the randomness of life feel a little less scary when she’d owned the decision to start over. Again and again.

Liberty had owned not knowing her father, as had Lourdes, but Liberty’s nan had officially changed that. Liberty wouldn’t be able to keep it from her mom. And she must know that.

“Do you want us to go with you when you tell her?” Sera asked. Because she was finally putting it together. Liberty knew she’d have to tell her mom, and the last time her sperm donor’s name had come up, her mom’s reaction hadn’t been what Liberty expected.

“I don’t think so. Oh, I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m going to do anything with it yet. But I don’t want to hurt her. She’s already had to deal with him and she made a choice. She chose me.”

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