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Ben said he needed to go work on himself so that he could give me and Luna his best self, and I’ve decided that instead of going crazy waiting around, I could distract myself by doing the same. No matter how much Ben claims I’m already the version of myself that he wants, I can never believe him if I don’t believe it myself.
After seeing Evan back in Detroit, and how after all these years he’s still going at it with the drugs, I realized something: I do have control over my addiction, not the other way around. It took seeing some sorry asshole who doesn’t, to realize it.
He’s not good enough for Luna.
And so, I paid my lawyer, Mike Taylor, a visit, who put in a good word with a judge and had some very special documents drawn up, just for Evan.
As my car barrels towards Chicago, I find myself wishing I could light up a joint like Shailene Woodley inBig Little Lieswhen she’s on her way to confront her rapist. Addiction can quite literally be a buzzkill. I laugh out loud at that notion, and then laugh even harder at the fact that I’m laughing because I’m clearly losing my shit. That’s okay; I’ll get all the nerves out now. I’ve still got two hours of driving ahead of me.
When I reach Chicago, I don’t bother trying to make any of the game. I park in the lot and make my way to the back entrance, and while I’m normally extremely careful with money, I already know that the hundred-dollar bill I slip the guard is going to be worth it. He allows me into the tunnel between the field and the locker room, and I wait.
I hear the crowd going crazy as Chicago’s team presumably wins, along with the announcer and accompanying organ music, and the minutes tick by like individual eternities before I see the first player come around the corner and down the tunnel, followed by several others, all in their white and green pinstripe uniforms, all grass-stained and dusty after what must have been a long nine innings. Some of them look at me curiously, but otherwise pay me no mind as I lean casually against the cool concrete wall like I have every right to be standing right there.
Finally, I see Evan stride through the tunnel entrance and his eyes immediately lock with mine. I hold my ground and refuse to let my demeanor slip as he storms towards me.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he snarls, stopping a couple of feet away and immediately looks down at the legal envelope in my hands before waving a hand at it and looking back to me with fury in his eyes. “I knew it! I knew you’d come after me for money. Well guess what, I’m not going to make it easy on you. I’ve got a team of lawyers that will demand a paternity test, and in the meantime, I’m getting a restraining order-”
“Oh my God, would you shut your fucking trap for a minute and listen?!” I interject with an eyeroll.
“No, I don’t want to listen to you!”
“Oh believe me, you do,” I say, giving him a knowing look, complete with a raised eyebrow as I hold up the envelope. “I actually think what I’ve got in here is going to make you really happy,” I finish cynically.
The impatient asshole snatches it from my hand and makes quick work of opening the envelope and pulling out the documents that I already marked with sticky tabs in the hopes of making this quick and painless.
“Termination of Parental Rights,” he reads out loud.
“You sign these papers, and you are no longer her father in the eyes of the law,” I hold my hands out in explanation. “That means I can’t come after you for child support.”
His shoulders slump and the biggest show of relief comes over his face.
“Thank God,” he laments, as he holds the papers against the wall and turns to receive the pen I’m already holding out to him. He grabs it and turns back to sign in the required spaces, his scribbling hard and fast. After signing on the last dotted line, he puts the papers back in their place and stuffs them back in the envelope before handing it back to me. I give him a nod and a polite smile and turn to walk away before he stops me.
“Wait,” he calls after me and I turn to acknowledge him with faux curiosity. “That was too easy, and you look a little too okay with this. What’s the catch?”
And here’s my moment. The one where I take back control over the last overpowering fixture in my life.
“Only the knowledge that you just made a huge mistake by signing these,” I hold up the envelope. “You may not realize that, but I do. And call me petty and vindictive, but that makes me feel really good.”
When I see the desired look of confusion pulling his eyebrows together, I press on.
“You see, this doesn’t just mean I can’t come after you for money. It also means that you can’t come after me for any kind of custody or visitation. In fact,” I add as I reach in my back pocket and pull out a glossy square of paper and stroll over to hand it to him. “This is all you’re ever going to get of her.”
Evan takes the most recent school portrait of Luna where she’s wearing her favorite white and blue striped shirt, her shoulders up around by her face as she looks like she’s giggling. The brown eyes that she unfortunately shares with this loser are crinkled at the sides, portraying the happiest kid in the world. My kid is happy, I remind myself. She’s happy and healthy and I did that, without this jackass in her life.
I watch Evan’s face go slack and I know what he sees.
“What’s the matter, Evan? You look like you’ve seen a ghost… or just looked in a mirror,” I finish with a shrug. “So when the day comes that you change your mind - and it will, you have to live with the fact that you blew it. You gave up the right to have anything to do with her.”
He quickly schools his expression into a frown and tries to walk past me on his way to the locker room.
“Oh, no,” I say firmly, holding up a hand. “I get to walk away from you this time.”
And with that, I turn on my heel and make the journey down the tunnel without turning back, although the angst-ridden, abandoned, pregnant twenty-year-old in me can’t resist throwing him a one-finger salute over my shoulder as I go.
When I get to my car, I let out another scream, only this time it’s cathartic and pumped full of joy. I’m lighter than air the whole drive home with a content smile on my face, never feeling more at peace.
Chapter Thirty-Five
