Harrison’s eyebrows rose. “What happened to all that stuff last night about finishing this?” he asked, his voice raised a little on the last two words as though he was trying to imitate my voice.
I started to respond, but Harrison’s attorney moved up beside him and grabbed his arm. “I think we should talk about this before we discuss anything with them.”
“He’s right, Harry,” another voice said.
A woman, about the same height as the first, made her way up beside Harrison. She had dark hair, like his, and green eyes, also like his. This had to be the sister. Which made the other woman…she turned toward me and I saw, for the first time, that she had pale blue eyes that were so eerily like JT’s that it was a little surreal.
The birth mother.
I stepped back just slightly, barely missed smashing the top of Jack’s foot with my heel. I remembered my parents talking about her. I remembered how awed my mother was by her courage to do the right thing for her child, the reverent way in which she talked about her. And here she was, in the flesh.
She was not what I’d expected.
“Out!” Harrison suddenly bellowed. “Everyone get out of here. Now.”
Jack lay his hand on the middle of my back, leaning close to whisper in my ear.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
But Harrison was watching me and I knew that if I was ever going to trust him, now was the time.
“It’s okay.”
Arguments continued as everyone slowly filed out of the room, but Harrison never acknowledge any of them. And I…well, the only person I had to acknowledge was him. And my eyes never left his.
It was oppressively quiet when Jack finally closed the door.
“What’s going on?”
I didn’t answer right away. I’d been up most of the night, working this out in my head. I’d gone back and forth. It was what JT wanted. But JT was just a child. The promise I made my parents could be interpreted many ways. But maybe JT’s wellbeing was more important than a promise made halfheartedly years ago.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do until I went to wake JT and found him sitting on the edge of his bed, dressed in the suit I’d bought him for the funeral—which was several inches too small everywhere—chewing the cuticles from his fingers.
I couldn’t put him through this.
I sank down into one of the chairs, suddenly more exhausted than I think I’d ever been.
“Jack drew up a paper that says we acknowledge that the adoption was never legal. But by signing the paper, you agree to allow me visitation with JT a couple of times a year.”
Harrison made a sound that could have been a groan, but was more like a swallowed sigh.
“Why?”
“Because you were right. We shouldn’t be putting JT through all of this.”
“So you’re just going to let me walk away with him?”
And then I groaned. Pain tore through me so quickly that I couldn’t hold it all in. Tears fell, staining the papers Jack and I had argued over all morning. I couldn’t stop them, couldn’t brush them away fast enough to get ahead.
“Why are you doing this?” he demanded again.
I looked up, looked at Harrison through a sheen of tears.
“Because I finally did the one thing that we both should have done from the beginning. I asked JT what he wanted.”
“And this is it?”
“He wants to know you. He wants to know the life he might have had if his birth mother hadn’t given him up.”
Harrison looked away for a brief moment, that tendon jumping in his jaw again. I wanted to go to him, wanted to touch him. I wanted to make the tension go away, wanted to make him forget about all the anger and the hurt and the pain we’d dished out on one another since this began. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t my place.
I stood and pushed the papers toward him.
“That’s for you and your lawyer. I’ve already signed it.”
I started to move past him, eager to go home and hide under my covers for a day or two or ten. I half hoped that Harrison would stop me from leaving the room. But he just watched me, his expression unreadable. I walked out of the room and found Jack waiting at the elevators. The corridor was quiet again, only the two women who were there with Harrison, his lawyer, and another, older woman all sitting together on a low bench. They looked up expectantly when I walked out, but I didn’t know them. I didn’t know what to say to them.
I joined Jack at the elevator. I thought my knees might give out on me, but I managed to stay on my feet until we got to the parking lot.
“You okay?” Jack asked.
I shook my head. But there was really nothing to say, was there? It was over.
I turned to get into my car when a man suddenly appeared beside me.
“Are you a friend of Harrison Philips?”
“Excuse me?”
The man held a digital recorder near my mouth. “Could you tell me why Harrison Philips was appearing in family court today?”
“That’s none of your business,” Jack said, trying to move between me and the obnoxious stranger.
“Is it true he has an illegitimate child?”