I don’t even go into my house when I get back home. I walk straight to Patrick and Grace’s front door and I knock.
It was never a choice. Diem will always be the most important girl in my life, no matter what or who or when. But that doesn’t mean I’m not torn the fuck up right now.
It’s Patrick who opens the door, but Grace quickly joins him. I think she’s afraid there might be another fight. They both look a little surprised to see the state of my injuries, but Patrick offers up no apologies. I don’t expect him to.
I look them both in the eye. “Diem wanted to show me her turtle.”
The sentence is so simple, but I’m saying so much. That sentence translates to, “I chose Diem. Let’s go back to how things were before.”
Patrick eyes me for a moment, but then Grace steps aside and says, “She’s in her bedroom.”
It’s forgiveness and acceptance, but it’s not the forgiveness I really want from them. But I take it.
Diem is on her floor when I get to her doorway. The turtle is a foot away from her, and she’s trying to coax it toward her with a green LEGO.
“So, this is your turtle, huh?”
Diem sits up and beams a smile. “Yep.” She picks him up, and we meet at her bed. I sit down and lean against the headboard. She crawls to the middle of the bed and hands me the turtle, then curls up at my side. I place him on my leg, and he starts to crawl toward my knee.
“Why did NoNo hit you?” She’s looking at my lip when she asks this.
“Sometimes adults make bad decisions, D. I said something that hurt his feelings, and he got upset. It’s not his fault. It was my fault.”
“Are you mad at him?”
“No.”
“Is NoNo still mad?”
More than likely. “No.” I want to change the subject. “What’s your turtle’s name?”
Diem picks him up and lays him on her lap. “Ledger.”
I laugh. “You’re naming the turtle after me?”
“Yes. Because I love you.” She says that in the sweetest voice, and it makes my heart clench. I wish Kenna could be the recipient of Diem’s words right now.
I kiss her on top of the head. “I love you, too, D.”
I put her turtle in its aquarium and then I crawl back onto her bed and stay with her until she nods off. And then I stay a little while longer just to be certain she’s asleep.
I know Patrick and Grace love her, and I know they love me, so the last thing they would ever do is separate the two of us. They can be angry, but they also know how much Diem loves me, so even if the three of us can’t work our shit out, I know I’ll always be a huge part of Diem’s life. And as long as I’m a part of Diem’s life, I’m going to fight for what’s best for her.
I should have been doing it all along.
And what’s best for Diem is having her mother in her life.
It’s why I did what I did before I left Kenna’s apartment.
As soon as Kenna closed her bathroom door, I closed her apartment door and pretended to leave. Instead, I grabbed her phone. The password was an easy guess—Diem’s birthday. I opened her Google Docs and found the file with all the letters she’s written to Scotty, and I forwarded the file to my email address before sneaking out.
I stay in Diem’s bedroom and pull up Patrick and Grace’s printer network on my phone. I open my email and find the letter Kenna read to me, and I skip over all the rest of the letters she’s written Scotty. I’ve already violated her privacy enough by using her phone and forwarding these to myself. I don’t plan to read any of the others unless she tells me I can someday.
Tonight, I just need one of the letters.
I hit print, and I close my eyes and listen for the sound of the printer to activate in Patrick’s office across the hall.
I wait until it finishes printing, and then I sneak out of Diem’s bed and wait a moment in her room to make sure I didn’t wake her up. She’s sound asleep, so I slip out of her room and into Patrick’s office. I grab the letter off the printer and make sure all of it printed.
“Wish me luck, Scotty,” I whisper.
When I emerge from the hallway, they’re both in the kitchen. Grace is looking at her phone, and Patrick is emptying the dishwasher. They both look up at the same time.
“I have something I need to say, and I really don’t want to yell, but I will if I have to, so I think we should go outside because I don’t want to wake up Diem.”
Patrick closes the dishwasher. “We don’t really want to hear what you have to say, Ledger.” He motions toward the door. “You should go.”
I have a lot of empathy for them, but I’m afraid I’ve just met my limit. A wave of heat climbs up my neck, and I try to push down my anger, but it’s so hard when I’ve given them so much. I recall the words Kenna said to me right before I left her. Please don’t hate them.
“I’ve given my life to that little girl,” I say. “You owe this to me. I’m not leaving your property until we talk about this.” I walk out the front door and wait in their yard. A minute passes. Maybe two. I take a seat on their front patio. They’re either going to call the police or they’re going to come outside or they’re going to go to bed and ignore me. I’ll wait here until one of those three things happens.
It’s several minutes before I hear the door open behind me. I stand up and spin around. Patrick walks out of the house just far enough to give Grace space in the doorway. Neither of them looks open to what I’m about to say, but I have to say it anyway. There will never be a good time for this conversation. There will never be a good time to take the side of the girl who ruined their lives.
I feel like the words I’m about to say are the most important words that will ever come from me. I wish I were more prepared. Kenna deserves better than to have me and my plea be the only hope left between her and Diem.
I blow out an unsteady breath. “Every decision I make is for Diem. I ended my engagement with a woman I loved because I wasn’t sure she would be good enough for that little girl. That should tell you that I would never put my own happiness before Diem’s. I know you both know that, and I also know you’re just trying to protect yourselves from the pain Kenna’s actions caused. But you’re taking the worst moment of Kenna’s life and you’re making that moment who she is. That isn’t fair. It isn’t fair to Kenna. It isn’t fair to Diem. I’m starting to wonder if it’s even fair to Scotty.”
I hold up the pages in my hand.
“She writes letters to him. To Scotty. She’s been doing it for five years. This is the only one I’ve read, but it was enough to change my entire opinion of her.” I pause, and then backtrack on my words. “Actually, that’s not true. I forgave Kenna before I even knew the contents of the letter. But the second she read this out loud to me, I realized she’s been hurting just as much as all of us have. And we’re slowly killing her by continuing to drag out her pain.” I squeeze my forehead and put even more emphasis on the words I’m about to speak. “We are keeping a mother from her child. That’s not okay. Scotty would be so mad at us.”
It grows quiet when I stop speaking. Too quiet. It’s like they aren’t even breathing. I hand Grace the letter. “It’ll be hard to read. But I’m not asking you to read it because I’m in love with Kenna. I’m asking you to read it because your son was in love with her.”
Grace starts to cry. Patrick still won’t look me in the eye, but he reaches for his wife and pulls her to him.
“I’ve given the last five years of my life to you guys. All I’m asking for in return is twenty minutes. It probably won’t even take you that long to read the letter. After you read it, and take time to process it, we’ll talk. And I’ll respect whatever decisions the two of you make. I swear I will. But please, please give me the next twenty minutes. You owe Diem the opportunity to have another person in her life who will love her as much as Scotty would have loved her.”
I don’t give them an opening to argue or hand the letter back to me. I immediately turn and walk to my house and disappear inside it. I don’t even look out the window to see if they’ve gone inside, or if they’re reading the letter.
I’m so nervous I’m shaking.
I look for my parents and find them in the backyard. My father has items from the RV spread out across the grass, and he’s using the water hose to clean them. My mother is sitting in the patio love seat reading a book.
I take a seat next to her. She looks up from her book and smiles, but when she sees the look on my face, she closes the paperback.
I drop my head in my hands and I start to cry. I can’t help it. I feel like the lives of everyone I love are hanging on this moment, and it’s fucking overwhelming.
“Ledger,” my mother says. “Oh, honey.” She wraps her arm around me and hugs me.
