I stood. “I’ll go put it in my—our—room,” I said, not wanting Westley to walk in and see me holding it. Not wanting him to think he’d have even a hope that I would ever greet him at the door wearing nothing but a smile and clear plastic.
Days after my sister and her husband and Westley and I had celebrated the arrival of 1978 in festive style—Westley and I drove in silence toward an attorney’s office—the same one who had drafted the legal document ordering his child support payments. Money I hadn’t realized had been coming out of his—now our—bank account.
Westley wanted custody of Michelle. I kept saying the words over and over in my mind, hoping they would stick. Because he’d not asked how I felt about it. Not questioned whether I thought I was ready for such a thing as being a mother to a one-year-old. Not taken into consideration that I was barely nineteen. Or that a month ago I was happily planning my wedding and working for the Fosters who fluttered around me like second parents, hoping I wasn’t jumping into a fire. Which, in the end, I suppose I had. No … I thought we’d wait a while. Give us time to allow us to grow up a little as a couple. Two years, at least, I figured. Wasn’t that about the norm?
And Michelle wasn’t even my child. It wasn’t like I’d gotten pregnant on my wedding night—I’d heard such stories. Instead, this was another woman’s baby. Yes, Westley’s too, but mostly the mother’s. What would Marabel Morgan say about this? Or my own mother? Although I wouldn’t have to wonder long when it came to Mama. She had made it clear before I left for my honeymoon that I was to let Westley call the shots. Whatever he wanted. And from what I could tell from Mrs. Morgan’s book, she would tell me the same. His child has now become your child, she’d say. She is a part of your husband therefore she is a part of you.
Westley parked the car and I followed, stepping past him after he opened the front door of the office—a converted small house right off Main Street. We stepped into a room that, with the exception of a woman sitting behind a desk at the far corner, looked as if it could be someone’s grandmother’s parlor. The walls were wallpapered in muted-yellow grasscloth, the framed artwork large and expensive-looking, and the accenting pieces old and rich. Westley’s hand touched the small of my back as he guided me forward to the woman with the Mary Tyler Moore hairdo. “Can I help you?”
“We’re the Housers,” Westley said. “Here to see Mr. Donaldson.”
“Have a seat. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
We sat close on a footed love seat’s thin cushion that lay like waves lapping a shoreline. Westley’s hand found mine, our fingers intertwining. He squeezed, a silent signal to look at him, and I did. “Thank you,” he mouthed.
I nodded, my eyes blinking, fear threatening to overtake me.
“I love you,” he whispered.
Again, I nodded. I loved him, too. I did. But I wasn’t sure I was ready for what he had asked of me. Not this soon. Not so young.
“This is going to be fine. I promise.” He reiterated words spoken countless times since the week before, leaving me unsure as to whom he hoped they’d convince.
And, again, I nodded.
“Mr. and Mrs. Houser,” the receptionist said, startling me, having not quite gotten used to hearing our names spoken in such a way. “I can take you back now.”
Westley stood, bringing me with him. “I know the way,” he told her, raising his hand to stop her from getting up.
We walked down a short, narrow hallway until we reached a room on the left, its door half open, the brass nameplate reflecting the blurred colors of our image as we approached. Trevor Donaldson, it read.
I relaxed as soon as we entered. Trevor Donaldson—Trev, he introduced himself—was barely older than Westley, reminding me more of a big brother than a stuffy lawyer. He wore suit pants without the coat, and he’d rolled the cuffs of his dress shirt up to his elbows, displaying naturally tanned arms and a nice gold watch. He chuckled as he shook my hand. “You expected some old fogey, didn’t you,” he said.
Heat penetrating my face betrayed any thoughts of lying. “Yes,” I admitted.
“Ah,” he said, sitting behind his desk and motioning for the two of us to take our seats across from him. “Westley and I go way back, don’t we, Wes?” He looked at me again. “Wes didn’t tell you?”
“No. He didn’t.” But, then again, there were so many things my husband had chosen not to tell me. “He just said we were seeing his attorney today.”
Westley turned toward me, a look of conspiracy washing over him that came with a desire to steer the conversation in another direction. “Don’t believe anything this boy tells you.”
Trev leaned back, the leather of his chair squeaking in protest at the motion. “Allison, I could tell you some things about this one.” He pointed to his friend. “Me and him and Marty Cone—the things we used to get into.”
“The things he’s still getting into,” I said before I’d had time to think about the impact of my words. I looked at Westley, waiting for his reaction, but he only looked at Trev and grinned.
“She’s got a point there, Trev.”
“That she do.” He leaned forward then, resting his arms on the edge of a massive desk topped with books and files and scattered papers. “Talk to me, son. What’s happened?”
“I want custody,” Westley said. “Plain and simple. Cindie’s more like a child herself and she’s got Lettie Mae Campbell’s influence all over her.”
Trev winced. “Wes, listen up. No court in this state is going to take a child away from its mother unless you can prove she’s mentally unstable—and I mean like Central State Hospital nuts. Or that she’s messing with drugs … or bringing men into her bedroom in such a way that the child witnesses what the law calls carnal acts.” His brows formed an attractive upside-down V at the bridge of his nose as he continued. “Cindie Campbell may not be the best choice of mothers but the first thing a judge is going to ask you about is the night Michelle was conceived, which brings your character into the equation. Not hers.”
Westley shook his head, defeat flickering in his eyes as hope managed to settle in my stomach. Maybe I wouldn’t have to make such a sacrifice so early on. Maybe there was another way. “There’s got to be something—” my husband’s voice pleaded.
“Not with a one-year-old, Wes. And not a little girl to boot.”
Westley sighed, the very essence of him deflating, filling the room now with heaviness and—I could see it then—heartbreak. He loved his daughter. He may not love her mother—or, as he said, even like her—but Michelle was his child, too. Flesh of his flesh. Bone of his bone. His blood running through her veins. “Isn’t there anything you can do?” I asked.
Westley looked at me then, startled by my question. Yes. Whatever he wanted … just like Mama and Miss Marabel and maybe even Hillie would tell me if the three of them were here. Because if his heart was broken, mine was broken … didn’t he know that? Hadn’t he begun to realize how much I loved him? How, without him, I was …
The song that played on the radio during our trip back from Paul and DiAnn’s skipped through the airwaves of a memory. The one we’d talked about. Philosophized about. Dust in the Wind. Without him, that was every bit of who I was. And without Michelle, the same could be said about him.
He reached for my hand and I gladly gave it.
Trev opened a manila file and scanned the pages of notes within. “You don’t have set visitation, do you?”
“No. And she wouldn’t let me see her last week.”
Trev glanced up. “Well, now … there’s something I can help with. Let me draft up a motion for the court asking for a modification on your child support order.” He smiled at me. “You’re married now. There’s a woman in the house—and, might I just add, one that makes a nice statement—so that’s good. What would you like me to ask for?” He reached for a pen and an absently tossed legal pad buried under a stack of loose papers. “Every other weekend?”
“Every weekend.”
/>
“Not gonna happen.”
“All right then. Every other. Yes.”
“The norm is Friday at six until Sunday at six. Work for you?”
Westley scooted forward, stretching my arm to the point of discomfort. “Yes.”
Trev scribbled a few words onto the paper before continuing. “How about one night a week. Wednesday?”
Anticipation returned to his face and I slipped my hand from his. “Yeah … yeah.”
“All right. Let’s talk holidays … school vacations as she grows older … we may as well get all this in so you don’t have to keep coming back every couple of years.” He winked at me. “Not that I mind the business …”
Over the next half hour Trev went over everything we could expect. The questions we’d be asked in court. The fight we’d be sure to get from Cindie—mostly Lettie Mae—after the papers were served. The difficulties we might encounter along the way if and when she refused to comply with the judge’s orders.
“How long are we talking before she’s served?” Westley asked. He propped his elbows on the armrests, laced his fingers together.
“Couple of weeks.” Trev pointed his pen toward Westley. “Meanwhile, do everything you can to get her not to fight this. Promise you’ll dance at her wedding if you need to, but if we can keep this thing from going to some kind of long, drawn out day in court . . .”
“Got it,” Westley said, confident, while I wondered what the everything might entail.
We stood to go. Trev walked with us all the way out to the parking lot. He shook my hand again, then slapped Westley on the shoulder. “Son,” he said, thickening his drawl and winking at me again, “You done good. Got lucky and married up.”
“Yes, I did,” Westley said, gazing at me with all the love I could have ever imagined or hoped for.
I smiled a thank you, but deep inside, I knew better. I was the one who had married up, not Wes. No one of Westley’s caliber—his intelligence, his good looks—had ever given me a second glance before that day in the pharmacy. So, if becoming a part-time mommy to a one-year-old meant keeping Westley, then so be it.
I was the lucky one.
Chapter Twenty-one
Cindie
The “something” she was looking for came over a BLT served with a side order of coleslaw.
“Just passing through?” Cindie asked the man with dark eyes and thick brows that, on anyone else, would have appeared wormlike. The man sitting in the farthest booth from the café door, shoulders back, legs crossed like he was somebody, reading a book like it was the most interesting thing he’d ever picked off a library shelf. A smart man, no doubt. A man like Westley.
He looked up as if he were surprised that she’d brought him his order or that he’d forgotten completely where he was at. “Sorry?”
She smiled, giving it her all. Whatever “it” was. “I don’t recognize you as a local.” She allowed her smile to grow. “And believe me, if you were a local, I’d know you.”
The man smiled back as he slid the thick eggshell-white platter closer to his edge of the table. “Ah … yes. Small-town woes.”
“You could say that.”
“I did say that.”
Cindie laughed then. Lightly. Not too much. This man was uptown. High class. She could spot it on him as easily as she had the night Westley walked in. The night he took her for a drive and changed her life. Of course, she had known Westley already. Had known him since she’d been a little girl. But still … that same air of sophistication Westley wore like aftershave settled around the stranger in the booth who now looked up at her as though—the book aside—she now held the title of “Most Interesting.”
“Yes, sir. You did,” she admitted, because she knew that men like him needed to hear they were right about the things they said. Lettie Mae hadn’t taught her a whole lot, but that much she’d made sure her three daughters knew.
His eyes traveled from her face to her chest—something she was accustomed to—but didn’t linger—something she was not accustomed to. “Cindie, is it?”
She pressed her hand against her nametag. “Yes.”
“How old are you, Cindie?” He picked up the slice of dill pickle stretched out next to the sandwich. Took a bite.
“Why?”
“Graduated from high school yet?”
What was this? Twenty questions? Was he planning to ask her out on a date? Trying to figure out if she were legal enough to— “No. I had to—I dropped out.” And not because she wanted to—although she couldn’t tell him that. No, she dropped out because a fickle man named Westley Houser used her for his own need … then left her alone and pregnant … didn’t marry her . . . married someone else … and hadn’t even bothered to try to come see his daughter yesterday like she’d thought he would.
The man took another bite of the pickle, small enough to swallow right away. “Did you get your GED?”
Cindie frowned now. Seriously, what was this? “No, sir, I did not,” she said as if she were proud of it. As if she dared him to say anything against not having a high school diploma.
The man chuckled then. “I’m sorry.” He pulled a napkin from the holder, wiped both hands, and extended the right. “I’m Dr. Miller,” he said. “Harry Miller.”
“Oh,” she said, then looked over her shoulder because any minute now her boss would come around the corner. Would catch her talking to the customer longer than he preferred. Keep it moving, he always said. But Cindie knew that a little personal time spent gabbing nonsense equaled a better tip. And tips was what she lived on. “What kind of doctor?”
“Am I holding you up?” he asked. “You’ve got other customers. I’m sorry.” He picked up one side of the sandwich that had been cut on the diagonal. “I don’t want to get you into trouble. You go on. I’ll eat.”
Cindie nodded, then turned as the ever-annoying ding rang from the back. “Order up! Cindie!” She hurried to the counter, grabbed two plates of spaghetti with meat sauce, waltzed them over to Table Five, then rushed to where large pitchers of iced tea and water were stationed. She grabbed the handle of the sweet tea, taking it immediately to the booth with the doctor who had finished off the first half of his sandwich and now worked on the coleslaw. “More tea?”
The doctor looked at his glass, which had hardly been touched. “Sure.”
“So … since we’ve pretty much established that you are not from here, where are you from?” Cindie asked as she topped off his drink.
“Atlanta,” he said after a swallow of tea and a lift of his glass. “This is good.”
“A little heavy on the sugar, if you ask me.”
His eyes shone. “Like my mother used to make it.”
“Oh,” she said, noting that he hadn’t said his wife. Noting that he also didn’t wear a ring. Not that this necessarily meant anything. “So … what kind of doctor?”
He glanced at the book now closed and abandoned on the table. “I’m a professor at Dekalb College,” he said. “That kind of doctor.”
“Oh,” she said again, mostly because she had no idea what he was talking about.
“I’m the head of the business department there.” He reached into his shirt pocket and drew out a business card, then chuckled again. “Just happened to have one of these.” He handed it to her, and she took it, rubbing her thumb over the raised lettering of his name. His title. His office phone number. “Tell me something, Cindie—and forgive me if I’m being too forward—but you’ve dropped out of school, you’re working in a diner probably not making a lot of money, and you don’t have your GED.” The brow shot up. “I can’t help myself here—when I see a young person, I look for the potential.” He picked up the other half of the sandwich. “And you, Cindie, should be in school somewhere and not serving strangers in town BLTs.”
“Well, somebody’s gotta do it,” she mumbled, but smiled anyway. “So, let me know if you need anything else.” She left, coming back only one other time—refill on the tea again—but
not to talk. Mainly because she wasn’t sure she liked his insinuations—even though he was—if she were honest—completely right. She should be in school and not working for the nickels and dimes and sometimes quarters and half dollars left tossed on the tables for her to claim like some prize. And as if to prove himself to her, the business doctor left a tip larger than she usually totaled in a whole shift.
Days crawled by—days of carrying plates heaped with food to customers who barely understood the concept of tipping, much less actually leaving her anything to live on. Days of her mother’s nonstop complaints and demands. And that’s when the plan came like a much-needed breeze on a muggy summer’s day full of gnats that swarmed and stuck to skin.
She left early for work that Monday morning—the start of a new week as she saw it—stepped into the phone booth just outside the café and inserted the necessary coins before dialing the number on the card.
“Dr. Miller’s office,” a female voice answered on the second ring. “Rita Maledon speaking.”
“Um …” Cindie said, then grimaced at her stammering. She pictured the woman on the other side of the line. Pretty and slender and probably rolling her eyes. “Yes, ma’am. I’m calling for Dr. Miller.”
“Dr. Miller is not in right now.”
Cindie’s shoulders sank. “Oh.”
“May I take a message?”
“A message?” She had to think. And she had to think fast. She couldn’t give her home number. Lettie Mae would want details and she didn’t have them to give. And, if she did, she certainly wanted her mother as far away from them as possible. “Yes. Could you tell him that Cindie from the café in Baxter called? He-um-he left me his number. Tell him I’d like to talk to him about something. Um … do you know when he’ll be in?”
“Should be any minute now,” the woman answered and Cindie now pictured a woman with styled hair wearing a pink cashmere sweater and a strand of pearls. As smartly dressed as she was smartly educated. “Did you say Baxter?”
Dust Page 18
