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“That was the most attendance we’ve ever had,” Sky says after the service, wiping tears off his cheeks.
We go home and Sky loads Edey into her new baby pouch thingie, and we walk a few blocks to pick up lunch: veggie burgers. As Sky hands his card to the woman at the register, she frowns at me.
“You’re Vance Rayne.” She tells me she was here the day that everything went down with the crazy bigot hothead. “I’m so sorry that I didn’t do more.” She gives us our burgers for free, and then, as we turn to go, she steps away from the register and whispers near my ear, “They’re filing charges against that man. I’m not sure it’s public yet. My husband is on the police force. They’ve got a lot of video, and testimony. From me and several others.” She arches her brows, and I manage to thank her without getting weird and weepy.
“Good,” Sky says, as we head back home. “They should get him.”
“Where’s our understanding pastor?” I tease.
“He’s a Papa now. And husband.”
I’m grinning at that as we near our driveway—and spot a black Escalade parked along the sidewalk.
Raymond gets out, approaching us but hanging a few feet back. “I don’t want to intrude,” he says. “I’m leaving tomorrow, and was wondering if you might want to…spend a bit of time together. When it suits you, of course.”
Sky stays quiet. I ask Raymond what he likes to eat, and he explains that he’s vegan.
Even Luke smiles at that.
“Why don’t you come over for dinner,” I tell him, and add, “I’m a vegan, too.”
He comes at six and stays till ten, and it’s a weird but weirdly good night.
“I don’t think I hate him,” Luke says after he goes.
I laugh. “Right? Me either. Everybody makes mistakes.”
Sky’s face screws up like he’s going to talk some smack about poor Raymond, who’s turning out to be a pretty nice guy—quiet and quick-witted, great with knock-knock jokes and historical facts, and sometimes easily embarrassed.
Instead Luke says, “I think it’s just…take it or leave it. You know? He’s alive, and he’s your biological father. So you can take it or leave it. And if you take it, doors are open that maybe aren’t if you don’t. You never know how something might turn out.”
I think about that as our legal team files out of a meeting room in Evermore on Monday evening.
The head lawyer nods. “It looks like a go,” she says, smiling.
Sky and I step inside, coming face to face with Eden’s birth mom for the first time.
Turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong in my initial judgment of her. Zara is a few years younger than me. She’s lean and willowy, with long, curly brown hair. She’s wearing a flowing green dress and light brown leather sandals, and a small, tight smile as she sits on a beige suede couch. From the second my eyes lock with hers, I just know I’m going to like her.
Within the first few minutes, it’s clear she’s a funny, whip-smart woman who so happens to have bipolar type one. She was raised by her grandparents, who are Catholic, so she felt it was important to give birth to Edey when she got pregnant unintentionally.
“I think the birth itself threw me off course, like with my meds,” she tells us, and Sky nods. “I’ve heard that can happen.”
“It got really bad around the time she was two weeks old. I remember that, but not a lot of what came next. I guess that’s when my manic phase kicked in, and I got that wild idea about the two of you.”
She looks embarrassed. Mortified, actually.
“Don’t feel bad about it,” Luke tells her. “When I’m having mental health issues, I just lie in bed. You got your baby to a safe place.”
The lawyers told us before this moment that Zara doesn’t remember doing it.
“It’s amazing that you thought clearly enough to do that,” I agree. “Plus, the note you left? It totally worked.” I smile, shifting Eden on my lap, and tears start dripping down Zara’s cheeks.
“You want to hold her?” I ask. As much as I adore our Little Missy, I could never keep a baby from its birth mom or deny a woman access to her child. If this works out, it’s gotta be on everybody’s terms.
Zara nods once, quick, and holds her arms out. I stand from my wing-backed chair and pass Eden gently to her, trying to focus on how good it is for Eden to be held by her mother—rather than some of the other thoughts that could run through my head.
Luke snaps a picture of them with his phone. I swallow hard and try to just keep breathing.
“Do you want some time with her?” I manage to ask Zara. “We could step out if you wanted.”
