I was wearing shades, but even with that buffer between my eyes and the world, I knew I kept not even one ounce of composure.

I was lost.  I had no clue what to do with myself.

How could I be so stupid?

What was I going to do?

I'm not sure how long I carried on like that, arms hugging myself as I rocked back and forth, feeling profoundly alone in the world.  It felt like hours, when in reality it may have been only minutes.

When I noticed the outside world again, I realized that there was a woman sitting next to me on the bench, just a few feet away, which was not unusual on its own.

What was unusual was that she was crying, like me, sobbing like her heart was breaking, clutching her hands together as though in prayer.

She seemed to notice me at about the time I noticed her.  She wasn't even wearing shades, her grief laid even barer than mine.

She wiped her eyes, studying me.  My suffering seemed to have calmed hers, as though seeing someone else in need gave her purpose.

And so it did.

It was the type of meeting that imprinted itself on your memory, and looking back on it I realized that it was indicative of her nature—Gina was a woman who always put others needs before her own.

CHAPTER

FORTY-ONE

"Every act of creation is first an act of destruction."

~Pablo Picasso

PRESENT

SCARLETT

The first time I brought Dante to Gina and Eugene's was the hardest.

They greeted us at the door, and Mercy was with them, flinging herself at me with abandon.

I stroked her hair and let her hug me to her heart's content, my gaze wary on Dante.

The look in his eyes as he saw her for the first time broke my heart all over again.

I knew what he was feeling, and I felt it with him, knew precisely what he was seeing as he took her in.

Mercy was a gorgeous doll of a girl, a lovely mix of her biological parents.

She had her father's blond coloring and the same gorgeous ocean eyes.

And there was no doubt where her wavy hair texture came from, her high cheekbones, her stubborn jaw.  Her mother.

But that was all they had in common.

No one called Mercy trash.  No one would.  No one thought of her that way, she was the opposite, in fact.

And only once had anyone ever thrown her away.

You never make peace with being abandoned.  This I know.  But we would do what we could to take responsibility for it.  To never let her feel the way I had.  She was loved deeply, and not just by the parents that raised her.  That was a fact.

Dante had known what to expect, or at least he'd had fair warning.

But knowing and seeing are two different creatures.

Not to mention feeling.

It was hard, perhaps even as hard as telling him had been.

He hadn't taken either thing well.

Who would?  Who could?

We'd had a bad few days after I told him, a few miserable moments where I wasn't sure we'd make it out the other side.

Of course he resented my decision.  Resented that I'd made it without him, but even he knew that that was as unfair as it was natural.

The night I'd told him is one I'd never forget.  Neither of us would.  It had been as horrible as I'd dreaded.  As painful as I'd known it had to be.

"How could you do that?  How could you do a thing like that just for spite?" he had asked when I told him, his immediate gut reaction.

I'd been expecting something like that, but I was still offended, still taken from reasonable to messy with those two sentences.

"It wasn't for spite," I told him, voice quavering in something akin to dread.  This conversation could ruin us.  That fact was not lost on me.  "It was for survival.  You were engaged to Tiffany when I found out.  What was I supposed to do?"

Something awful wrote itself on his familiar features in all caps.  His mouth twisted.

Shame.

"You should have told me," he gasped out.  He couldn't even look at me.  His eyes were aimed up at the ceiling, blinking over and over.  "You should have at least told me.  Jesus, how could you go through that alone?" I shook harder with every word out of his mouth.  "How could you give our child away without even telling me?"  He was weeping by the end.

"I didn't know how.  And I thought you'd reject me.  Us.  I was sure you never wanted to speak to me again."

"You know, you know, that if you'd come to me, that no matter what, I'd have helped.  You know that if you'd come to me, pregnant with our child, I'd have helped."

God that hurt.  And I couldn't deny it. Even I, the queen of denial, couldn't choke out the words.

We were in our bedroom for the conversation, and by then we were both huddled in opposite corners, crying our eyes out, and I, for one, was wondering how the hell we'd ever get through this.

Of the two of us, Dante was by far the forgiving one.  If he couldn't forgive, how could I even begin to try?

But somehow we found a way.  Dante made the first move, coming to me, picking me up, and carrying me to bed.  We held each other as we wept until our tears ran dry, then set about trying to heal.  It would be a long journey, but if we were committed enough, I knew we could do it.

We were committed enough.

"You need to meet them," I said eventually.  "When you meet her parents, you'll understand.  Or at least, it will help.  They were there for everything.  For me and for her.  Her mother was the first to hold her, her father the second.  It's not possible for them to love her more."

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