Surviving Cancer

Tuesday, November 7 Cont'd & Wednesday, November 8

LEVI POV

Later that night when my mom and Maci had already gone to bed I crept downstairs.  I knew my dad would be up in the office working late.  He always did when he had to take a day off.  I softly knocked on the door before I walked in. 

"What are you doing up?" My dad asked.

I shrugged my shoulders, dropping into a heap in one of the chairs.  "I'm sorry dad."

"For what?" He set his pen down; closing his laptop and gave me his full attention.

"Everything." I mumbled.  "Calling Jennifer, finding her in the first place, finding that folder."

I didn't continue, if I had we would have been up every night for the next week or at least that's how it felt.  I was sorry for ruining his life in a way, even if he said he did want us.  Of course he'd say that now but I bet when he was 18 and scared out of his mind with two babies he wasn't very happy.  I was sorry for damn near everything. 

"Sit Levi." He motioned for the chair that was positioned in front of his desk.  "What's on your mind?"

"Why'd you keep us?  If we aren't yours?" I asked so quietly, my eyes cast downward.

My dad cleared this throat.  "You are mine.  You and Maci are my kids more than you will ever be someone else's."

"But you didn't have to." I said, still unable to look at him.

"Sometimes you have to make choices in life Levi and my choice was to become a father.  I wouldn't change it for anything."  His voice was low and soft like he was trying to coax a wounded animal to safety.

"Did you know when we were born?" I glanced up ever so slightly.

My dad looked at me so tender almost like he was absorbing the hurt and confusion my heart was feeling.  I wasn't hurt because he hadn't told me.  I was hurt because now there were two people in the world that didn't want me and they were supposed to be the two people in the world that couldn't image life without me. 

He shook his head no, "No I didn't find out until you guys were about 5 months."

"How'd you find out?" I kept pressing for answers even though I wasn't sure I wanted to know more.  It was almost like a car accident, you don't want to look but you have to.  You don't want to see the gory details but yet your eyes can't quite let you look away.  If curiosity killed the cat then I was one dead freaking cat. 

"Eric came knocking on my door, demanding I give you and Maci up." My eyes shot to his.  He must have seen the millions of questions that flooded into my mind because he continued talking.  "I could have just given you up but I was already too in love with the both of you and I knew that Eric would never love you like I did.  I don't know how Eric is now but he wasn't running with a good crowd back then."  He shifted in his chair taking a moment as my brain sorted through the information.  "I'm very lucky Levi, your grandparents were very supportive of me when Jenny first told me she was pregnant, they were supportive when Jenny left and I brought you home, and they were supportive when I said I was keeping you even though you weren't biologically mine.  Jenny didn't have that support.  Her parents demanded an adoption.  I had at one point convinced Jenny that we would get married and I'd get us a place to live and we'd be a happy little family.  I was going to man up and do the right thing regardless of whether or not Jenny and I were in love.  I don't know if that scared her or the thought of being a mother scared her or if everything added up scared but she left."

We sat in silence for a few minutes, my mind trying to recreate the events.  It was amazing how your world could be so black and white for so long and then something as stupid as a box shoved in the back corner of a closet in a room you never go in could change everything.  Everything I ever knew, everything I thought about my childhood might have been completely different if my dad had just decided he was done.