Binding Arbitration (32 page)

“After I decided not to hire a hit man, I came to the conclusion that life was offering me an opportunity. A chance to have another child made my heart sing. I would get the only man I ever loved back, and my family put back together. I took a chance, and I fell in love with Avery the moment I laid eyes on him. Through that love, I learned to forgive. To forgive God for taking Andy, forgive my husband for turning away from me when I needed him the most, and to forgive myself for gnawing on the wound I should have sewn shut at Andy’s death.

“But God had more lessons to teach. I struggled with Avery. Even in infancy, I thought he sensed he wasn’t my biological child and so I compensated for his outbursts with coddling instead of the discipline that was so easy for me with my other sons.

“He’s always known he’s not my biological child. We never lied to him, but liberally to ourselves about his outbursts. That’s over now, and he’s not happy about it. He contacted his biological mother, she refuses to see him, and of course that’s our fault, too. He’s in a bad place right now, but deep down, he has a good heart, and he’ll come out of it.

“I know the time you and Aidan have together could be limited by Cass’ recovery and that once he’s better, you might think you don’t need Aidan anymore, and maybe you don’t. You’ve done a wonderful job with Cass on your own. But Aidan needs you. He needs you and Cass.

“I can give him almost anything in the world, but I can’t give him your love. But don’t think you can’t give it because you can’t forgive him. If you do, he’ll use the rest of his life to show you he was worthy of your forgiveness.”

I played with a worn spot on my jeans. “How do you figure?”

“Because Aidan is the most like his father, and Michael has done nothing but make me thankful every day that I forgave him. He made the worst mistake, in the worse way possible, but he knew he had to fix it. He doesn’t know how he fixed it and neither do I, but I see the gratitude on his face, and I know that loving and forgiving is one in the same. I also had to take responsibility for the part I played in the whole ordeal.”

I was used to hearing strangers’ revelations, but not those in my immediate world. Although I understood about making mistakes, the larger the mistake and the longer it festers, the harder it was to make amends. I had seen it in the courtroom, in the DA’s office, and in my own life. I had seen how just a few simple words, eight simple letters, could change a person’s entire perception. Sometimes those simple words—for some, a cliché—were harder to hear than an apology. When one refused to hear the ‘I love you’, the ‘I see you’ for so long, he became an accessory to the mistake.

I was trying to wrap my thoughts around Mrs. Palowski’s advice, when the doctor appeared. “Ms. Tucker, everything went as expected, and I don’t foresee any complications.”

“Go.” Mrs. Palowski patted my hand. “You can heal him in ways I can’t, and I couldn’t have picked a person I trust more.”

I hesitated before leaving. “How do you know you can trust me, though?” I felt blindsided, but my lawyer’s mind worked.

“Cass, of course.” She smiled brightly. “I just have to look at him, and I know what a loving person my son chose.”

“I’ll think about what you said.” I slipped away, following the green hallway that led me to the recovery area, where Aidan was in a draped off area. He was still hooked up to an IV and several machines registered his vital signs.

I was counting his breaths. I had never seen him so still.

“He’s just fine,” Nurse Kratchette said.

“Thank you.” I pulled a chair up to his bedside. I took his long fingers, twining them together with mine, careful not to disrupt his IV. I brought his good hand to my mouth and breathed in the scent of him before resting my head on the edge of the bed. My thoughts assaulted me. What did I want today? What had I wanted the first time he crossed my path? Where was all this going, and how much was it going to hurt, when it was done? Kat’s words came to me, unbidden.
Take responsibility for the part I played in the whole ordeal.

The next thing I knew, Aidan was tunneling his fingers through my hair. I smiled. “How are you feeling?”

When he cleared his throat his voice was scratchy. “Like a CTA bus, a garbage truck, and a street cleaner drove over my torso, then backed up and ran over my head.” He paused, looking frantic for the first time. “Did I mention I have to hurl?”

I got a pan to him just in time. When he was done, I handed him some water which he swished around in his mouth before spitting it back out. “In sickness and health, right?”

I tried to smile.

“Come here.” He pulled me toward him, scooting over. I lay alongside him, trying my best not to hurt him.

“After we talk to Cass, I want him to leave with my parents.” He swallowed down hard a few times. “I don’t want him in the hospital with all the media. You don’t need to stay, either. It could get ugly.”

“Someone needs to take you home. I’ll keep a low profile.”

“Babe, I think it would be better if I do this on my own.

Avery can stay with me. He loves the limelight.”

“Of course he does.” I squeezed up my face in disgust. “Please tell me he didn’t do anything else.”

“Your brother is rude. He called Cass your little bastard.” I saw the scowl grow on his face and he bunched up his fists.

“It doesn’t matter.” I brushed his hands. “Your father showed up and took him for a little talk. What he said has more to do with how he feels about himself than Cass.”

Aidan looked perplexed. “How he feels about himself?”

“Your mother told me he’s not her biological child.”

“He’s always known that.”

The title bastard put too much blame on the kid, and not enough on the offending parties. I knew this first hand. I felt the brush and sting of it, even as I got older. “He has to think his real mother doesn’t love him.”

Aidan closed his eyes. “It doesn’t matter which parent leaves you, you always think it means they don’t love you.”

I didn’t know if he was referring to his own father, so I asked, “That’s what you’re worried about with Cass? That he won’t think you loved him? That he won’t forgive you?”

“I’m holding out hope.”

“He will. He’s kind that way, and I’ll tell him that it wasn’t entirely your fault.”

“No, Libby, I’m taking all the blame here. I don’t want him to consider being angry with you. He needs your comfort. He can take his anger out on me.”

Nurse Kratchette reappeared to move Aidan to his room. I followed, my own stomach flipping in anticipation of the coming conversation. One I thought never to have. The wide corridor opened onto the nurse’s station, the occupants stared as if a rock star had dropped into their midst. I made my way to the window in his room and stared out over the lake, as the nurse checked Aidan’s vitals. She patted his shoulder and told him to try to relax.

I went to the foot of his bed, where I was his sole focus. “Are you sure you’re up for all this? You probably don’t need all this emotional upheaval, when you’re recovering.”

“Libby, we can’t procrastinate any longer. We’ve taken as much time as we can to get used to the idea.”

Before I could respond, the door opened. “See.” Nurse Kratchette said, “I told you your dad was just fine.” She patted Cass’ head, while he looked from Aidan to me. My son didn’t seem shocked by the disclosure. He ambled toward Aidan’s bed. “How you feeling, Mister Pole-ow-ski?”

The nurse had solved how to open up the conversation as easily as shoving a cotton ball up a bloody nose.

“I’m doing good, son.”

Cass looked at Aidan. “I really am your son?”

Aidan squeezed Cass’ shoulder and smiled. “I couldn’t have picked a better boy.”

Cass’ lips had thinned and lost a bit of their color. “Mommy, why did you tell me my dad was dead?”

“I didn’t want to explain what happened between your dad and me, and I never thought we’d see each other again.” I fidgeted with the bed clothes, before kneeling at his feet, “I didn’t want you to blame yourself because your father wasn’t around. I wanted you to feel good about yourself.”

“I was an accident, and you didn’t want me?” Cass gazed down at his Nike’s, before he asked Aidan directly.

“Cass, I didn’t know what I wanted then, but I know now. I want to be your father, and I want for us to be happy, together, all of us. You’re the happiest accident of my life.”

My tears flowed. “I never meant to rob you of each other.”

Cass’ tiny fingertips brushed away my tears before he looked at Aidan. “I’m not sorry that you’re my dad, ‘cause I get a funny feeling in my stomach when I’m with you. I feel like I belong to you. I think I knew from when I woke up and found you on my couch ‘cause we look alike, and my mom never let a man sleep at our house. So you can be my dad, but I have to know one thing.” He hesitated. “Do you love my mommy?”

Aidan’s pride seeped through him, filling the room with its strong energy. “I love you, Cass, and you never have to worry about that.” Aidan swallowed down and glanced my way. “I’ve loved your mother from the first moment I laid eyes on her.” He looked toward the window to pull himself together; it couldn’t have been easy for him to lay open his soul. He looked me in the eye then. “I love you, Libby Tucker, and I’m afraid I always will. You’re the only thing that’s ever scared me, and the only thing I thought I couldn’t live without, until Cass. I hope you won’t make me live without you or your love.”

Aidan reached out for my hand, but I waved him off. “Let me catch my breath.” I stumbled to my feet, as Aidan reassured a worried Cass that I needed a few moments to myself.

In the doorway, I looked back at them together. Cass had placed his small hand inside Aidan’s, and this act assured me, not of his forgiveness, but perhaps of his understanding.

Out in the hallway, I literally ran into Suzy coming out of the bathroom. “You’re going to worry Cass. And Aidan.”

“I feel like I’m on an emotional roller coaster.”

“Of course you are.” Suzy clucked like a mother hen pulling me back into a family waiting room. “Aidan told Max that your father showed up on the donor registry.”

“It’s funny, I hardly ever imagine anymore what my life would have been like, and if I’d had a father who’d loved me.”

She smiled. “I guess that’s because you’ve grown up, and now you have the one man who was supposed to love you all along.”

“No, it’s because of Max.” I said to change the subject.

“I don’t know how a man could live in a world and not know where his child is. It takes a lot of character to admit you’re wrong, but even more to try to set it right again. Especially when you loved the person you left.”

“Is that what he told you and Max, that he left me because he loved me?”

“No, he told us he left because he was afraid that you’d never forgive him for getting you pregnant. But most of all he was afraid that you didn’t love him.” She sighed. “Neither of you realized your feelings until it was too late, but you need to stop making Aidan pay for the sins of your father.”

“What would you know about her father?” Jeanne stepped out of the shadows. “You think you and Max are her parents, but I’m here to remind you that she has a mother, and you’re not her.”

“Well, Jeanne, I think Libby’s old enough to know whose parenting she wants.” Suzy examined Jeanne. “Me versus Bozo.”

“You better watch it, Suzy.” Jeanne put her hand on her hip.

“What are you going to do? Blow fairy dust up my derriere and hope I magically disappear?” Suzy didn’t wait for a response before she huffed pulling the bathroom door open. “Squirt me with one of your water guns?”

The whole thing wouldn’t have been comical, if my mother wasn’t wearing a bright orange, braided wig and a purple top hat.

“The lobby is full of reporters.” Jeanne sulked at me. “Do you want them to get a shot of you with those raccoon eyes?”

“It’d be a better headline, if they took a shot of you.” I had to giggle, as she stormed through the door and stalked off in the opposite direction of Suzy. I walked around the corner to Aidan’s room. Avery had just pushed through the door, followed by David.

Aidan had Avery by his collar and was restricting his Adam’s apple. “Avery Palowski, I’m going to give you exactly what you deserve.”

“What the hell is in your crawl, big brother?”

“What’s ‘in my crawl’ is your smart-ass, punk mouth. If you ever call my son a name again, I’ll ruin that pretty boy smile with one shot to the face.”

David shot Avery a sideways glance as he tried to disentangle Aidan’s death grip.

Avery spoke sincerely. “I already had this conversation with Dad.” He looked back at me. “Libby, you have my apologies.”

“Don’t play innocent with me, Avery. That only works on Mom, and she doesn’t fall for it too often anymore. If you ever speak to Libby the way you did earlier, I’ll sand that California tan right off your face with a baseball glove.”

“I apologized. How was I supposed to know who she was? It’s not like any of us knew she existed before a week ago.”

“Don’t you have enough problems? You love stirring the stink.” Aidan pointed at him when he released his shirt front. “Don’t you even consider speaking!”

His sulking brother sank into a chair in the corner, reading the sports page, when his parents came into the room.

Vicki came in, waving a peace sign and gave my face a once over before introducing Rick, who just happened to be the biggest Cubs fan in ChiTown. Rick stood alongside Aidan, talking sports and dissipating some of the tension in the room. Rick was still in his blue Fed Ex uniform, anxiously watching Vicki. He didn’t like having her out of his sight. She stood next to him, and he patted her belly. I thought the baby might be Rick’s proudest delivery.

I approached Cass and he hugged me around my middle. Before we could speak, the door opened. Ollie came into the room with Suzy right behind her. Ollie’s T-shirt read, ‘The tarter they are, the longer they stall’.

Aidan winked at Ollie. “Nice shirt.”

“Shut up, Old Guy.” Ollie noticed Avery sprawled out in the corner, and abruptly went to stand alongside her mother as Aidan made the introductions between the Rodgers and the Palowski families.