Page 32 of I Wanna Dance

There was always a chance you’d lose the people you love—there were no guarantees, and I knew that better than anyone else.

“You’d like her,” I told Camille. “She’s strong and wonderful. Has a big heart. Even bigger than yours. I didn’t think that was possible. She forgives. She cares. I’m very lucky.”

And, yet, I didn’t feel fortunate. I felt like fate had written another heartbreak into my life story.

“Give me a sign,querida. Tell me what to do.”

I stayed for a while, talking to Camille and imagining her answers. Finally, when my heart was full and empty, all at the same time, I rose. As I turned to leave, I saw Isabella and Sofia standing a few feet away.

Isabella crossed her arms over her chest, her face soft with understanding, and Sofia wiped tears off her cheeks.

“Eavesdropping?” I admonished good-naturedly.

Sofia walked up to me and hugged me. "Ay, Papi, te quiero mucho."

Isabella wrapped her arms around both of us.“Te amo, Papi.”

The three of us sat on the grass, facing Camille. I knew they came here together and sometimes alone to be with their Mama as I did.

“She’d want you to be happy.” Isabella took my hand in hers, clutching it. “You know that, right? Mama loved you so much, and she wouldn’t want you to be alone and without love.”

Sofia nodded, her expression earnest. “She’d be mad at you, actually, for not taking a chance with Leah.”

I wrapped an arm around my girls, and they leaned into me.

“It’s okay to be scared,” Isabella said softly. “After Mama, I was afraid something would happen to you.”

“Me too,” Sofia added. “But that doesn’t mean we think about it all the time and live with that fear.”

“That would make it very hard to live a normal life,” Isabella agreed with her sister.

I looked at my daughters and looked at Camille’s headstone.You raised them right,querida. Just look at how wonderful they are!

Sofia pulled away and dropped a kiss on my cheek. “We love you, Papi. And we want you to live.Reallylive.”

“I thought that was what I was doing.” I felt my heart ease a little.

“You were grieving Mama…you still are.” There was no judgment in Isabella’s tone, just acceptance. “But it’s time to move on. Leah seems good for you.”

“And, really, you have us to thank for her,” Sofia added cheekily.

“Absolutely. If we hadn’t gotten you those salsa classes….” Isabella grinned.

“I think Mama would like Leah,” Sofia said thoughtfully.

“Agreed,” Isabella chimed.

I listened to them talk like I used to when they spoke with Camille.

It still hurt that Camille wasn’t there to see her daughters grow so beautifully. She wasn’t there when Isabella graduated from college, and she wouldn’t see Sofia walk down the same stage she once had with an engineering degree. She wouldn’t see them get married and have babies.

“You’re gonna have to be both Mama and Papi,” I remembered Camille telling me. “When you give them a step mama, you make sure she loves them like they’re hers. Okay? And, if they don’t like her, then no go.”

The girls hadn’t spent much time with Leah, but I knew they’d like her. There was nothing to not like. She would take them into her heart and treat them like she did her children, I had no doubt. But was she ready to be in a serious relationship with me?

The woman I’d seen at her son’s apartment was desperate for her family to take her back. Did that include Kevin? It had taken me this long to get over my wife, who had passed away. How long did it take for a woman to get over a man who was still very much alive?

CHAPTER 15

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