“Why did you knock?” she asked before registering the identity of the people with him.
Her parents? Her parents were here. In Mirrus.
“Mom?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “Dad?”
And then her mother rushed around Kon and ran to Emma, pulling her into a hug so tight Emma could barely breathe. “My baby. My daughter. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” The litany of apologies did not end when her dad joined them, only intensified as he added his voice to her mother’s.
Emma pushed out of her parents’ arms and took a step back. “You’re here.”
Her mother’s eyes shone brightly with tears. “Yes. Your friend called us and told us this is where you are living now.”
“I started looking for flights right away,” her dad said, clearing his throat. “But he said he could get us on a private jet sooner than a commercial flight could get us here.”
Emma looked at Kon and mouthed the word friend?
Kon nodded, but what did that mean?
“Why are you here?” she asked her parents, still trying to understand what was happening.
“You’re here. We missed you so much,” her mother said.
Her father got that look he did when he was feeling emotional and didn’t want to show it. “We made a mistake when we pushed you away. We should never have done that. You’re our daughter and you should always have been able to rely on our support.”
“Did Kon tell you that?”
“You mean Mr. Merikov?” her mother asked, making no effort to hide the tears tracking down her face. “No, though I’m sure he’s thought it if he’s your friend. We missed you and we couldn’t find you.”
“You looked?” Emma asked, shocked.
“Oh, yes, but we couldn’t find you. We thought maybe you’d gotten married and changed your name, but there was no marriage record in Washington or the surrounding states. We even had our private investigator check into Nevada marriages. So many people get married in Las Vegas.”
Disappointment filled Emma. “So, that’s why you’re here. You found out I’m getting married and now I’m acceptable to you.”
Her mom gasped, her hand fisting over her heart. “You’re getting married? To who?”
“You do not need to be married to be acceptable to us,” her father said forcefully at the same time. “You are our daughter and we will always love you.”
“Then why reject me?” Emma asked, the pain inside her lacing her voice.
“We thought if we stayed strong you would see we were right. You were so young, not even done with college yet. You had your whole life ahead of you and we thought being a single mom would make it so much harder than it had to be,” her mom tried to explain.
“I was a fool,” her father said, sounding tired and sad. “I thought you refusing to give your baby up for adoption was your way of saying that being adopted wasn’t the best thing for you. I felt like you were rejecting me as your father. I was so darn selfish and I have no excuse.”
Emma stared at her father, incomprehension holding her immobile. He’d believed she didn’t like that she was adopted and that’s why she wanted to keep her baby?
“I kept Mikhail because I already loved him, because I could not imagine giving him up and I knew that even if it was hard, I would and could give him a good life. I could give him what you’d always given me. Love.”
Her mother started crying in earnest then. Emma found herself back in her mother’s arms, her own tears coming to the surface. Her dad held them both.
But as the storm of healing weeping ended, Emma sought out the one person she needed more than her parents right then. Kon.
He was there, waiting patiently.
After extricating herself from her parents’ arms again, this time with words of love and promises they would work things out, she went to her fiancé and let him draw her into his embrace.
“Thank you,” she said against his chest, finding immeasurable comfort in Kon’s hold.
“Oh, you are going to marry Mr. Merikov?” her mother asked in a water-clogged voice.