Page 128 of The Spring in My Heart

“I know she is. And Ayla is mine. You had no right to do that to me. I know you’ve always hated me, but I’ve always shown you respect, even when you treated me like gum on the bottom of your slippers. I’m the one who kept my promises. I’m the one who was a good father and kind to you, despite the fact that your hot house flower walked out on our marriage and her child.”

Her face reddens. “You don’t think I know that, Oliver? Do you know what it’s like to see your child marry someone you don’t approve of, only for her to do to you and your child everything I told her you would do to her?”

Her confession rocks me, rooting me on the spot. Her eyes are full of tears, but I swat away at the shock like I do any empathy that threatens to flow through me.

I’m so fucking tired of her and her daughter’s tears. I’m done with her, like I want to be done with her spawn.

“Please tell Noris I want to see her.”

She opens her mouth and then closes it, only to open it again. “I am sorry, Oliver. I know you don’t deserve the lies, but she has the right to see Ayla. No matter what, she is her mother. She made a mistake, but she has all the right in the world to change her mind.”

“Says who? She didn’t make a mistake. She planned it. A mistake is what a friend of mine made. She got overwhelmed and hit with postpartum depression. She left her baby for a day but was right back. She was tormented, but the love she felt for her child was too strong. She didn’t plot. She didn’t get on fucking Tinder and meet some rich doctor. She didn’t go see a divorce lawyer and get the paperwork drafted. She didn’t leave her child home alone and call her husband to come home while she ran away.”

I don’t realize how loud I’m yelling until my words echo against the white walls.

“I’m still her mother.” The voice thunders loud enough to still all my muscles.

I whip around to face her.

Noris Morales is standing six feet away from me. I take her in like I did the first time, all of her at the same time. She’s staring at me, eye to eye, in her impossibly high heels. Her skin still glows like brown porcelain. She has always had the kind of body women would pay for and those beautifully angelic features I see reflected on my Ayla’s face every day.

I chose to forget how much my baby looks like her. Noris is where she gets the statuesque grace and elegance. But that’s where the similarities end.

Ayla is good, sweet, and beautiful inside as well. Her mother is like a doll. Beautiful on the outside but hollow inside. She feels nothing unless there is money involved, and the only time she shows emotion is when she needs to manipulate to get her way. Her last name, like her beauty, is nothing but a ruse.

Morales. Morals.

Her mother may have strong morals, but she didn’t pass them along.

“You’re not her mother. A mother is there for you, loves you, nurtures you. You’ve never done that for her. Hell, you don’t even call.”

“It’s not like you have welcomed that. I knew you would block me from seeing her. That’s why I waited until she was older and could make her own decision. As it turns out, Ayla does want me. She wants a relationship with me.” She smiles like she’s the MVP of the World Series, holding the Commissioner’s Trophy, lording it over my head.

It hurts because it’s true. Ayla has always wanted a mom.

I chuckle, though. “Nothing anyone could do or say could ever keep me away from Ayla. No matter how bad I fucked up, if the shoe were on the other foot, I would have never allowed you to keep me away from her. But that’s the thing, right? I never kept her from you. I begged you to come back, and if you had, I would have never stood in your way. “You know why, Noris?” I walk closer to her.

She doesn’t even flinch when I come close. She merely looks me up and down, her eyes traveling over my body, lingering on my chest. But that look stopped working on me when I realized how much of a manipulator she is.

“I’ll tell you why. I would have let you come back because of Ayla. My daughter is the most important person in my life. She is the only thing I’m indebted to you for. She’s the greatest gift and more than I deserve. I don’t even know how an angel like her could come from inside someone like you.”

She rears back like I slapped her.

“I forgot how cruel you can be.”

“How cruel I can be?”

“Yes, I was nothing to you. Once I got big with pregnancy, you stopped caring about me. All you cared about was the pregnancy. Te llenas la boca hablando de mi. You love to talk about how bad I was, but what about you? I gave myself to you. I loved you, flaws and all, even though you were a player. You said you loved every bit of me and my soul. But you were using me. You didn’t show me any kindness.”

“You got pregnant on purpose. You orchestrated everything so I would have to marry you. If you hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have gotten hurt. I quit baseball to provide for you. To be there for Ayla.”

She laughs. “Yes, you quit baseball. But not for me. You could’ve gone back, but you were afraid, so you decided not to try at all. Once you saw Mateo, Fabian, and all the others rising, you acted like you couldn’t measure up. So, you gave it all up to be poor. You were a good player. You could’ve made millions. We could’ve had a good life, and you could have still played.”

“I had lost the love for it. We were having a baby. That was more important to me.”

She sucks her teeth. “Por favor. You got pendejo and started taking handyman jobs like you were not meant for the big stage. You were not born to lay drywall. You were meant to break records.”

It bugs me but doesn’t sting as much as it should. Not her disdain, not the words that haunted me for years. Maybe it’s because she already did her worst to me. Three times.

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