Luca Steele
My ego was hurt.
No—screw that. I was hurt.
When I woke up this morning, I didn’t even think. I went straight to her room, expecting to see her curled under the blankets like always, hair messy, breathing soft. I thought maybe, just maybe, I’d crawl in beside her. Say something stupid like, “About yesterday…” and we’d talk it out.
But her room was empty. The bed made. The air cold. She wasn’t there. So I went to the drawer. The one she told me to check the day before.
And there they were.
Divorce papers.
I stared at it for way too long, like it might magically disappear if I blinked hard enough. Like maybe it was some cruel joke.
But it wasn’t.
And the thing that hit me the hardest was that she’d already made this decision before yesterday.
Before the kiss. Before the table. Before she looked me in the eye like I wasn’t just her husband on paper.
I thought it meant something.
But clearly, she was already halfway out the door.
So I signed it.
Maybe out of pride. Maybe out of pain. Maybe both.
I went downstairs to the kitchen, and there she was—still barefoot, still making coffee, like nothing had happened.
She turned around when I came in and asked, “What about yesterday?”
But I couldn’t say what I wanted to say. Because how could I? She was already planning the exit before she even gave me a chance.
So I told her, “It was a mistake.”
Her face fell. Her eyes—the same ones that used to look at me like I was something worth staying for—just dimmed.
I told her to go. To take her stuff and go back to California.
She didn’t argue. She didn’t fight. She just… left.
And now I’m at work, sitting behind a desk filled with files I can’t focus on, pretending like my world didn’t just shift.
I keep wondering if she’ll still be home when I get back. Some part of me is praying she changes her mind. That she’ll be there. That maybe we can still fix it.
But when I walk into the apartment later that night—
It’s quiet. Too quiet.
No heels clacking. No books on the table. No soft humming from the kitchen.
Just a note.
“I’ve gone back to California. –Nova.”
My jaw clenched. My heart did too.
On the table beside the note were the red tulips and the dinner I had picked up. Mom’s favorite.
I grabbed the flowers and the bag and went straight to the facility to see my mother.
Maybe her presence would calm something in me.
When I walked into her room, she was sitting in her chair, a knit blanket on her lap, and the television playing some black-and-white film she probably couldn’t follow.
She looked up.
“Daniel?” she smiled.
No surprise there. She always called me by my father’s name.
“It’s me, Mom,” I said softly. “Luca.”
She blinked slowly. Then smiled again. “Where’s Nova?”
The lump in my throat came out of nowhere. Why could she remember Nova but not me? This woman.
“She… went back to California.”
My mother frowned. “Why?”
“We’re not together anymore,” I said simply, placing the flowers on the small table beside her bed.
She blinked again, confused. “Why not? She belongs to you. You belong to her.”
My chest tightened. “What makes you think that?”
She tilted her head like I had asked the dumbest question in the world.
“Because I see it,” she said. “I may not remember what day it is. Or what I ate for breakfast. But I remember feelings. I remember people. And that girl… that girl looks at you the way I used to look at your father.”
I stared at her.
“She loves you, Luca,” she continued, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “And you—you try to hide it. You act like you’re your father. Tough, cold. But you’re not. You’re mine. And I know when my son is in love.”
I didn’t say anything.
Because I didn’t know what to say.
“She made you softer,” she whispered, reaching for my hand. “And happy. I know what happiness looks like on you. Even if it only lasted for a short while.”
I swallowed the burning in my throat.
“You think I don’t see things because I forget?” she added with a soft chuckle. “But some things… you feel. And when you feel something that deep, you don’t let it go, Luca.”
I looked down at our hands. My mother’s frail fingers wrapped around mine.
She had more clarity in that moment than I had all week.
She looked me in the eye and said, “Go find her. Before it’s too late.”
30
