"I really was going to tell you," I murmured.
"I believe you," Lex assured me.
I looked down at our joined hands. "With everything that we learned about Gio yesterday, I just didn't want to… I didn't want to burden you."
"Gideon, you will never be a burden to me. What hurts you, hurts me. Yesterday must have been really difficult for you."
I nodded, even though I knew he couldn't see it. "It was," I agreed. Listening to how Lex's nephew had been kidnapped and the circumstances of his return had made me physically ill. It had also terrified me to my very core. "It's not the same with Emma," I said. "At least she's with her grandparents."
"How long have they been missing?" Lex asked.
"Almost two years," I admitted. I sighed and tossed the shirt aside so I could hold on to Lex's hand with both of mine. "After Serena and Bethie died, Emma blamed me for it. While Serena and I were separated, Emma had lived with Serena. Her mother used every opportunity to turn Emma against me. Serena knew how much I loved my kids and how the last thing I wanted was for them to be affected by the divorce. I don't know, maybe in some weird way she thought driving Emma and me apart would force me back home."
"But it didn't," Lex offered.
"No, I just couldn't do it anymore. But I refused to stoop to Serena's level." I realized I was jumping too far ahead, so I said, "We married too young. In all honesty, I wasn't ready to settle down. I spent my whole life wanting to be a photographer. I wanted to travel the world and take pictures of anything and everything. I was fascinated by all the things you could see through a lens. But it was so much more than that. I didn't want people to just see my pictures. I wanted them to feel them. I wanted them to be able to look at them and be transported to that very moment when I'd gotten the shot. Every sound, every smell, whether the wind was blowing or there was rain in the air, all of it… it was all I ever wanted."
"But then Serena got pregnant, right?"
"Yeah. I'd wanted her to travel the world with me, but she didn't share that dream. We just wanted different things. But when I found out I was going to be a father, I knew things had to change. I got a job as a photographer for a local newspaper in Fresno. That was where she grew up and where her parents lived. I had this hope that after the baby came, maybe there would be some way we could go explore the world together. Me and Serena and the baby. I couldn't imagine anything cooler than my daughter seeing the world as she grew up. But Serena wanted the whole white picket fence thing."
"So you gave up your dream so she could live hers," Lex said.
"I was happy enough. Every once in a while, I'd take a week off from the paper and go shoot pictures of something that I'd seen in a magazine that fascinated me. I'd come back like a new man. But in the long run, I guess that fed into some resentment I didn’t want to admit to. I tried again to get Serena to come with me. Even just for the short trips. But she didn't want to go, so I started to cut back on the trips and then eventually stopped them all together. I loved my family and didn't want to lose them."
"You said Bethie was a surprise."
"She was. Serena and I had been arguing more and more. Nothing seemed to make her happy and I guess I felt like I was going stir crazy. Bethie's arrival helped calm things for a little while, but then we found out she was sick, and everything went to hell again. Serena would have these crazy mood swings where she would be screaming at me one minute and crying in my arms the next. Emma was around ten at the time. She started getting into trouble at school and acting out at home. I knew she was only reacting to the fights her mom and I were having, so I asked Serena to go to marriage counseling with me. She said she would, but every time I'd make the appointment, she'd find a reason not to go. It went on like that for two more years."
"How did it end?" Lex asked.
"I came home from work one day and found Serena and Emma both passed out on the couch. Serena had let Emma drink with her. She'd always treated her more like a friend than a daughter," I explained. "It turned out that it hadn't been the first time. I sent Emma to stay with her grandparents, Serena's parents. I told Serena that if she didn't get some help, we were through. The day… the day Bethie died…"
My throat clogged up with emotion. I felt Lex's hand on my back and then he was leaning into my side. "Shhh, it's okay, my love. Let them fall." It wasn't until he said the words that I realized tears had started to slip down my cheeks. I didn't know how he'd known that, but he had.
"The day Bethie died, I told Serena I was filing for divorce. I'd already moved out of the house at that point and we were legally separated, but Serena had refused to believe I'd go through with it. After what happened with Emma, I didn't trust her to take care of either of the girls, so I told her I was going to seek full custody unless she got some help. I shouldn't… I shouldn't have left Bethie with her. It's my fault, Lex. I knew Serena was unstable—"
"Gideon, if you’d truly believed Serena was capable of hurting either of your children like she did, you wouldn't have left them with her. I don't need to see to know that about you. There's a big difference between a parent acting irresponsibly and a parent intentionally putting the lives of their children in jeopardy. From everything you've told me, Serena did the former, not the latter. So you had no way of knowing that she would do what she did."
Deep down, I knew Lex was right. Had I thought for even a second that Serena would deliberately set out to hurt either of our children, I would've taken them from her and never looked back.
I nodded and squeezed his fingers, hoping he'd get my silent message. His hand moved to the back of my neck. He began massaging the stiff muscles there. "What happened with Emma after Serena and Bethie died?"
"She didn't want to have anything to do with me. When I went to pick her up from her grandparents’ house after we’d gotten the news about Serena and Bethie, she kept screaming at me that it was my fault. I tried to console her, but Serena's parents told me to go." I looked at Lex and whispered, "I shouldn't have left her, Lex. I realize now that she needed me, no matter how much she hated me. But all I could think about was that she was right. That it had been my fault."
"You were grieving, Gideon. There's no right way to do that."
I knew he was right.
"You never got Emma back after that, did you?"
"No. Her grandparents thought it best that she stay with them for a while. I was okay with it because I wasn't really in any position to take care of Emma. I waited too long to go and get her. Emma wanted nothing to do with me and Serena's parents told me all I was doing was hurting her by coming around. I blamed myself for what had happened, so I thought they were right. I thought Emma was better off without me. It took a long time for me to get my head out of my ass. By the time I did, it was too late."
"What do you mean?"
"Serena's parents filed for full custody of Emma. They got it."
"But you were her father. Surely, the judge recognized that—"