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got up around 7:30. tiptoed back into bedroom to get something around 7:55. i thought soon e was sleeping. suddenly she made the sound of a gun shooting. i looked up and she was pointing her hand with an outstretched index finger at me making the shape of a gun. it was so cute and it also scared the sh** out of me.
soon e got up and came into the living room to watch tv. at first she put on cartoons but then went to the disney channel.
soon e wanted to know the korean word for "summertime". i found "summer". she was singing the song. she told me how melissa used to sing it when she was in korea.
drove the car to sunoco for inspection (last day!!!) and oil change.
i made english muffins for us when i got back. soon e started making "in-sam cha" ("ginger tea") from scratch. at breakfast, she told me how she's going to make chicken soup: 1/3rd chicken, 1/3rd rice, 1/3rd in-sam cha.
soon e is watching "care bears nutcracker".
i heard the phone go into answer mode. to my shock, it was father ben. i just knew that donna had talked to him and that he was calling to give me the coup de grace. i asked him if he had heard what is happening her. he said he hadn't. apparently donna had called him and left a message. but the number he got was my number.
it was obvious that i had to take the bull by the horns and get everything out before donna starts telling him how crazy i am. i started from the beginning. when i had gone 25 minutes or so, i felt like i just had to call him back so i could be paying for the call. i got the number and we hung up.
to my dismay, when i dialed i got the response "you have reached a non-working number of the riverside medical center." i hung up for several minutes and father ben didn't call. i tried the number again. then i started to panic. what if i couldn't get him back and lost this golden opportunity to tell my story first. i tried the number again and got the same response. then i decided to call the riverside medical center. they were very nice and tried for almost 15 minutes. they finally said they'd call me back. i waited and waited. finally, father ben tried me.
i continued my story. i told him how the marriage had never gotten off the ground, how donna had married me in an attempt to get her cousin's child, how i had been against adoption, but how i changed when we went to bupyong. i told him that i had also seen adoption as a way that i could have a family even if donna was off doing something else.
i finally got to the guilt feelings that i had had about the girls' mother. i had to fight the tears back when i told about having ashley wave goodbye to her at the airport. then i told him how i had decided that i couldn't have a woman in my life because of the girls but how i had modified that with respect to the girls mother. finally, i dropped the bomb that the girls' mother was here and that we were in love. i half expected him to say that soon e and i were committing a great sin by living together, that we had exposed the girls to great harm, and that i should send her back to korea immediately.
well, it was my turn to nearly fall out of my chair in shock. father ben said, "i think that's beautiful, the way you want to help the girls' mother." i told him that he was one of the few people who had reacted this way. i told him how the girls' have been taken away from me. he said i should go forward. even if they keep you from seeing them now, some day they will come back. "these children always want to know about their biological parents when they get to be around 18." i told him that i thought it was important for soon e to learn english and the american culture if she was ever going to have a chance to communicate with the girls. he was in total agreement.
he said he would talk to donna and try to persuade her to let us have some time with the girls.
i told him that i really appreciated his encouragement but that i knew that what i was doing was not the Catholic way. he said that even if i was a Catholic that my divorce with donna could be worked out.
he said the girls' mother is really a wonderful person. "i think she loved the girls so much that she never remarried." wow, that was a tough one. should i play dumb or should i go ahead and lay everything out. i'm at the point now that i don't want anybody who might be behind me to get any surprises. so i told him. it didn't seem to make any difference. he still encouraged me to go on.
then he and soon e talked for a while.
later i talked to soon e again about the need for us to take her passport to the judge's secretary. i still wasn't sure if she really understood what i had been saying since friday. i was afraid she might panic when she really got the point. but everything went fine. she even looked up the word for "safekeeping".
soon e then took a bath while i finished up some things with larry. i hadn't planned to change clothes but she was dressed so nicely, i felt i should. (later, at the wedding, i was glad i did.)
as we were getting things together to go, she showed me her passport and then i knew that everything was going to be ok. we walked to the sonoco station and got the car. then we drove to salem. i had 92.5 on. we held hands all the way. then we held hands as we walked to the courthouse. we were talking about dinner. i had said something about a "shik-tang" ("restaurant") several times but soon e kept insisting that we'd eat at the condo. but then, to my surprise, she mentioned the possibility of going to a "chun-guk" ("chinese") restaurant if i'd let her pay. smiling to myself, i said, "ne."
we also held hands when we got inside. the uniformed officer was very helpful. he sent us to get the records (the case) but it was not in the files. so he took us to the bench outside the judge's office, conferred with her, and finally her secretary came and took the documents into the judge. shortly, the secretary came back with a copy of the order.
well the judge was really generous. she has given me from 9-12 each sunday morning with an option to increase it after a month, if all goes well. that couldn't be at a worse time. i guess i can take the girls somewhere for breakfast but it's too early for lunch. and, of course, no stores are open at that time. the only consolation is that donna will have to be in andover every sunday for the foreseeable future. there was also a clause that donna could ask for a monetary bond from me. but neither of us can take the children out of massachusetts without written permission from the court.
the court was nearly deserted. there was a light of light and i was feeling quite optimistic and elated after talking to father ben. with soon e at my side, holding my hand, i felt like things were really looking up even with the niggardly visitation that i had been given by the judge. |
