Eric parked the car in the Fifty-third Street Haynes Point parking lot and got out. The day was overcast, but a couple of college kids from the University of Chicago dorm building across the street were tossing a Frisbee in the grass and a few people were walking dogs. Otherwise the park was calm.
Jess had told Eric she would be waiting by the bench just before the bridge that led to the lakeside.
The call had come this morning, waking him out of his sleep.
“Meet me today at eleven-thirty. There’s something I have to give you.”
“Where?”
She gave him the location.
“You bringing Maya?”
“Eric, I have to go. I can’t talk right now.”
“But you called me. I wanna talk.”
“Just meet me, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
Eric stepped out of the parking lot and walked down to the path leading to a grassy area with wooden park benches. There he spotted Jess but saw no sign of his little girl. Instead, Jess was with a tall man wearing slacks and a sport jacket. Jess’s back was to Eric. The man was facing and speaking to her. When Eric walked up, the man’s eyes focused on him.
Jess immediately turned around. She wore business clothes: a skirt, jacket, and short heels. “Hello, Eric.”
“Where is Maya?”
“Eric, this is Quentin,” Jess said, gesturing toward the good-looking, clean-shaven, dark-skinned man beside her.
“I don’t care who that is,” Eric said, guessing this was a guy Jess had been dealing with and the reason she wouldn’t talk about them getting back together. “I want to know where my daughter is.”
“Quentin and I thought it best we not bring her.”
“Jess, what are you doing?” Eric said, taking a step toward her. “What happened to us? We used to love each other, and now—”
“Eric, stop,” Jess said. “That’s disrespectful to Quentin.”
“What?” Eric said, angry that she even brought the man to this meeting, but to put him before Eric, the man she had been dealing with for years—the father of her child.
“Jess,” Quentin whispered, but it was loud enough for Eric to hear. “Maybe you two should speak alone. I don’t think I should be here.”
“No,” Jess said, grabbing Quentin’s arm, then turned back to address Eric. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“What?”
“I want Quentin to adopt Maya. That’s why I brought him for you to meet.”
It felt as though Jess punched Eric through the chest, reached in, grabbed his heart, and was trying to rip it out. He felt dizzy all of sudden and took two steps toward them, still not believing what he had just heard. “You don’t . . . you don’t mean that.”
“Eric, you were in prison most of Maya’s life. Biologically, you’re her father, but you don’t even know her. Quentin does, and he’s ready—”
“Ready to take my little girl away from me?” Eric turned and appealed to Quentin, emotion heavy in his voice. “Is that true? You, as a man, who should know what a little girl means to her father—you trying to snatch my child from me? Or is Jess putting you up to it?”
Quentin didn’t respond, but Eric believed he saw what could’ve been sympathy and understanding in his eyes.
“No,” Jess said. “It’s what we both want.”
“Well, it ain’t gonna happen,” Eric said, shaking his head. “I’m that child’s father. You even said it yourself, and you can’t do nothing about it.”
“That’s why I’m filing to terminate your rights, Eric,” Jess said, digging in her purse and producing an envelope. “The date and place for the hearing is in there.”