Page 25 of Roundabout

“Would you prefer to hang out in here for a few? Just until she leaves?” Marshall asks me, before explaining, “Things can be tense afterward.”

Automatically, I drop my phone back in my purse and push through the door.

“I’m okay.”

I hold my head high as I leave the conference room, making sure I keep my arms glued to my sides so I’m less tempted to use them. After everything the girls told me at the Fall Fest, I want to. What Nora’s put those girls through… She’s lucky she’s walking away at all today.

Nora enters the hallway a moment after I do, instantly scanning me from head to toe, and I fight to keep my hands still.

There’s nothing she can use against me, I remind myself. I made sure of it before I stepped into the ring with her today. It’s not my first time squaring off against a manipulator. I know what they look for—weaknesses.

That’s why I can’t even have my phone out right now and risk having her see the model of it. Where there’s smoke there’s fire…

It’s all calculations to people like Nora. They don’t see people or emotions. They see dollar signs. They see what they want, what they convince themselves they need, and they immediately start scheming on ways to get it. It’s obvious in her gaze as it swipes down me again, considering all the opportunities she might’ve missed out on today.

Oh well. The ink is dry. The deal is done. After today, I’ll never have to face Nora again, but I want her to walk away knowing I’m not scared of her. That I’ll never be scared of her. She has no control over me, and now, she has no control over Brittni and Makya either. The ironclad contract we just signed ensures that.

I can’t wait to be done with all this so I can take them to their new permanent home.

Home.

I know from experience how much a difference having an actual home can make. The day I found mine in Coty changed my life forever.

Tears gather in my eyes, but I blink them back just as fast.

“So what will you tell my daughters?” Nora sneers, pulling out her pack of cigarettes while we’re still inside the building.

“I’ll tell them while most people only have one mom, they had two…just during different periods. One for their first several years, and one for the rest of their lives.” My voice cracks on the last part and I have to stop and collect myself.

I’m not naïve enough to think that explanation will suffice. The terms of the independent adoption made today will keep me from being able to divulge everything, but I wouldn’t want to anyway. Some things are better left unsaid.

“What will you tell them?”

Nora screws her lip up at me. “When?”

“When you say goodbye?”

“Simple.” With a shrug, she fits a cigarette to her already puckered mouth, mumbling around it, “Nothing.”

Her daughters? Please. That’s how much she considers those girls hers, she didn’t even plan on saying a final goodbye to them.

Unable to hold myself back another second, I surge forward and rip the cigarette from her lips, gripping her shoulders in both hands.

“Angela, as your attorney, I have to advise you—”

I ignore Marshall’s warning. I ignore his hand on my elbow. I ignore the voice in the back of my head saying not to give this woman anything else, least of all credit. But…it’s not about me. None of this is.

Past the lump in my throat, I look Nora in the eyes and tell her, “Thank you. You played an important role in our lives. You were my daughters’ first mother. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have them. Just as I’m thanking you now, they should get to tell you goodbye.”

She rolls her eyes and blows out a loud sigh, the kind that indicates hard work. She doesn’t know the first thing about hard work. She won’t even have to lift a finger for the next few years. Longer, if she spends wisely.

Nora brings her gaze back to mine, a cruel smirk playing on her now empty lips. “And if I say I don’t want to?”

I shake her shoulders once before letting her go. Marshall’s hand falls away a second later.

“Don’t. Don’t say it. Keep it to yourself. For once in your fucking life, Nora, think of Brittni and Makya, and give them this one last thing. Let them get some kind of closure.”

They deserve more than that, but that’s on me to give them now, not Nora. I’ll give them the reassurance all orphans seek out, the kind I searched for myself. They will probably always have at least one “what-if” floating around their heads, and while I can’t silence them all, I can try to silence this one today. I’ll even hold their hands through it. I took the day off from work to spend on this, on them…to spend with them.