"So, Zac, how does it feel to be a free man?" Taylor asked his brother. They'd landed in New York and were on their way home from the airport. Zac was looking out the window with a smile on his face, happy to be far away from the walls of the prison he'd been forced to call home for all these years.
Lynn and Jeff were both under arrest awaiting the trial for Ginger's murder which would take place early the next year. They were both pleading guilty. Although Jeff was the one who did the actual killing, Lynn was the mastermind behind it. Debbie explained it to Zac: Lynn, due to her mental illness, was looking at life in prison while Jeff might be up for the death penalty.
"It's okay. Can we go get Jenny?" Zac immediately asked. Taylor smiled. Zac had been a free man, officially, for only a few hours and had manged to get back custody of his daughter (the state's way of saying "sorry for putting you in hell for seven years when you really didn't do anything") immediately.
"Sure, we'll stop off at home then--"
"No. Jenny first."
"Okay, Zac. I'm not sure where she lives, though," Taylor said.
"I do," Kris interjected. "I had to take her home once. It's the next subdivision over from ours." Taylor nodded. Zac nervously tapped on the armrest as he looked out the window. It seemed like hours (and knowing New York traffic, probably was) until they reached the suburbs. Kris directed them to Jenny's house and once Taylor stopped the car, Zac got out and ran to the door. Taylor got a phone call and said he'd catch up with them, allowing Kris to go ahead while he remained in the car. By the time Kris got to the front door, Zac had already rung the doorbell and was waiting for someone to answer.
Liz opened the door. "Oh, well, I see they actually let you out," she said, her hand still on the doorknob. "If you're looking for Jen, she isn't here. She's been staying with her boyfriend for quite some time now." Zac looked at Kris.
"Yeah, I know where that is."
"And you can tell her to get over here and get the rest of her things. Frankly I'm pleased they let you out. Now I don't have to deal with the little bitch anymore." Liz closed the door. Zac turned to Kris again.
"Well that was rude," he said, walking back down the driveway to the car. "And what's this bullshit that she's living with her boyfriend? She's fifteen!"
"She's just staying with him. Don't give me that. I do recall a certain somebody who had Ginger live with him when he was sixteen," Kris said, giving him a pointed look.
"That's totally irrelevant," Zac said and got in the car as Taylor was just getting off the phone.
"What's going on?" Taylor asked.
"Jenny is with Mike," Kris explained. "So we're going over there." Taylor nodded. "Who was on the phone?"
"Oh, it was nothing. Landscaper." Kris nodded. He started the car again and drove the short route back home, stopping in front of Mike's house. "Here we are." Zac paused. Both Kris and Taylor expected him to run up the driveway and to the door, but he didn't.
"Zac?" Kris asked.
"Yeah?"
"Go get your daughter," she pushed. Zac sighed and got out of the car. He walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. He was very nervous and couldn't stop drumming his thumbs on the side of his legs.
Lydia opened the door and froze. "Oh my God," she said. Zac didn't even notice her fervently freaking out.
"Is Jenny here?"
"Um...yeah. Jenny!" Lydia left to freak out some more. Zac let himself in and closed the door behind him as Jenny bounced down the stairs in pajama pants and a tank top. She didn't look at the door but Zac was staring straight at her.
"Lydia, what?" she asked.
"Door!" Lydia yelled from the other room. Jenny looked to the door, then bolted down the rest of the stairs and threw her arms around her father.
"Daddy!" Zac held his daughter tightly, unable to speak. The body he held in his arms was completely different from the little girl he left behind, and even if he'd seen Jenny in pictures recently, nothing compared to seeing her in person. She was a completely different person from what he remembered, and what he felt in his arms seemed so much more like his wife than his daughter. When he heard her crying, he finally loosened his grip around her small waist and looked in her intense violet eyes.
"No, darlin, don't cry." She smiled, her bright eyes filled with the tears that stained her cheeks. Her smile and her tears showed the pure happiness she hadn't had in such a long time.
" 'Darlin,' " she repeated. "I missed that. I missed you. I missed you so much, Daddy." Zac hugged her again.
"Oh I missed you too, Jenny." He held her close to him but refused to cry in front of her, but allowed her to cry in his arms as she held onto her father once again.
"Jenny? Where'd you go?" Mike asked, walking down the stairs. Jenny turned around and looked up at him, beaming. He paused as he saw Zac standing next to Jenny, who was wiping her eyes. "Oh."
"Mike, come here," she said, waving him over. Mike descended the rest of the stairs and stepped up to Jenny and Zac. "Mike, this is my father. Daddy, this is my boyfriend Mike."
"Nice to meet you," Zac said, shaking Mike's hand. Mike nodded.
"You too, Mr. Hanson."
"Ugh, don't call me that. It reminds me of court. Call me Zac."
"Okay. Zac." It was weird for Mike to calll his girlfriend's father by his first name, but it was even weirder actually seeing him in person. Jenny wouldn't let go of him and with good reason--she hadn't seen her father in years.
"How'd you get here, Daddy?" Jenny asked, pulling her father away from the door and into the house.
"Kris and Taylor." He looked back to the closed door. "They probably went home."
"Are you staying with them?"
"Yeah, but just for a little while until I find a place for us to live," Zac said. Jenny looked back at her father.
"Us?"
"Yeah. I'm assuming you want to come live with me again. I know I'm not as cool as your boyfriend here, but you are my child."
"Of course I want to! I just didn't know I could."
"Yeah, you can. It's amazing what you can ask for when you've been falsely accused," Zac said. Jenny sat him down on the couch in the living room. "I wanted to go back to the city, but everyone seems to be quite settled out here. We'll find something together." Zac ruffled Jenny's bright red hair. "Shit, Jenny, you look exactly like your mother."
"I know."
"Well, anyway," Zac said, moving on before either of them grew teary-eyed again, "I actually stopped by that other house--the one you're supposed to be at--and I can understand why you left. That woman..."
"She's a bitch, you can say it."
"Yes, she is, but you're not old enough to say that word just yet," he said. Jenny made a face but genuinely apologized. She wasn't used to discipline--discipline she actually respected. "But I don't know if I like that you're here, being corrupted by him." Zac looked over at Mike, obviously teasing, but Mike still looked at the floor. He didn't have to deal with a protective father before.
"Didn't you have Mom stay with you for a few weeks when you were my age?" Jenny asked.
"That's completely different."
"How?"
"You're my daughter and it's my duty to not approve, that's how," he said. Jenny was ready to sass back when Patricia walked into the room.
"Has anybody seen Lydia?" she asked, but paused upon seeing Zac on the couch. Jenny got up and brought Patricia over. Zac stood.
"Mrs. Laticer, I'd like you to meet my father, Zac Hanson. Dad, this is Mike's mother, Patricia Laticer." They politely shook hands. Zac suddenly felt very young. Of course he was, he'd just turned thirty-two, but he was meeting the mother of his daughter's boyfriend, and expected her to be roughly his age. That was not the case. Lydia, who had answered the door, was his age. This woman was his mother's age, and that was intimidating.
"It's nice to finally meet you," Patricia said to Zac in a tone that immediately said she was old enough to be his mother, and he should be well aware of it.
"Likewise," he said. It was hard to fathom their children were the same age (roughly, Mike was a few years older). Zac felt closer in age to the children than to Patricia and didn't like it. It swiped him of any authority he had over them.
"Well, Daddy," Jenny said. "I'm going to get dressed, then we can go to Kris and Taylor's." She hugged him tightly. "I'm so glad you're back." He watched her leave the room.
Zac sat with his daughter in Kris and Taylor's living room. Jenny was watching TV while Zac looked through the newspaper (carefully avoiding the headline, which was about him) for houses in the area.
Jenny rested her head on her father's shoulder, causing him to smile. "Daddy, are you okay?" she suddenly asked.
"What do you mean, darlin?"
"Well with everything that happened to you, are you okay? I mean you seem fine, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything."
"I have you back, sweetie. That's all I need to make me happy," he said. He turned back to the paper. "And possibly to see your mother again."
"We can go visit her grave if you want," Jenny said.
"You've seen it?"
"Yeah. Kris took me once not too long ago. It's...it's nice." He nodded.
"I'd like to see it." Jenny stood. "Whoa, whoa, not now! I've had an emotional enough day without having to go through that."
"If we don't go now, then when would we go?" she asked.
"Some other day." She put her hands on her hips. "Fine. We'll go now." She held out her hand and he took it, getting up. "You've grown up way too fast, Jenny. Slow down."
"It wasn't my choice." Zac sighed. He never wanted this sort of life for his daughter. He wanted great things for her, and had the money and the ability to do just that, but everything changed when Ginger died.
"Taylor, I'm taking your car!" Zac called out.
"Why?" Taylor's distant voice called back.
"We're going to visit Mom," Jenny said. "We'll be back later." There was a pause.
"Okay!" Zac grabbed the keys off the counter and pushed Jenny off to the garage. Jenny wasn't too trusting on her father's driving skills; it'd been quite a few years since Zac had been behind the wheel of a car.
"All right, let's see if I remember how to do this," he said. Jenny looked a little scared. "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing, it's just been a while. I'll get better when I start teaching you." He started the car and looked behind him, out the open garage door. Jenny quickly put the car in reverse before Zac plowed into the living room, and they were off. "So where are we going?" Jenny gave him detailed directions and, surprisingly, made it to the cemetery in one piece. "She's buried here?" Zac asked, making a face.
"It's nice, Dad," Jenny said, forcing Zac to accept something he didn't want to. For one of the few times in his life he was thinking he was better than other people; that he and Ginger were so much better than he couldn't stand to have her buried in a common cemetery, and Jenny wanted none of it.
"Okay..." Jenny got out of the car and Zac followed close behind her. She paused, trying to remember where she was going before she began walking to the left. He felt completely uncomfortable walking through the cemetery. Jenny was right; it was nice, but small. Zac didn't see Ginger liking it here.
When Jenny stopped, Zac stopped as well and looked in front of him. "There it is," Jenny said. Zac's eyes filled with tears as he saw his wife's name, his name, written on the tombstone. He felt Jenny's arms slide around him and he looked at her for only a moment before he had to look away. He saw his wife next to him when he looked at her. "Do you want to be alone?" It was his wife's voice. He nodded. "I love you." She let go and walked away. When he knew she was gone, he broke down.
"Ginger, I love you," he said, crumbling to his knees in front of her tombstone. "I love you and I miss you. I want you to come home." He traced over the engraved letters of her name. He would have done the entire thing differently had he been there. He wanted so much to have been there. "Why'd you have to die? We had so much left to do. We had Jenny. What am I supposed to do without you? How am I supposed to live without you? You are my heart and soul, you are everything to me." He sniffed and wiped at his eyes. "I just want to hold you again. I just want to hold you, and kiss you, and be with you again. I don't want to be by myself because who am I without you?"
He broke down crying, sobbing into his hands. Unlike everyone else, he never had the time to properly heal, or even to properly say goodbye. He missed the funeral and instead of grieving, he was put on trial and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for a crime he never committed. He lost everything and while he thought he'd gained it all back, he realized the one thing that held it all together was still gone.
He felt Jenny's comforting arms back around him and attempted to compose himself in front of his daughter. "No, don't," she said, shaking her head. "Don't."
"I don't want you to see me like this, Jenny," he said. She didn't even bother to compete with it.
"I miss her too, Dad," she said.
"I know, sweetie," he said. He put his arms around his daughter. "I love you, darlin." She nodded as she began to cry. "Everything's going to be okay."