Chapter 13 - THE FATHER GARRICK DID NOT WANT TO BE
Garrick asked for one mediation session with me.
Not Sorrel.
I agreed.
Naomi present.
His attorney present.
He looked older.
Maybe I did too.
First thing:
“I am sorry.”
I waited.
“For sleeping with Ainsley?”
“Yes.”
“For lying?”
“Yes.”
“For Sorrel?”
His face tightened.
“I never hated him.”
“You told him they wanted him gone.”
“I hated what he represented.”
“That is not better.”
“I know.”
Then corrected:
“No. It isn’t.”
Good.
Then:
“Did you ever want to be his father?”
“No.”
Honest.
“Why test?”
“Ainsley made me.”
“She could not make you.”
“She said if I refused, she would tell you.”
There.
“So you tested to preserve secrecy.”
“Yes.”
“And when it showed you?”
“I panicked.”
“What did Ainsley want?”
“She wanted to tell you after his first birthday.”
“Why didn’t she?”
“Because you two were good.”
I laughed bitterly.
“She told you that?”
“She said every month she waited made it harder.”
That I believed.
Then:
“Why didn’t you tell me after she died?”
Garrick looked down.
“Because then there was no one else to blame.”
There.
As long as Ainsley lived, he could tell himself the secret was hers.
After she died, silence belonged to him.
Then Mother.
“Did you tell Mom you were excluded?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To make her stop asking.”
“Did you know she treated Sorrel differently because of that?”
“Eventually.”
“When?”
“When he was about two.”
Three years.
“You did nothing.”
“I told her Bramwell loved him.”
“That is not the same.”
“No.”
Then Garrick said:
“I don’t want legal parentage.”
“Good.”
“But my lawyer says I can’t pretend the result doesn’t exist.”
Also true.
Medical history.
Genetic risk.
Family records.
Then:
“What do you want from Sorrel?”
He stared at the table.
“Nothing he doesn’t want to give.”
That was a better answer.
Then:
“Would you accept never seeing him again?”
Garrick closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
I did not expect that.
Then:
“Would you accept him wanting answers someday?”
“Yes.”
“Would you answer?”
“Yes.”
No dramatic redemption.
A framework.
Then I asked the hardest.
“Did you ever think about what happened if I found out?”
“Every time you called him son.”
That answer hurt enough to feel true.
Mediation ended without forgiveness.
But Garrick agreed:
No direct contact with Sorrel.
No discussion with relatives.
Full medical history through counsel.
Support sealing records.
Withdraw any request that could confuse legal parentage.
His limited parentage petition would seek only clarification that I remained established legal father and he had no current custodial role.
Good.
Then Mother learned Garrick had agreed not to pursue custody.
She called him a coward.
Through texts later produced in her visitation case:
EUDORA:
You let Bramwell raise your son and now you are letting him erase you.
GARRICK:
He is Bramwell’s son.
EUDORA:
Blood says otherwise.
GARRICK:
That is exactly the problem.
There.
Garrick was finally saying the thing he should have said five years earlier.
May you like
Too late to erase harm.
Not too late to stop adding to it.
