FernLook, an ambush is not the way to win your child back.
I know. Before you say anything else, you have got to hear me out, okay? (pauses, turns to Cate) Go ahead.
Okay, so I'm not a soccer mom, and he, he can barely spell PTA.
Don't even know what it is.
Yeah. But we're here, and...okay, we're just not gonna go anywhere until you approve us.
Fern
Cate, listen--
No, you listen. I gave her up 16 years ago because someone in your department promised me that there would be someone great to adopt her, and no one did, and if you would have left her with us 16 years ago, how can you not leave her with us now? She has been in seven foster homes, and she has hated every single one of them. Are they really that much better than our homes? Are we that much worse? Because we can make room for her.
Get batteries. Not fight on the lawn. Look, we don't have it all worked out yet, you know?
We can give her the one thing that no one else ever has: love
Fern
(to Cate and Baze after an emotional confrontation with Lux) I know it doesn't feel like it, but what you had today was a breakthrough. Trust me. I've seen other kids have moments of honesty like this, and that's usually when things take a turn for the better. I know that you tried to shoulder the blame, but it doesn't belong with you. I'm not going to remove Lux from you care. If anything, this shows me that you're a real family, with all the bumps and bruises that a teenager brings, like anyone. And as far as I'm concerned, you two should start the process of having your parental rights reinstated.
Is there, is there really a chance at that?
Fern
In my opinion, yes. I can see how much she means to you, and that all three of you are committed to making this work...perhaps Lux most of all. It was a hard thing she did, saying that. She risked losing you all over again.
(crying) She doesn't need to worry about that, ever.
Fern
You don't have to convince me. Convince Lux.
Fern
That's what this is really about, right? Cate not being there?
I say yes, and what? You send me away to live with someone else? I don't want to live with someone else. I want to work it out with Cate and Baze. I just...
Fern
Look, I'm the one who's going to decide if you stay together, but ultimately, it's not up to me. It's up to you. If you can't be straight with me, you're never gonna be straight with Cate and Baze, and then you'll be right back on my couch six months from now, so when you say that Cate wasn't there for you, tell her what you mean.
(long pause, turns to Cate) Where were you?
I was out there my whole life. Where were you all that time? You never even checked. You never wondered what had happened, if I was okay?
I...I mean, I...I didn't really think that I had to worry, because they told me that you were gonna be adopted, that you were gonna have a better life. I really, I really thought that I was doing what was right for you.
It wasn't for me. If it was for me, you would have checked! But you did it for you. You did the right thing for you!
Lux, it's not all on Cate. I wasn't there exactly, either.
Yeah, but you didn't know, and nobody who knew you would have expected you to be there.
I was sixteen years old. You know, I didn't have anyone to turn to. You know my mother. She was drinking her way through another divorce. I even wrote a letter to my father, but when I realized that I didn't know where to send it...you know, that's when it hit me. I had no idea what a good parent was. There was just no way that I could be one. Not at sixteen.
Then...what about a few years after that, when I was three and stuck in a hospital where no one visited? Or two years after that, when my foster mother shoved me into a wall and told the social worker that I fell off a swing? Where were you? We used to make up these stories about why we were given up, because we didn't want to believe that our parents, our mothers, could hold us--their babies--and just give us up! But you did. You gave me away to nothing, like I didn't matter to you, because I didn't!
No, no, Lux. You do. You matter now.
No, Lux. You matter. You do. You matter now, Lux!
No! (stands up) Now doesn't count! I...I'm sorry. I don't forgive you, Cate. I don't. (walks out)
Life Unexpected · 122 quotes
