Page 39 of Claimed By the Don

“Even if you believed that of me, did you really think so little of yourself? To think that you would’ve been with any guy who’d do something like that? Give yourself some credit even if you didn’t give me any,” he says ruefully.

“I misjudged everything so badly, especially you. Liam has a right to know you, and you should know him. I want that more than –I have these—” I hold out the plastic grocery sack I brought with me. “I kept a notebook. I wrote in it like a diary and then I printed some pictures and stuck them in too. I did this one here while I was pregnant—the ultrasound is in it—you can see that he’s a boy. The next one, after he was born, that one has some cute pictures of him when he was all tiny and red and mad all the time. He was a screamer. He was not an angel baby,” I smirk. “He was so curious and so alert—when he started crawling, he was into everything. He never slowed down. From the second he started talking---look, in this one I tried to keep a list of every question he asked in a day—I filled both sides of the page and it says,8:10AM I give up.”

I show him the battered composition books. “So, you kept a record of your lives out in Washington,” he says, taking them carefully like they are something holy to him.

“I think I was writing to you. For you. It wasn’t sweet and hopeful enough to be a baby book I’d ever pass down to Liam—it’s very personal and raw. If you don’t want to read them—in fact, you’d probably think I was crazy if you read them and you might rethink wanting to be with me,” I try to take the notebooks back on second thought.

“No way. I’m going to read every word of these. How did you have time to write in them at all? You had your hands full.”

“Around seven months he started sleeping four hours at a clip. That was like being reborn. I could think. I could wash my hair and get the dishes done every night. Liam was still a screamer, but he liked being outside, so I’d put him in the stroller and go to the park or the library most days after work, even when I was wiped out from being on my feet.”

“I wish I’d been there to take on some of that. You wouldn’t have had to work, or if you wanted to, you wouldn’t have been the one taking a long walk after you got home. This won’t be that way. We’re in this together.”

I want to bury my face in my hands and cry. Instead, I clear my throat, blink back tears and reach for him. “I want that more than anything. I wantyoumore than anything, Benny.”

28

BENNY

She says she wants this more than anything. I can see she’s torn up about keeping Liam from me, that she can feel how much time we’ve lost and what it has cost me. What it has cost her. What it cost our son, not having his father in his life. I want to get to know him—the urgency I feel is foreign to me. I didn’t know he existed. Now that I know, I want to rush to him, watch him play, listen to him talk, learn everything I can about him. But I won’t push him or force a relationship. To him, I’m a stranger. It guts me, but I’ll wait.

My dad said it was action that makes you a man. From what I’ve learned on my own, it’s patience, and that there is a strength and integrity in waiting, keeping faith. I’ve kept faith with Daisy all these years. Not that I’ve been a monk or anything, but I’ve never loved anyone else, never even considered it.

I love Daisy. Forever and always. If she was afraid all these years, then it’s my job to make sure she knows she can trust me. That I’ll move heaven and hell to keep her and Liam safe and by my side. To help her bring this baby into the world without the stress she experienced doing it alone last time. I might as wellcall it my mission. To show Daisy that together is better and create a life where Liam thrives, happy and safe.

“Daze,” I say to her. “I have somebody I want to introduce you to this week if you’ll go.”

“Sure, who is it?”

“I went to a counselor for a while after you left. She taught me a lot about why I did some of the things I did. She can help you see when your thoughts aren’t true. That was a big thing for me.”

“You want me to go to a shrink?” she says.

“Yeah, I do. I’m going to talk to her about what happened with my dad and about—all of this. I don’t want to get back in a bad pattern and screw this up. It’s too important. We have to do this right.”

“You would go to counseling with me? For real? Benny Falconari, the toughest thug on the block?”

“Absolutely.”

She throws her arms around me. “I want to do that. I know I need to see somebody. I have a lot of regrets and I’m so sorry—I want to do better. Be a family.”

I hold her and it feels so right, like everything shifts back into place the way it should be. We’ve talked so long it’s getting light, the dark sky fading to gray and purple.

“I’d better get you home,” I say. “We don’t want Liam waking up and wondering where you are.”

“Yes. Take me home. But—I want our home to be together soon. I don’t want to rush Liam, and I’m going to ask his pediatrician if there’s a child psychologist that can help us transition. I know—” her voice breaks, “I know that my anxiety affects him and I don’t want that for him. I want him to be really confident and not afraid of everything.”

I hold her close, kiss her hair. “We’re going to take good care of him, make sure everybody has the help they need.”

“Thank you,” she says, looking up at me with tears in her eyes. “Thank you for making all of this okay. You’re the one who sees me, and you think I can get better. That we can have a life together as a family.”

“I know we can. Wewill.” I tell her with my whole heart.

I drive her home, one arm around her just like I used to when we were kids. The swell of happiness pushes against my rib cage, fills me. On the way through the dim streets as dawn breaks, it feels dangerously like heaven.

I park outside her mom’s house. We walk up onto the porch hand in hand. I bend to kiss her but she shakes her head.

“Come inside with me. Let’s have breakfast,” she says.

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