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Seriously, how many times can a person break before the only things left are shattered fragments too small to piece back together?
I slump down on the couch and look back at the picture again—only this time, my focus isn’t on Becca; it’s on Tommy.
And I remember one of the first things I ever told Becca: that there are some sacrifices greater than love. And some loves greater than any sacrifice. Tommy was greater than both.
And because of that, I stand up, grab my keys and get in my car.
And I give up the only thing I have left to sacrifice.
My pride.
My mom’s eyes widen when she opens the door, then drop to Tommy standing in front of me.
“I need your help.”
Without a word, she opens the door wider. She doesn’t stop us when I take Tommy’s hand to help him climb the stairs to their bedroom. She stays silent as she follows behind and when I walk into the room, my dad’s eyes widen, first at me and then at his grandson. He looks behind me, I assume at my mother, his lips part but he doesn’t make a sound.
He never does.
Through the lump in my throat, I force out my words. “Tommy this is your…” I look at my mom. “What do you want to be called?”
She sniffs once, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “Nanni,” she whispers.
“Tommy this is your nanni, this is Daddy’s mamma.”
Tommy’s narrowed eyebrows shadow his clear blue eyes. “Daddy’s mamma?”
“Yes.” I point to my dad, “And this is Daddy’s daddy…”
“Pa,” my mom says. “Nanni and Pa.”
Tommy looks at my dad, lying on his back in his hospital type bed—the same way I’d seen him since I found out about his illness. “You is Pa?” he asks quietly.
My mom lets out a single sob.
My dad doesn’t move.
Robby and Kim knock on their front door—showing up exactly when I’d wanted them to.
Tommy smiles when he sees them enter my parents’ room, even though he just left them.
“This is your grandson: Thomas Joshua Christian. My son. My world. And I need your help, because I’m going to lose him.”
I ask Kim to take Tommy so I can speak to my parents and Robby and ask them for something I never thought I would.
Help.
I need help.
And I need them.
I sit down on the same chair I’ve always sat in, only now I pull it to the side of his bed, because I need him to hear me. I need him to see me.
“He’s a great kid—my son. He’s kind and respectful and a little crazy but I love him with everything I have,” I tell him, the pain of the past few days finally consuming me. “He’s smart, Dad. Smarter than I ever was. And he’s so funny. He gives me a new reason to smile every single day.” I pause when my mom sits on the bed by his legs, taking his hand in hers. She nods, asking me to continue. “He’s into dressing up at the moment. Chazarae, the lady who took me in and gave me a home when I had nowhere to go—”
My mother’s cry cuts me off but she nods again. “Go on.”
“Chazarae buys him all these little outfits and Becca—my girl—my ex, she’d take these pictures of him. She called him a little poser.” I reach into my pocket and pull out all the photographs she’d taken of him and hand them to my mom. She lets go of Dad and starts flipping through the pictures, her smile now overshadowing her tears. My dad stays silent, his gaze at the wall in front of him.
“It’s been hard—being seventeen and being completely alone to a raise a child. I didn’t know anything about being a dad—only what you taught me,” I tell him. “And somehow, it was enough to get me here. And Robby and Kim—they’ve helped me through a lot of it, but there’ve been times when I needed my parents. And no more so than I need them now. I wouldn’t ask…” I choke on a breath, fighting against my pride.
Robby steps up behind me, his hand on my shoulder.
“Natalie—she came back. She wants full custody of him. She has money I don’t. She has family I don’t. She’s his mom and she’s going to win. She’s going to take my world away from me and I don’t know what to do. I can’t live without him.”
“Fuck,” Robby whispers.
I rear back when my dad slowly sits up, his eyes on mine. He tries to speak but nothing comes out. Then he looks at my mother. “Ella, call Jack Newman.”
“Our lawyer?”
Dad nods. “Set up a meeting for all of us.” He turns to me now, but I can barely see him, not through the tears flooding my vision. “Your son has your smile, Josh.”
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I get the papers from Natalie’s lawyers the next day and the first thing I do is take them to my parent’s house. We sit in my dad’s room and go through everything we know. The next day, we have an appointment with Jack Newman at their house. My dad sits in the living room with us, dressed in a suit that hangs off his now thin and gaunt frame. He stays quiet while the lawyer explains everything to us. Natalie’s lawyers are good. Really good. And they’re going to take their time finding evidence and character witnesses who are going to be willing to lie on the stand for the girl who was lost at seventeen, found at twenty, and wants the best for her son. In her mind, and in her lawyer’s, she has a case. A good one. Especially since she’s using my actions and temper from New Year’s Eve night for her personal gain. Jack says he’ll do his own digging into her past and try to find what she’s been up to. I tell him to have at it, but I don’t want to know about any of it until I have to. “How much is this going to cost?” I ask him. “I have money that I was saving to put toward a house but I don’t know if it’s going to cover it.”
