“I don’t know what’s going to happen now,” he said. There will be difficult decisions. There will be conversations. We'll need help understanding all this.
His voice was shaking.
“But you will never be kicked out of our house again.
Emily looked at him.
“Really?”
Daniel nodded.
This is your home. And I'm your father. I should have remembered before I opened my mouth.
Emily slowly reached out to him.
Daniel took it.
Then she whispered something that just destroyed it.
When I fainted, I thought I could die. And all I could think of was that the last words you had said to me were, “Get out of my house.”
Daniel collapsed.
He leaned over his hand and began to cry.
“Forgive me,” he repeated. I'm so sorry.
Emily finally brought him closer to her.
And the three of us stayed by that hospital bed until dawn.
Nothing magically managed.
Emily was still fourteen and followed pregnant.
We were still expecting huge decisions. We needed doctors, counselors, difficult conversations with both families and, above all, time.
But that night Daniel learned something he would never forget.
A terrified child may make a life-changing mistake.
A parent can make a mistake, too.
And sometimes the whole difference is in knowing if we let love speak before anger speaks for us.
When we finally took Emily back home, Daniel personally opened the door of entry.
She hesitated on the threshold.
He noticed.
Then he turned away, his eyes again filled with tears.
“Go home, honey.
Emily came in.
And this time, her father closed the door behind her, not to throw her out, but to make sure she knew that was her home and that there she would always have a place.
