Reminders of Him

Is she happy?
That’s my only hope for her. I want her to be happy.
I have complete faith in Grace and Patrick. I know they loved Scotty,
and it’s obvious they love Diem. They loved her before she was even born.
They started fighting for custody the day they were told I was
pregnant. The baby didn’t even have fully developed lungs, but they were
already fighting for its first breath.
I lost the custody battle before Diem was even born. There aren’t
many rights a mother has when she’s sentenced to several years in prison.
The judge said, because of the nature of our situation and the duress
I’d caused to Scotty’s family, he could not, in good conscience, honor my
request for visitation rights. Nor would he force Scotty’s parents to maintain
the relationship between my daughter and me while I was in prison.
I was told I could petition the court for rights upon my release, but
since my rights were terminated, there’s probably very little I can do.
Between Diem’s birth and my release almost five years later, there has been
little anyone could, or would, do for me.
All I have is this intangible hope I try to cling to with childlike hands.
I was praying Scotty’s parents just needed time. I assumed, ignorantly,
that they would eventually see a need for me to be in Diem’s life.
There wasn’t much I could do from my isolated position in the world,
but now that I’m out, I’ve thought long and hard about how I should go
about this. I have no idea what to expect. I don’t even know what kind of

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people they are. I only met them once when Scotty and I were dating, and
that didn’t go over very well. I’ve tried to find them online, but their
profiles are extremely private. There wasn’t a single picture of Diem online
that I could locate. I even looked up all of Scotty’s friends whose names I
could remember, but I couldn’t remember very many, and all their profiles
were private.
I knew very little about Scotty’s life before he met me, and I wasn’t
with him long enough to truly get to know his friends or his family. Six
months out of the twenty-two years he lived.
Why is everyone from his life so locked down? Is it because of me?
Are they afraid of this very thing happening? Me showing up? Me hoping
to be a part of my daughter’s life?
I know they hate me, and they have every right to hate me, but part of
me has been living with them for the past four years in Diem. My hope is
that they’ve found a sliver of forgiveness for me through my daughter.
Time heals all wounds, right?
Except I didn’t leave them with a simple wound. I left them with a
casualty. One so heartbreaking there’s a possibility it will never be forgiven.
It’s hard not to cling to hope, though, when all I’ve been able to do or look
forward to is this moment.
It’s either going to complete me or destroy me. There is no in-
between.
Four more minutes before I find out.
I’m more nervous in this moment than I was in the courtroom five
years ago. I grip the rubber starfish tightly in my hand. It’s the only toy they
had for sale at the gas station next door to my apartment. I could have had
the cabdriver take me to Target or Walmart, but they’re both in the opposite
direction of where I’m hoping Diem still lives, and I can’t afford that much
cab fare.
After I got hired at the grocery store today, I walked home and took a
nap. I didn’t want to show up while Diem wasn’t at Grace and Patrick’s,
and if Amy is right and Ledger doesn’t have kids, it’s a reasonable
assumption that the little girl he coaches in T-ball is my daughter. And
judging by the amount of Gatorade he bought, he was preparing for a long
day with a lot of teams, which, using deductive reasoning, would mean it
would be hours before Diem was back home.

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I waited as long as I could. I know the bar opens at five, which means
Ledger will likely be taking Diem home before then, and I really don’t want
Ledger to be there when I arrive, so I timed my cab ride to get me there at
five fifteen.
I didn’t want to arrive later than that because I don’t want to show up
when they’re having dinner, or after she’s gone to bed. I want to do
everything right. I don’t want to do anything that will make Patrick or
Grace feel more threatened by my presence than they probably already will
be.
I don’t want them to ask me to leave before I can even plead my case.
In a perfect world, they’ll open their front door for me and allow me to
reunite with the daughter I’ve never held.