Chapter 5 - The Final Departure
Leo reached down, picked up his duffel bag, and slung it over his shoulder.
He stepped over to my side, standing right beside me at the front entrance.
"Where are you going, Leo?!" Arthur yelled, taking a step forward in sheer panic.
"You are my son! You live here!"
"Live where, Dad?" Leo asked, gesturing around the hollow, empty room.
"In a bare apartment you can't pay for?"
"With the woman you cheated on Mom with?"
"I'm sixteen. I can choose where I live."
"And I'm going with Sarah."
Arthur looked as if he had been struck by lightning.
Valerie gasped, clutching her belly as she backed away toward the hallway.
Eleanor staggered backward, clutching the doorframe to keep from falling.
"You... you can't take my grandson!" Eleanor shrieked at me, tears of pure rage finally breaking through her cold face.
"You have no legal right to him!"
"I am not taking him, Eleanor," I said, looking her straight in the eye with unwavering dignity.
"He is making his own choice."
"Just like I made mine."
I turned to Leo and gave him a soft, warm nod.
"Let's go home, Leo."
We walked out into the corridor, leaving Arthur, Eleanor, and Valerie standing together in the cold, hollow, echoing void of an Upper East Side apartment they could never afford.
As the elevator doors closed behind us, I felt the heavy weight of twelve long years lift from my shoulders.
I didn't have their money, their title, or their polished arrogance.
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But as the elevator descended to the ground floor, I had my freedom, my dignity, and the love of the boy I had truly raised.
And for the first time in my life, that was more than enough.
