by Frankie Love
But a gift I am not ready to lose.
I’ve always felt responsible for Nolan’s death, even though I put more weight on my thirteen-year-old self than I ever deserved. I understand that in theory, but in practice it’s a hell of a lot more complicated.
Because it turns out it’s hella hard to forgive yourself for the things you have no control over.
If only I had done things differently.
If only I had reacted stronger, better, more.
If only I were a different sort of person.
If I’d never left Nolan that morning on the beach, never gone back to the house to grab fucking shovels and sand buckets, he never would have stepped into the ocean and been swept away.
Likewise, had I never embraced Rachel, let her into my life, even though I knew there were a thousand reasons why she was bad news, I would never have met Etta.
And Etta has been a salve for my wounded soul—for this tortured motherfucker, who needed a way to let go of some of the shit weighing me down.
Etta was that for me.
I thought she was my forever. Even though ever since I knew about her existence and Rachel’s uterus, I knew she wouldn’t be. I wanted it, though. So fucking bad.
Etta claps her hands, unaware of the severity of this meeting. I adjust her weight on my hip. Her eyes are so bright, her small teeth glistening with drool. She is perfection.
And now I’m going to walk into this office and offer her to a woman who doesn’t know her favorite food, or the way she likes to drink her bottle, or the way she likes to fall asleep at night. I’m going to hand her over to a woman who knows nothing about her, but who has more claim to her than I do.
In the office, the receptionist tells me to wait. She goes and tells a clerk that I’m here. Soon enough, Etta and I are walking down the hall toward a lawyer’s office. The name Ed Schultz is on the door, and we’re let into his office.
Rachel’s here. She looks much better than she did this morning. She’s showered, and her clothes are clean, but she looks tired.
Her eyes brighten, matching Etta’s, as we walk through the door. She doesn’t reach for her daughter, and that makes me angry. If she’s going to take Etta from me, I want her to do it with a heart so full, so excited—with a heart that can’t contain its own joy.
Instead, her hands are clasped and she sits in a leather-back chair. Her eyes dart away as quickly as they meet mine. She wears resignation on her face.
Etta deserves more than that. More than this.
I know I have to say something. And I will. But before I do, Mr. Schultz begins to speak.
He shakes my hand, smiles genially at me, pats Etta on the head. He seems like a nice man, in his rumpled suit and tortoiseshell frames. He isn’t a threat; he’s not some big-shot lawyer who’s ready to play hardball.
“It’s so good to meet you,” he says. “I’m Ed, and you must be Jude. And this little darling must be Etta.”
“Yes, this is Etta. Good to meet you too—though, to be honest, I’m not all that pleased to be here today.”
“Sorry to hear that, Jude, but I’m glad you’re able to make it fit into your schedule. Rachel and I have been in touch for the last month, but it wasn’t until last night, when she contacted me again, that she had made her decision about how she wanted to proceed.”
“Oh, yeah?” I ask, on the edge of every single emotion.
“Yes. And had last night been the first time I heard about her plans, of course I would have encouraged her to pause before making such a drastic decision. But she’s sober, in sound mind, and is making this decision with a clear conscience.”
Mr. Schultz sits, and indicates for me to sit as well. I’m fucking furious at the moment. I want to pace the room.
I want to get the hell out of here.
With Etta.
Still, I sit, wanting this to stay civilized for Etta’s sake.
“Oh, yeah? So Rachel told you everything about us? How does this work exactly? You just take the baby that I love?”
Ed narrows his eyes, confusion written on his face.
But I keep going.
“Rachel, you know I love Etta. I love her more than the air I breathe. Are you seriously going to tear her from me? From my arms? For what? You know I care about you, want the best for you. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. But I don’t think this is the best thing for Etta. And I don’t understand why you would be okay with this. Why would you want to break her heart, too?”
“Too?” Rachel asks. “Who else has a broken heart?”
“Me.” I run my hand over my jaw. “I’m the one with a broken heart.”
“Jude,” she starts, softly. Now that I’m sitting across from her, I see the tears in her eyes, the pain etched on her face.
She’s not tired, she’s emotionally exhausted. But she also has a look of serenity. A look of absolution. A look of no going back.
“I think you’re wrong about who has a broken heart. You don’t. Or at least, you don’t need to.”
“Losing Etta will destroy me.”
“I know,” Rachel says. “I know it would destroy you.”
“Would?”
“Would. Jude, you’re wrong about why I called you here. I wanted you and Etta both here. So we could share good-byes.”
“Yeah,” I say, scoffing at her word choice, “I got that. I got that part. I got that you called me here to tell my daughter good-bye. I get that you called me here to end the life I wanted. I get that, Rachel.”
“No Jude, you’re not saying good-bye to Etta. And Etta is not saying good-bye to you. I’m saying good-bye to both of you.” She’s crying now, wiping tears from her eyes, and I see for a moment the way Etta will look when shes twenty-five years old.
She’ll be a mirror of this fragile, beautiful, woman. Rachel’s wearing her emotions on her face, and she’s doing the hardest thing she’ll ever do in her entire life.
“You’ve always been right for Etta,” Rachel says. “I think I latched onto you so hard when I found out I was pregnant because I knew you’d be the sort of father I would want for my daughter. But I was fooling myself, fooling you, to ever think I was the right mother for her.”
I start to move, make her stop her words, because I don’t want Rachel to ever think she’s not good enough. She brushes me off, and keeps talking.
“This isn’t a way for me to have a pity-party, or to beg for something that I don’t have. I’m choosing this for me and Etta and you. I should have done it a long time ago, the day she was born, but I was selfish and scared. I’m not scared anymore. I’ve been gone a month, and the truth is, I’ve known that for every second of it for Etta has been with her family. You, Jude, are Etta’s family. It isn’t me. Maybe I brought her into this world in some crazy messed-up way. Maybe she came to life after growing in my womb, but she isn’t mine. I don’t think she ever was. She’s yours.”
Rachel reaches for papers on Mr. Schultz’s desk.
“These are the papers we need to file. It’s the termination of parental rights. I’m relinquishing my rights, for Etta. I don’t want to stay in LA. I don’t know what I want. I just know that I don’t want this life.”
“Rachel, can you really do this?”
“I can. I am. You are already her legal father, on her birth certificate. And nothing I’m doing is going to change that. Now you’re her sole guardian, and I’ll have no more claim to her for the rest of her life. If you ever marry again, you can certainly have your wife legally adopt her, but for now you’re her parent. And Etta is the luckiest girl in the world for that.”
For years, I’ve wondered if I was being punished for what happened to Nolan on the beach. For years, I’ve been trying to save other people as a way to forgive myself. But now I’m being given the most selfless, loving gift in the entire world.
I’m scared I’ll fuck it up. But I want it so badly.
I squeeze Etta tighter in my arms. She’s small enough that she doesn’t understand a
single thing that’s happening.
This momentous occasion in her life. The moment I will never forget for as long as I live. The moment Rachel gave me. The moment Rachel gave us all.
“Do you want to sign the documents?” Mr. Schultz says.
I hand Etta to Rachel, knowing that they have good-byes to share, and begin reviewing the papers. It’s all straightforward, and Rachel has already signed her pieces.
After I sign my name, and Rachel kisses Etta’s cheeks again and again, squeezing her tight, I shake Mr. Schultz’s hand. Rachel, Etta, and I walk outside.
In the sunny afternoon, Etta squeals and begins pointing at nonsense, delighting in her world.
“I love you, Jude. I love you, Etta.” Rachel smiles. She looks around, as if not knowing where to go from here. Despite that, she doesn’t look lost. She looks relieved.
“How does this work, then? Do you want me to call you?” I ask. “Do you want me to send you updates? Are—”
“Jude, now you can just let me go. You don’t have to worry about me anymore. I’m not your responsibility. Etta is. I’m a grown-up. Or, at least, trying to figure out how to become one.” She leans over and gives me a hug, gives Etta another kiss on her forehead … and then she walks away.
…
When I pull up to my house, I can’t smile yet. There’s too much heartbreak wrapped up in what just happened to smile or celebrate.
Catalina opens my front door, leans in the doorway, watches me get out of my car. I know she can’t see Etta buckled in the back, and she watches me nervously, as if not knowing how I’m going to be, in the swell of losing Etta.
When I open the back door of the car, Catalina calls out. “Etta’s here?” She runs to me, the car.
“She’s here.”
“You didn’t see Rachel? You ditched the meeting altogether?”
“I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t consider that. But no, Catalina. I went.”
“And you came back.”
“I did. I came back with Etta. I came back with my daughter.”
Catalina shakes her head, not understanding why I’m not a sobbing, heaping mess. Why I’m suddenly standing in front of a beautiful woman, holding a beautiful baby, and not falling apart. She doesn’t understand that I wasn’t the person who walked away empty-handed today.
“Rachel relinquished her parental rights. I’m Etta’s only parent. I’m … her father.”
Catalina gasps, flinging her arms around me, kissing Etta’s cheeks over and over again and then kissing my mouth. She’s holding me tight and I’m holding her tight, and somehow all the brokenness that I held at the lawyer’s office isn’t the only thing I hold.
I don’t only hold Etta, a baby without a mother. I hold Etta, my daughter with a family.
We walk inside. There’s so much to explain to Catalina, but also nothing to say, because somehow Catalina seems to understand. Seems to understand me.
We walk through my front door, and I turn to Catalina. I ask, “When are you moving in?”
“Oh, Jude, I never plan on leaving.”
We smile at the perfect simplicity of her words. Of our choices.
“I love you, Catalina.”
“And I love you.”
She takes Etta from my arms, carrying her into the living room, where she sits down on the floor with my little girl and begins tickling her tummy until she rolls in laughter.
I watch them, wondering how I got so goddamn lucky.
Wondering how I got it all.
Chapter 28
Five months later…
I thought falling in love sucked, because it meant letting go and surrendering everything I fucking knew.
Turns out, doing that shit—the surrendering—makes for a life better than I could have predicted.
I know I’m getting pretty damn sentimental, but shit, I’ve got reason to be.
Today is Etta’s first birthday, and the day I plan on putting a ring on my woman’s finger.
Catalina has no idea … and hell, I’m ready to surprise her. To make promises to her. To be her man forever.
“I got Etta dressed,” Cat tells me, walking into our kitchen in dark denim and a flowery blouse. “She’s on the patio with our mom’s,
“You got dressed up, huh?” I tease her, knowing Catalina prefers tank tops and cut-offs to anything dressy.
“I know, right? I’m such a grown-up.” She laughs, wrapping her arms around my neck. “You can’t get mad, but I think Holden and Bexley are gonna trump Etta’s birthday.”
“What do you mean?” My hands are on her waist and I have about a dozen ideas of where else I’d like to rest them.
“Well, Bexley called, telling me she had some big announcement. I think she’s gonna tell us she’s engaged.”
I pull back, look in her eyes. “Really? You think? No way would Holden have kept that from me.”
But even as I say it, I realize I haven’t asked his opinion on my own proposal this afternoon.
“I know. I think Evangeline is gonna be all weepy.”
“Why’s that?” I ask, suddenly feeling like a total guy, out of the loop on everything.
“Because Cassius has been hinting at a potential engagement for months, but he hasn’t gotten down on one knee. I think she’d like to get a ring on her finger first, is all.”
“Well, this day is about Etta,” I say. “And if our friends are happy, I’m happy. I’m just glad everyone is coming over to celebrate.”
“And to spoil our girl rotten,” Catalina says, smirking. “She doesn’t need anything.”
As if on cue, Cassius and Evangeline walk through the front door. Evie carries a bouquet of balloons and Cassius has a toddler-sized piano in tow.
“What’s that?” I ask, stepping away from my girl to give him a fist bump.
“It’s a piano. Evie and I thought it was apropos.”
“She’s gonna love it,” Catalina says, grinning. “She’s on the patio; should we take it out?”
“And I’ll get us some drinks,” I say, headed to the fridge for beers and a bottle of white.
Out on the patio, drinks in hand, we stand around listening to Etta pound viciously against the keyboard.
“She’s a natural,” Marshal says, his arm around Cat’s mom’s waist. “I’ll be signing her to KMG any day.”
“No way,” Holden says, walking out the sliding glass doors, Bexley behind him. “My niece is gonna be a movie star.”
Bexley is grinning, and with her classic black-and-white attire, her hair swept up on her head in a bun, and her ruby red lips, she looks like a million bucks … which is more or less the truth. This girl won an Oscar this year, putting her—and Jude’s film—on the books for being a completely unexpected break out.
“What has you so happy?” Cassius asks Bex, handing her a glass of white wine.
“Oh. Um. Well. Okay.” She looks up at Holden, then, as if unable to contain her excitement, she throws her hand to the center of the circle, displaying a gorgeous solitaire diamond on her ring finger. “We’re engaged!”
Everyone starts talking, offering their congratulations.
“Oh, my god!” Evangeline says, dropping her jaw. For a moment I think she’s about to burst into tears, but instead, she tosses her hand into the center of the circle, too.
Another diamond ring.
Another engagement.
“I had no idea you were proposing,” Cassius tells Holden, and the two of them clap one another on the back.
“This is fucking great,” I say, congratulating them both. I look over at Catalina, who’s smiling graciously, asking the right questions—if Holden and Cash got down on one knee, and what the moment was like. The moms are animated, and Etta is just throwing her fingers over the piano keys, giving the moment the perfect pint-sized ambience.
“Sorry to trump your girl’s big day,” Holden says. “But we knew we couldn’t keep it a secret.”
“No. It’s awesome,” I tell him,
meaning it. Etta won’t remember this day, but Cat will. And I’m currently more worried about her big day being trumped.
Her engagement being eclipsed.
Catalina pulls on my arm, “We should bring out the cake, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” I tell her as we walk into the kitchen. “And later you can blow out my candles.”
“I don’t want to start a fire,” she says coyly. “But don’t worry, I will certainly blow on something.”
Later, everyone has watched Etta unwrap more presents than any child needs, finished their cake, posed for pictures, and told us the details of the proposals. Holden took Bexley on a private helicopter ride, where they looked over the Hollywood sign. Cassius wrote a song for Evangeline, and sang it to her on the beach as the embers from their bonfire faded.
No fucking pressure.
Still, a big flashy proposal is not what Catalina would want. She would want to be here, in her home, with the people she loves. That is all—to her, that is everything.
“It’s just so crazy,” Evangeline tells Bex. “Being engaged together.”
“It is,” Marshall says, “You kids should have a double wedding.”
“Can you imagine?” Bexley says, staring at the ring on her finger. Then she laughs. “Though, honestly, it’s not the worst idea. I mean … half the work, double the fun.”
Evangeline grins. “Seriously, and the guys would be happy, they wouldn’t be flying solo on their big day.”
I know my opening when I see it. “But you know what’s better than a double wedding?” I ask.
“What’s that?” Cat asks, taking the bait. Etta is in her arms, with frosting on her upper lip, her party dress rumpled and her eyes blinking slowly as she heads toward sleep. Catalina kisses her forehead, rubbing her back.
“A triple wedding.” I fall to one knee, pull an antique ring from my pocket and present it to her. “Catalina,” I say.
She’s completely caught off-guard and shakes her head in shock. I reach for her finger, holding her hand.
