Page 116 of Surprise! I'm Engaged To My Boss
“No. But why do you want to talk to Camila?”
Janet pretended to look at the stack of papers she was carrying in her hands.
“Nothing special. I just like talking to her.”
“Janet? ...Janet, look at me!” She raised her face, looking at me. “What business do you have with Camila?”
“We talk badly about you.”
There was a good chance that this was true. However, I knew there was something more to it, and I was worried about what it could be.
Finally, the door to the courtroom was opened and we were invited in. The room had a transparent glass wall, although the outside was mirrored, which overlooked the courthouse parking lot, and a large rectangular wooden table. In front of it was a bench where the judge and the clerk were already seated.
I sat next to Janet, and on the opposite side of the table sat Caleb, Margaret—with Alice on her lap—and their attorney. The attorney immediately began to present his proposed settlement. He made a point of presenting the terms in detail, and I waited for Janet to speak up and say that she accepted, as we had agreed.
However, she didn't say anything, and I looked at her, noticing that she was distracted with her eyes fixed on her cell phone that she left on the table.
“Janet!” I nudged her, making her realize that everyone there was waiting for an answer from her.
“Excuse me, I need a minute to review the terms.” She held out her hand, asking the other lawyer to hand her the papers with the proposal.
And I couldn't understand what she intended with that.
We already knew the terms, we had already talked about it and the agreement was that we would accept. Weekly visits to my daughter would never be enough for me, but either I accepted that, or I could risk losing any chance of being with her.
As my lawyer looked through the papers, seemingly without any hurry, the sound of Alice's crying reached my ears and I looked at her, seeing that she was waving her little arms at me, wanting to come to my lap. By instinct, I stretched out my hands to grab her, but Margaret pulled her away in time, turning her back to me.
“Be quiet, Alice, we'll be going home soon,” Margaret whispered, trying to force a caring tone into her voice, where in reality I only felt impatience.
The judge spoke, demanding a response from Janet, who asked for one more minute.
I swear I didn't understand what she was analyzing there. I took a breath to ask her that, but the words died in my mouth when my eyes stopped on the glass wall and saw a familiar figure running into thecourtyard. I blinked a few times, trying to make sure I was seeing correctly.
“Is that Camila?” I asked, incredulous.
Janet turned in the same direction to look at what I was indicating. Then she sat back in her chair and handed the papers back to the other lawyer, saying, “We do not accept the proposal.”
“What?” I practically shouted, looking back at her. Then I started whispering. “Are you crazy, Janet?”
“Trust me, kid. Have I ever let you down in my life?”
Before I could answer, the Harris lawyer took a deep breath and began to lecture me, telling me all the facts that made me a terrible father. I confess that I was no longer paying much attention to what he was saying, because my attention was divided between Alice, who was still crying, and trying to understand why Janet had refused the agreement and what Camila was doing in the courthouse.
As if I were trapped in a dream where nothing made sense, I saw the silhouette of more people running in the courthouse courtyard again and looked at the glass wall again.
This time, the one who came running in was a man I didn't know, followed by... my mother?
What the hell was my mother doing there? And Camila? And who was that guy?
Just to make things even stranger, my brothers were right behind them. They weren't running, but walking quickly.
Mytwobrothers! Even busy Logan.
Had someone slipped drugs back into something I drank?
“Dadda!Dadda!” Alice's little voice, amidst her crying, brought me back to reality. To the certainty that it was real, even though, now, it seemed more like a dream.
She had called me dad for the first time.
