The Laws of Our Fathers

by Scott Turow

  'Look into my eyes,' he intones. ‘I mean it. If you'll have it, if she'll have it, we'll start whenever. She's precious to me. You know that.'

  She thinks out loud. 'What if Charlie won't go along?'

  'Youtell Charlie he doesn't have to pay child support anymore,' says Seth, 'and he'll crawl here from Cincinnati to sign.'

  In the absolute quiet of night, Sonny laughs. A pure bubble of delight. He's right.

  'You really mean it?'

  'Of course I mean it.'

  Seth can adopt her.

  'I want to know you understand how important this is to me,' Sonny says. 'Right now I'm here, and whatever happens between us happens. But if I'm gone - promise,' she says. 'Promise me you really understand and really mean this.'

  'You're going to be fine.'

  'I need your promise. I don't want to think of her in someone's home and not being a part of it. I don't want her feeling she's in between, like I did whenever I was with my aunt and uncle, that I didn't really have a place there, that I was sweet and nice but not fully tied to them. I don't want that. Bring her into your life. Completely. Will you promise? Promise that.'

  'Fine,' he says. 'Okay.'

  'Don't humor me, Seth. This is the most serious thing in my life.'

  'Sonny, I'm as serious as you are.'

  'Because if you promise this and don't do it, I will haunt you. I will be a mean ghost. I really will. You have to take her in. Let her feel she belongs to you. As she belongs to me. I want you to promise you'll be her father. Not a stranger. Not just somebody who thinks she's wonderful. But someone committed to her life as his legacy, someone who wants her to understand everything that is deepest in you. That's what you have to promise. Give her what you know most purely is yourself. I'm serious.'

  'Of course, I promise that. I know what it means to be some-

  body's father, Sonny. Right now - here, today - she's my daughter.'

  'I want to know you mean it.'

  Forlornly, he looks into the brightness of the bedside lamp for quite some time.

  'What would you say -' His face, in the harsh light, swims in feeling. He starts again. 'If it's all right with both of you-' He gets no further.

  'Say it, Seth. I need to hear this.'

  When he turns, his look contains all his familiar skepticism about himself.

  ‘I think I'd like to raise her as a Jew,' he says.