It's funny that he looks at me now. Sixteen years after the fact. It's funny that we've flirted over coconut pie and had interrupted dinners. Sixteen years after the fact. It's funny that his hands have been all over my body and I've nearly made love to him on my living room couch. Sixteen years after the fact.

What isn't so funny is that he's still afraid to claim his daughter.

His daughter.

It's strange to think that the vibrant kid who gives me both hilarious sass and pounding headaches was created when I was handcuffed. When a young police officer with bright blue eyes pushed me up against a brick wall, with protesters screaming in the background, and I let him. When I let the concept of "casual sex" give me a "get out of Jail free" card and a baby girl, too.

He was married. I don't blame him for never calling. For never catching my eye at the grocery store or stopping to say 'hello' to the little blond girl I would push up the sidewalk in a hand-me-down stroller. He was married and his wife gave birth to a baby boy the same year I had Maria. Sometimes I would see Michelle and Kyle at the park...and I would be tempted to walk over. Tempted to stare into that woman's face and search for what was so special. For what had made him stay when he could've had me. For what kept him from pushing me up against another wall and kissing me quiet and smoothing his hands over my arms.

It was Kyle, of course. He couldn't leave his son. That chubby little boy with the brown spiky hair and the bright blue eyes.

Michelle could, but he couldn't.

And by the time that woman had left, eight years had all ready passed. Maria thought that her father had left Roswell. That he was the guy I'd been living with--Billy Ortega. Her puppy died and I didn't have the heart to tell her that she'd lost both it and a man who wasn't really who she thought he was. It was too late to undo the damage. Too late to take her hand and take her to Jim and say, "Please...please, be a family with us now."

But sixteen years after the fact--after the heated, crazy, frantic, fact. Sixteen years after the fact, he catches my eye at the grocery store. He stops to say "hello" to the young, blond, woman who walks up the sidewalk with me.

It gives me hope.

Maybe soon, Maria will know Kyle is more than just an obnoxious kid from school.

Maybe soon, Jim Valenti and I will be able to admit that we fell in love years ago.

Maybe soon, I'll be able to ask him to be a family with us.

Sixteen years after the fact.

September 2000.