PART 3

Several weeks later, the four of us stood in a courthouse hallway. I paced back and forth until June touched my sleeve.

“Stop wearing a hole in the floor.”

That was when Lisa appeared.

“Are you truly going through with this?” she asked.

Several people nearby turned toward us. For the first time since returning, Lisa seemed to understand that the story no longer belonged only to her.

“Yes,” Rose replied.

Lisa looked at the girls.

“Do you hate me?”

May shook her head.

“No. Loving him openly does not mean we hate you.”

Inside the courtroom, the judge reviewed the documents and asked whether I understood what the adoption meant. I looked at my girls.

“I understood what it meant the night I brought them home from the hospital.”

June pushed the pen toward me. My hand began trembling.

“Easy, Dad,” she whispered. “You already completed the difficult part.”

Dad.

That single word nearly broke me.

Rose signed first. May signed next. Then June added her name. Finally, I signed.

When we walked back into the courthouse hallway, Lisa was gone. For once, nobody followed the person who chose to leave.

My daughters stood beside me, all three smiling through their tears. Lisa had given them life. I had given them a home. And that day, they gave me the one thing I had never been brave enough to request.

They gave me my place in their lives.