CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE
"Every act of creation is first an act of destruction."
~Pablo Picasso
PRESENT
SCARLETT
The first time I brought Dante to Gina and Eugene's was the hardest.
They greeted us at the door, and Mercy was with them, flinging herself at me with abandon.
I stroked her hair and let her hug me to her heart's content, my gaze wary on Dante.
The look in his eyes as he saw her for the first time broke my heart all over again.
I knew what he was feeling, and I felt it with him, knew precisely what he was seeing as he took her in.
Mercy was a gorgeous doll of a girl, a lovely mix of her biological parents.
She had her father's blond coloring and the same gorgeous ocean eyes.
And there was no doubt where her wavy hair texture came from, her high cheekbones, her stubborn jaw. Her mother.
But that was all they had in common.
No one called Mercy trash. No one would. No one thought of her that way, she was the opposite, in fact.
And only once had anyone ever thrown her away.
You never make peace with being abandoned. This I know. But we would do what we could to take responsibility for it. To never let her feel the way I had. She was loved deeply, and not just by the parents that raised her. That was a fact.
Dante had known what to expect, or at least he'd had fair warning.
But knowing and seeing are two different creatures.
Not to mention feeling.
It was hard, perhaps even as hard as telling him had been.
He hadn't taken either thing well.
Who would? Who could?
We'd had a bad few days after I told him, a few miserable moments where I wasn't sure we'd make it out the other side.
Of course he resented my decision. Resented that I'd made it without him, but even he knew that that was as unfair as it was natural.
The night I'd told him is one I'd never forget. Neither of us would. It had been as horrible as I'd dreaded. As painful as I'd known it had to be.
"How could you do that? How could you do a thing like that just for spite?" he had asked when I told him, his immediate gut reaction.
I'd been expecting something like that, but I was still offended, still taken from reasonable to messy with those two sentences.
"It wasn't for spite," I told him, voice quavering in something akin to dread. This conversation could ruin us. That fact was not lost on me. "It was for survival. You were engaged to Tiffany when I found out. What was I supposed to do?"
Something awful wrote itself on his familiar features in all caps. His mouth twisted.
Shame.
"You should have told me," he gasped out. He couldn't even look at me. His eyes were aimed up at the ceiling, blinking over and over. "You should have at least told me. Jesus, how could you go through that alone?" I shook harder with every word out of his mouth. "How could you give our child away without even telling me?" He was weeping by the end.
"I didn't know how. And I thought you'd reject me. Us. I was sure you never wanted to speak to me again."
"You know, you know, that if you'd come to me, that no matter what, I'd have helped. You know that if you'd come to me, pregnant with our child, I'd have helped."
God that hurt. And I couldn't deny it. Even I, the queen of denial, couldn't choke out the words.
We were in our bedroom for the conversation, and by then we were both huddled in opposite corners, crying our eyes out, and I, for one, was wondering how the hell we'd ever get through this.
Of the two of us, Dante was by far the forgiving one. If he couldn't forgive, how could I even begin to try?
But somehow we found a way. Dante made the first move, coming to me, picking me up, and carrying me to bed. We held each other as we wept until our tears ran dry, then set about trying to heal. It would be a long journey, but if we were committed enough, I knew we could do it.
We were committed enough.
"You need to meet them," I said eventually. "When you meet her parents, you'll understand. Or at least, it will help. They were there for everything. For me and for her. Her mother was the first to hold her, her father the second. It's not possible for them to love her more."
That had comforted him, but even so, nothing could have fully braced him for the shock of meeting our daughter for the first time.
The second Mercy had her fill of hugging me, she approached Dante. She didn't seem the least intimidated by the tall, solemn man that was staring at her with eyes that matched hers.
She held up her hand in a wave like he wasn't right in front of her. "Hi. I'm Mercy."
He lowered down to his haunches and tried very hard to smile for her. "I'm Dante."
"Are you Scarlett's friend?"
"Yes. Her very best friend. I'm going to be her husband. Would you like to come to our wedding?"
She beamed at him. "Can I dress like a princess?"
He nodded, still trying to smile. It was strained, but he got an A for effort.
I had to look away and cover my mouth to keep from sobbing aloud.
"You can," he said, the words unsteady. "If it's okay with your parents, we'd love for you to be the flower girl."
"Of course," Gina said, sounding less than steady herself.
Mercy was thrilled, and completely oblivious to our anguish. Also, she was an instant fan of Dante's. She'd always wanted to be a flower girl, she told him.
"What color do I get to wear?" she asked him, sidling closer.
"Whatever color you want," he said.
She clapped her hands. "Can I pick more than one color?"
"Of course. You can pick them all."
And just like that, they were buddies. She wanted to sit by him at dinner. She wanted him to cut up her meatballs into little tiny pieces and then her spaghetti.
They were fast friends. It was hard to watch but necessary.
We stayed much longer than I normally did, and I knew without having to ask that this would be the new pattern.
It was hours later, and Dante and I were sitting on the back porch swing, our hands clasped hard together, every finger entwined, hips glued like we were attached, watching Gina and Eugene dig through a large outdoor sandbox with Mercy.
"It's so strange that we can just visit her like this," Dante said, his eyes on the mother of our child.
"It is an open adoption."
"That's what you wanted," he stated.
"It's not," I contradicted. "It's what she wanted. She thought, and thinks, since it was an option, that when the question arises, I should not be a mystery. We should not be a mystery. They are fans of total honesty. They want to keep no secrets from their daughter."
"It seems harder this way. The idea of her and the reality . . . are two very different things."
"Yes. Harder indeed. As I've said, it's not what I wanted, but I didn't trust at the time, or even now, that what I wanted was what was best. I was wounded . . . am wounded, and I longed for the easy choice, but the fact is that there wasn't one. So I tried for the best choice, for her, her mother, and her mother I trusted to know what it was."
Gina taught me what angels were, and that maybe, just maybe, Gram was right about prayers, that no matter your sins, sometimes life sends you the answer you need.
Not the answer you want, perhaps, but need is the thing. The thing that matters most, no matter how it hurts.