Tethered (74 page)

“You look really good, princess,” Jerry said when he found me at the fountain.

“Don’t call me that,” I snapped at him. I stood before him with my arms crossed and all of my defenses up. “What do you want, Jerry? What do you have to say that you couldn’t say over the phone?”

He sighed and hung his head for a moment. He then pushed his sunglasses back on his head so I could see his eyes, but I kept my sunglasses in place. “I’m sorry, Donya. I’m sorry for what I did to you and Rosa, especially on that last night.”

“It’s been months, Jerry,” I snarled. “
Months!
You never even checked to make sure your daughter was okay. We left and you didn’t care so why do you care now?”

“I’ve always cared,” he said with another sigh.

“If you’re just going to stand there and spew bullshit than this is a waste of my time,” I said and began to turn away.

“I want a second chance with Rosa,” he said quickly before I could take more than a couple of steps.

I froze for a moment and then spun around to face him. I was astounded that he had the nerve to even
say
that. To
me
!

“I’ve been in therapy,” he said softly and looked away, embarrassed. “I don’t have a reasonable explanation for my behavior right now, but I do know that I’ve missed out on a lot and I want to get to know my daughter.”

I shook my head, both in disbelief and to deny him. “No. No way, Jerry. I don’t care how much therapy you’ve had. I have no reason to believe that you won’t physically and emotionally hurt her. You’ve done enough of that.”

“But I’m her father,” he argued quietly.

“No, Jerry,” I said. “You are a sperm donor. I just married her father. A matter of fact…” I opened my purse and produced a manila envelope and passed it to him. “Consider yourself served. My lawyer was going to do this before your game tonight.”

“What is this?” he asked, eyeing the envelope skeptically.

“I want you to sever your parental rights,” I said. I actually felt a little bad for handing him the paperwork right after he just asked to see Rosa. “Look, Jerry,” I sighed. “I really appreciate your apology, but for once in Rosa’s life be fair to her. Let her go. Emmet loves her like his own and he’s the only real father she’s had in her life. If you love her at all, you will sign those papers and let her go.”

He suddenly looked so sad that I had to look away. When Emmet and I decided to go through with this so that he could officially adopt Rosa, it was easy because I had not thought I would have to lay my eyes on Jerry again. I never thought I’d have to see his face when he received the news. Furthermore, I never thought that he would care.

“Can I think about it?” he asked after a moment.

“You have some time,” I said, shrugging my shoulder. “But there isn’t much to think about,” I added softly.

I had nothing else to say, and I didn’t want to listen to anymore of his apologies or to see his sad and confused face anymore. So, I gave him a final look and then walked away.

Meeting Jerry had sparked an enormous argument between Emmet and me. He didn’t like that I went to meet him by myself. I had argued that I was perfectly safe, but Emmet said that my saying so didn’t make him feel any better. He said that he would never forget how I passed out on Emmy’s front doorstep sick and weak. He said he’d never be able to shake the images of my frail and bruised body from his mind. I understood and I stopped arguing and apologized repeatedly. Emmet forgave me, but he was angry for days afterward.

Several weeks later Vivian called me to tell me that Jerry had signed the papers, but a judge still had to approve it. Jerry had all of those weeks to contact me, to put up a fight for his daughter, and prove that he was a changed man, but he didn’t do any of that. I knew he wouldn’t, but I felt rejected on Rosa’s behalf anyway.

It was more weeks after that when we found out that Jerry’s rights had been severed. Emmet immediately began the paperwork to adopt Rosa, and now she is Rosa Grayne.

I look at Emmet now in the present and say “We’ve had some issues.”

“We’ve had our issues,” he agrees. “But we get through them, and it’s the fact that we do get through them that adds to the perfection of what we have.”

I put my hand on top of his hand that is on my belly. I smiled sleepily at him and let my eyes close. I have never felt as content and happy as I do now. I always knew that Emmet would make me happy, but like him, my mind could not even conjure this level of happiness.

I used to mourn the time that was lost in our years apart, but then I learned a valuable lesson. Destiny can be tricky. The road to your destination is not always a straight shot. Sometimes the road splits off into different directions and you have to choose. It’s hard to say whether or not your choice was a bad choice or not, because maybe the other path was just as bumpy, or just as rewarding, and the fact is that you can never know for sure. You can sit around for years wondering “What if I had gone the other way” and you will never have a true answer.

On our mutual journey to our destination, the road sometimes crowded with other people, or maybe parts of the road crumbled away. We often had to travel uphill, and we often had to travel in a sad and solitary country. There were very often obstacles to climb over, go around, or destroy.

It doesn’t matter what the road looked like or how many times it branched off, all roads led to the same destination. It doesn’t matter how we got here. We were destined to be here and we would have arrived no matter what route we took, and even if our respective roads did not always parallel, we were always able to f
ind each other. That line between us was always present, linking us to each other on every level no m
atter where we were. That connection will
always
be present.

We will always be
tethered
.

The End