“Ever?” Mom asks, calming herself down, it seems.
“My daughter,” I reply.
“That’s her name?” Mom says through a sob. “It’s—it’s the most beautiful name I could have imagined her having.”
“Please, be easy. Ever is going through a lot of trauma right now, and she’s angry about it.”
“Of course,” Mom says, perking up.
“I get to meet her?” Olive pipes in, clapping her hands together. “Yay!”
Oh my God. This is going to go horribly; I grumble to myself.
I hand Gavin to Hunter and run back outside to grab the girls. “Coast is clear,” I say with a lighthearted chuckle to ease their nerves.
Ever and Cammy follow me into the house, Ever standing nearly on my heels, hiding from everyone. “Mr. and Mrs. Cole, it’s nice to see you again,” Cammy says, leaning forward to give Mom a hug.
Mom doesn’t want to let go of her, and I’m about ready to step in to save Cammy. I clear my throat to break up her sentimental embrace and lightly tug Ever out from behind me. I don’t know what my face looked like when I saw Ever for the first time when she was born or the first time this past week, but if my face looked anything like Mom’s, Dad’s, or Hunter’s, I’d probably cry while looking in the mirror. They all look surprised, but so happy. For the first time in my life, everyone is speechless, and I’m not sure what to say to break this ice. “My God,” Hunter says. “You look like your dad—I mean AJ.”
“She has Cammy’s perfect little nose,” Mom says.
“You got the Cole eyes,” Dad laughs. “Lucky girl.”
Ever doesn’t say anything. I’m assuming she’s feeling pretty overwhelmed, as I would too. I actually don’t know how she’s kept it together as well as she has this week. I wonder when she found out she was adopted and how that went. I haven’t asked that. There’s so much I haven’t asked, and I feel like I’m running out of time.
“You are absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful,” Mom adds in. “I knew if you two stayed together, you would someday have a beautiful child. I just didn’t know it had already happened.” Mom’s choking up again and I get it. I’ve dropped an atom bomb on every person I love this week.
“You don’t want AJ going with you to Pennsylvania?” Dad asks, not caring that this isn’t his business. He’s never cared to keep out of my business, though, so this doesn’t come as a surprise.
Cammy seems uncomfortable as she sits down in the closest chair, crossing one leg over the other. “I’m going to have to do the adoption process myself right now. I never had AJ down as a birth parent because of the circumstances we were in, in addition to the fact that my dad was on a hunt for the boy who got me pregnant. It may complicate things if AJ comes.”
Why is this just coming out now? “What are you saying? Even after all is said and done and we win our—your rights back, she still won’t be considered my daughter?” She is my fucking daughter. Jesus, look at her!
“Honestly, I don’t know how this is going to work,” Cammy says.
“Aren’t you an attorney?” I ask, knowing the anger in my voice isn’t hidden at the moment.
“Yes, but for real-estate, not adoption.” Didn’t even know there was a difference. “AJ, I want you to be her legal guardian too, but you’re married right now and not to me, so I don’t know what this process is going to be like. I don’t know how eager the court will be to give parental rights to a couple who aren’t even together. It may be easier if it’s just me at first.”
Ever looks lost in this conversation, and if it weren’t for her sitting here, I’d probably leave the house, needing to scream loudly enough to make the pain in my chest stop.
Olive stands up from one of the corner chairs and walks up to Ever. “Want to go see their garden outside? It’s pretty awesome.” Olive looks toward the kitchen. “Lana, let’s go outside with Ever!”
“Yeah, okay,” Ever says, following Olive out front with Lana in toe.
“We’re cousins now,” Olive says as the door closes behind them.
Silence fills the room, while we all stare at the door that just closed, all of us probably processing the innocent conversation Olive just shared with Ever.
“She’s right,” Mom says, interrupting the silence. “Cammy, that’s very smart to think that way.”
“Great,” I mutter. “What about a DNA test or something?”
“AJ, that’s part of it, and we’ll handle that when the time comes, but in the meantime, think about the complexity of this case,” Cammy says through a loud sigh, clearly getting aggravated.
“You want to get her back, and it’s probably simpler to do that without a custody hearing involved on top of it,” Hunter says. Custody? Right. I’m married to Tori, not Cammy.
Why is everyone against me?