I may never be mentally capable of accepting people in my life after what my childhood caused, but you never should have paid the consequence for that.
Leaving you and Gavin has been the most difficult decision I’ve ever made, even if it appeared like it was a quick, easy solution for me. I’m not capable of loving or being a parent. While it was selfish to leave our son without a mother, it would have been more selfish to be his mother. I wouldn’t have been able to give him a normal or decent life. While I don’t expect you to ever fully understand why I did what I did, my decisions were out of love and hope that you will give Gavin the life he does deserve.
I left when I did for several reasons, one of them being Cameron stepping back into your life. When I walked past the pizza shop that day and I saw you laughing and talking with her, I realized I had not seen you smile like that in most of the time we had been married. Of course, I was upset and jealous in the moment, but I quickly came to realize that if there was someone out there that could make you smile like that, I was being even more self-centered by staying with you and keeping you from a happiness you deserved, especially one where you could have the possibility of a normal family.
I don’t know if you ended up with Cameron after all that happened, but believe it or not I have prayed that you did. I have wished that you and Gavin are happy.
I’m writing to you, not to rehash old, painful memories of our time together, but to ask if you’re in a situation with Cameron or someone new, and if so, would she possibly be interested in adopting Gavin, giving him the chance at having a real mother, since it can’t be me. It could possibly be the only good thing I can give my son, and it’s my wish to do so.
If you are in a place and with someone who would fill that role for our son, please write me back. Whether it’s now or down the road from now, I will give up my legal rights and grant adoption to whomever you are with. I trust you enough to make the best decisions for Gavin.
I am sorry for what I put you through, and I want you to know I am in a good place now, living in a convent, making peace with my life, as I should have done long ago. I have forgiven myself for my mother’s death and my sister’s. I am still working on forgiving myself for what I put you and Gavin through, but I feel this proposal will help me grant myself more forgiveness.
I hope you and Gavin are doing well and you’re living a blessed life.
Tori
I look up at Cammy, the shocked look on her face, the tears running down her cheeks, and the redness webbing across her face. “You got this letter four months ago?”
“Yes,” I tell her. “I responded to her right away and told her all about you and how you had taken to Gavin as if he were your own, selflessly offering him a motherly figure in his life, while loving him like he should be loved. I told her how you and I together gave him a family—an older sister and a little brother.”
Her forehead crumples and her lips quiver. “You said all of that?”
“It’s the truth, Cam. Yesterday, I got this in the mail.” I hold up the other piece of paper.
Cammy snatches it from my hand. “Adoption papers?”
“If you’ll have him,” I say.
“Where do I sign? What do I have to do to make this official? I’ll do it this very second!” Her words come out so quickly and without thought. I know she would jump in front of a moving car for Gavin, and she’s spent three years proving that to me. “I will be that little boy’s mother. I love him as if I put him on this earth myself, and I will continue to give him everything I can. I would have continued even if it were never an option to make it official. I love him.”
“I know all of this, Cam. I never questioned it for a second.”
“Thank you for this opportunity,” she cries softly.
“Some things were never meant to be, but then there are things that were always meant to be.”
My life has come full circle in the most dizzying, off-roading way, and while I have spent half of my life being impatient for this moment to occur, it was all worth fighting through. It was all worth surviving. It was all worth waiting for.