Page 85 of Finding Fate

The door to my office opens and the air thickens, telling me who it is. Very few have the ability to change a room with their presence. Gabrielle has it. I knew she wouldn’t have a problem drawing attention when she started slowly looking like a woman. But regardless of how much I hated the thought, I let her have her freedom, hoping to avoid the very situation she landed in.

Feet shuffle across the hardwood floor. I knew they’d arrive early. I was already waiting with everything ready. I stare out the window at the garden that belongs to my ex-wife. It was the one request she had. She wanted a tranquil place to meditate when she was stressed or needed some time alone; a place she could call her own.

I don’t know why in the hell I pay someone to keep it up. Gabrielle’s room is directly above my office. I’ve caught her sitting in her window seat looking at it many times over the years, and maybe I’ve kept it for her. Just because her mother left doesn’t mean I want to take every reminder of her away. “Patéras.”

I smile. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard her use Greek terms. She hasn’t been back home since before she got pregnant. Of course, this is stillhometo her and always will be. To me both places are what I would consider home. I made sure she had a Greek tutor from the time she was young. Always spoke to her in both languages off and on so that she would fit in when we visited just like she does here. “Kóri.”

I turn around. Her dark eyes are full of tears. It’s the only thing in life that cripples me. She’s only ever cried over two people, and neither of those were her mother. She’s the only woman that holds any power over me. She just doesn’t realize it, because my upbringing taught me to be hard in all the places someone can see.

When she blinks the tears fall. “If this is some twisted game to you tell me now. My heart can’t take much more. Are you really giving him to us? I made Maddox wait in the living room. I can’t hurt him like that. Dad, please, I’ll do anything. You win. I just want my son.”

I exhale. It’s unfortunate her own mother didn’t fight so damn hard for her. I told her she wasn’t taking my daughter away from me or I’d kill her. I never said I would keep Gabrielle from her. We could have shared in a way that made sense. I’m a reasonable man, which is why I backed out of the closed adoption at the end of her pregnancy. For her. “He’s always been yours, Gabrielle. His birth name is Madden Leroy Thanos Burns. Both of you are listed as his parents on his birth certificate. You can be mad at me all you want to, but you needed to be a normal teenager. You’ll understand when your kids are at that age. Keeping you from him forever was never part of the plan.”

More tears fall from her big, dark eyes. “It wasn’t?”

“No.”

“But I thought . . . You said you chose a family.”

And as the memory from that day comes back, I say, “you changed my mind.”

She finally turns the baby loose. As I walk across the room, I hand him to a member of nursery staff to take him away as she screams out in agony, making my stomach roll with nausea. My father could have done this with no second thought, but I ended up with my mother’s soft heart, and she’s been wearing me down with her pleas the entire pregnancy.

The second I walked into the bathroom to her in the bathtub trying to labor on her own, I knew I couldn’t do it. She wasn’t going to call me for help. She was going to go through it all on her own to keep him, and I have no doubt she would have ran, putting them both in danger, so I made a few calls.

I follow the baby all the way to the nursery, not letting him out of my sight. She’s screaming at the top of her lungs. The baby is crying. I can’t stand to see my only daughter in so much pain, but I’m also not saddling my kid with a kid. She just turned fifteen. She’s barely old enough for high school and she’s already given birth. She’s not mature enough to handle motherhood. She’s not even driving for God’s sake.

These are the times I could kill my ex-wife with my bare hands. There are times when a girl needs a mother. If I wasn’t still in love with the very bitch I also hate, maybe I could meet someone else.

Neither of them would benefit from this situation. Kids aren’t supposed to be having kids. It’s not good for either of them. She needs to grow up. He needs stability, love, a family.

Her cries continue to filter down the hall, proving how loud she is. I told her not to hold him. It would only make it harder. This is the exact reason I suggested an abortion, though I’m proud she chose not to take the easy way out. I can see so much of me in her. Sometimes it’s scary.

I don’t know how long I’ve been standing at the nursery window, but they’ve already bathed him, bundled him, and fed him a bottle. A body flanks each side of me, one masculine, one feminine. “We came as fast as we could,” she says.

“I’ve spoken with the hospital administrator and paid for a private room for both of you and the baby until he’s released. He needs to bond with someone. He was just pried from his mother. Then you can take him home, raise him, and care for him until I feel she’s ready.”

“Does she know?” he asks.

“No. She’ll want to be where he is, making all of this pointless. She needs to believe I gave him up to the family I had picked out—the couple that’s miscarried so many times they finally gave up conceiving and got sterilized. Figured they deserved him.”

“So what’s stopping you? She can have more children later.”

“My love for my daughter. Taking him from her will haunt me forever.”

“She’s going to hate you either way,” he adds.

“That’s something I’ll just have to live with. At least I’ll know deep down that I gave my kid a shot at a real childhood. It’s worth it to me.”

“You’re making the right call,” she tells me from my left. “Family takes care of family.”

“Dad, are you listening to me? Where is he? Who has my son?”

I snap out of it. She’s closer than she was before. “My parents,” I answer. “He lives in Greece with them.”

Her lips tremble and she takes a step back. Her eyes haven’t dried up yet. “All these years he’s been with Pappoús and Giagiá? My own family?”

“Yes.”

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