Chapter 223: I’m My Father’s Daughter

LOUISE’S POV

The faces remain.

Louise sees them in the shadows. She hears their cries. Some call her cruel. Some call her a coward. Others say nothing at all. They only look at her, and somehow their silence hurts more than their accusations.

Each time Louise wants to turn away, Mateo’s hand tightens around hers. He continues to recite his scripture. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."

His voice rises and falls with each step. Louise listens. Then she begins to speak, too. "I’m sorry."

The words are quiet. "I’m sorry." Her voice trembles.

"I’m sorry for what I did."

She does not name every person. She does not pretend that a few words can repair the damage. She simply keeps walking, holding her father’s hand and speaking the truth she has spent years avoiding.

"I’m sorry."

Mateo’s voice continues beside her, the scripture and the familiar rhythm of his faith mingling with her regret. Neither voice drowns out the other.

The valley does not open to welcome them. The shadows do not disappear. The faces do not vanish just because Louise has begun to admit what she has done.

But the darkness no longer has her alone. That is what changes.

When it rises around her legs, Mateo is there. When the voices grow louder, he is there. When Louise stumbles and nearly falls, his hand closes around hers and steadies her before she can hit the ground.

He never tells her that the road will be easy. He never promises that the pain will disappear by morning. He only keeps walking beside her.

And for Louise, that is more than she knows how to ask for.

They walk farther into the valley. The faint light remains behind them, growing smaller with every step.

Louise looks back once.

It is beautiful from here. A soft glow against the blackness, a distant promise of rest. She cannot see what lies beyond it, but she imagines a place where Mateo can finally lay down his burdens, a place where no one will cheat him, hurt him, or take his kindness for weakness.

She wants that place for him. She wants him to have peace. She wants him to have everything the world denied him.

Her fingers tighten around his. "Mateo?"

He turns toward her. "Yes, my little flower?"

She struggles to find the words. "If we keep going this way..." She looks ahead, where the blackness stretches farther than her eyes can follow.

"What if it takes a very long time?"

Mateo studies her face. "Then we will walk for a very long time."

"What if we cannot see the end?"

"Then we will take one step at a time."

"What if I become afraid again?"

He lifts their joined hands. "Then you can hold mine."

Louise’s mouth trembles. "And what if you get tired?"

Mateo smiles. "Then we will rest when we can."

She looks at him, searching his face for any sign that he is only saying these things to comfort her. There is none. He is not pretending to know the future.

He is not telling her that nothing bad will happen. He is simply promising to stay beside her for as long as the road requires.

Louise looks down at their joined hands.

His hand is larger than hers. His fingers are familiar. She remembers holding them when she was little, swinging their arms between them as they walked to the bakery.

She remembers the warmth of his palm around hers when a car passed too close to the pavement. She remembers how he would slow his steps whenever she fell behind.

He always made sure she could keep up. Now he is doing it again.

Only this time, the road has no bakery at the end. There is no little apartment waiting for them. No kitchen full of the smell of pancakes. No worn sofa, no thin curtains, no strawberry candies hidden in her pockets.

There is only the valley, the faces, the darkness, and Mateo.

Her father.

Louise lifts his hand and presses it against her cheek. She does not know whether she is crying anymore. The black tears have stopped flowing, though the marks remain on her skin.

For the first time since she opened her eyes in this place, her chest does not feel as if it is being crushed.

She is still afraid.

She knows she will be afraid again. There will be memories she cannot bear to face, voices she cannot silence, and truths she will wish she could bury once more.

She has no idea how long it will take to reach the end. A hundred years. A thousand. A stretch of time so long that numbers lose their meaning.

She does not know.

But she knows something now that she did not know when she first opened her eyes.

She is not alone.

She has someone to hold on to, someone who will not turn away simply because she has become difficult to love, someone who will look at the worst parts of her and still call her by the name he gave her when she was small.

My little flower.

My kind girl.

My daughter.

Louise’s eyes fill again. This time, the tears are not only made of fear. There is grief in them, and shame, and a longing so deep it seems to have lived inside her since childhood. But there is something else, too. Something small and fragile, something she thought she had lost years ago.

Hope.

She looks up at Mateo. "Thank you."

He glances at her. "For what, my little flower?"

She shakes her head. She cannot explain it. How can she tell him that he has given her the one thing she has wanted all her life?

How can she explain that, after years of believing she must earn every scrap of affection she receives, she has finally found someone who will stand beside her without asking her to become worthy first?

She cannot put it into words. So she squeezes his hand. Mateo understands. He always has.

He turns back toward the path, his Bible tucked beneath his arm, and begins reciting the scripture once more.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."

Louise walks beside him. Her voice joins his. "I’m sorry."

Step by step. "I’m sorry."

The valley deepens. The shadows rise. The cries follow them. And the two of them continue onward, hand in hand, into a place neither can measure.

Behind them, the distant light grows smaller. Louise does not notice when it begins to flicker. She is watching her father.

She is listening to his voice. She is trying to keep her steps in time with his, just as she used to do when she was a little girl walking beside him on the way to the bakery.