“That’s what I thought.” I grind my teeth together. Sweat breaks out across my forehead and my heart thumps in my chest hard as I get ready to pull the trigger.
Br-ring! Br-ring!
I open one eye, unsure if I’m actually hearing my phone go off right now, or if I’m hallucinating.
Br-ring! Br-ring!
The gun clatters down against the table as I stand up in total shock. My muscles twitch as I stare in disbelief at my cell phone on the counter. Its screen is lit up bright, blaring at me, with an unfamiliar number blazed across the top of it. Slowly, I walk over to the counter and pick it up. Is this really happening? I stare up at the ceiling, but this time in awe and surprise as I swipe my thumb over the cell and bring it to my ear.
“Hullo.” The sweat that formed across my forehead trickles down and gets lost in my eyebrows.
“Hello, is this Jackson Wilcox?” A friendly woman’s voice reaches through the fog of my confusion like a steady hand on my shoulder.
“Uh, yeah.” For a second I’m almost unsure if that’s the right answer. This moment, this interruption, it’s all too surreal to process.
“Hello, my name is Doreen Vickers and I’m with Child Welfare Services. Sir, I have some news for you and, um, it might be a shock.” Her tone turns nervous. I’m pretty sure I can hear her feet pacing against the hard floor.
“Try me.” I shake my head in disbelief. How much more shocking can any of this get, really?
“Okay then, Mr. Wilcox, right now we have a child in our care. Her mother, Janet Millville, I believe you two were together at one point?”
I nod silently as a flash of Janet’s milky skin and fiery red hair flashes through my mind.
Doreen continues, “I’m sorry to inform you that she was killed in a car accident last week. Her daughter, well, Ms. Millville wanted the biological father to be the guardian if anything happened to her. I’m not sure what you know about Chloe, but she’s at our facility right now and I would like you to come in to talk to me about making arrangements with you or whether you’d like to keep her in the system,” Doreen rambles.
My mind locks up. I can’t make sense of why she’s calling me. I can’t make sense of any of this. Janet is dead? She had a daughter? What’s happening here?
“I’m sorry, why are you calling me? I haven’t heard from Janet in almost, well, four years now.” Heat stains the back of my neck as my brain scrambles to piece this together for me.
“Mr. Wilcox, I’m calling you because we have Chloe in our care and she’s your daughter.”
Prologue | Jackson
I sit in the reception area and rub my hands over my pants. No matter how many times I brush my damp palms over the denim, it doesn’t wick away the sweat coating my fingers. I feel raw. Like every inch of my skin is painfully new and being exposed to the world for the first time. This morning feels like a lifetime ago. Like the fragmented images of a dream that haunts you from time to time, but you can’t place the reason why.
I can’t believe Janet was pregnant and she never told me. My mind has been reeling since I hung up the phone this morning.
When we broke it off, she didn’t even hint that she knew she was carrying my child. Did she know then? I’ve been combing over the details I can recall of how we ended things.
“I can’t do this anymore, Jackson.” Her eyes were already red, like she’d spent the entire night crying.
“Why? What’s wrong?” I had thought we were doing great. We’d been together for almost a year and we still couldn’t get enough of each other.
“I can’t be with a man who’s already in love with something else. I can’t spend my life competing for your time, for your attention, for you.” She sniffled and tucked her long, red hair behind her ears.
“Hey, what are you talking about?” I stepped into her and tried to wrap my arms around her, but she crossed her arms, eyes cast down to her feet. “You know there’s nobody but you, babe. Why are you saying that?”
“Jackson, I’m not talking about another woman.” She breathed out hard and her lips quivered. “I’m talking about the SEALs. That’s your true first love, and”—her voice cracked—“it always will be. The best I can do is be a distant second in your life. We need more than that.” Her gaze remained fixated to the floor.
“We need more than that.” At the time she said it, I assumed she meant that she and I needed more. Is that what she meant? Or did she already know there was another person who would need more time, more love, more of me than I could possibly give?
“Mr. Wilcox?”
My head snaps up to attention at the woman standing in front of me. She holds out her hand to greet me, an uncertain smile resting on her lips.
I stand up on shaky legs and wrap my hand around hers, shaking it gently. “Yes”—I nod—“that’s me.”
“Come with me, sir, we have quite a bit to talk about.” She turns and her long skirt flings out around her ankles before twirling in tight against her legs like an umbrella being closed around the handle. My eyes briefly flicker over her loosely twisted bun of graying hair as I follow her down the hall to her office.
I scan the room, happy for the reminder of her name attached to the office door. I was already feeling so much that I could barely process what she was telling me on the phone, let alone remember her name.
Doreen Vickers - Director of Child Welfare Services
I sit down without waiting for her to offer me a seat, pressing my lips tight together, hoping she can make sense of all this for me. I know I can’t take care of a child. Hell, I can’t even look after myself. But I need Doreen here to reassure me that someone else will do the job. I need to know this isn’t just one more thing I fuck up in the world. The child, my child, needs to be well taken care of.
“Mr. Wilcox, thank you for coming in on such short notice.” Her darkly stained lips smile at me, but I don’t have the heart to return it.
“No problem,” I answer gruffly, clearing my throat.
“I’ll get right to it.” She shuffles a folder on her desk. “As I told you on the phone, Janet Millville was unfortunately killed in a car accident last week.”
“Was the child in the car? Did she get hurt?” I manage to ask through gritted teeth, my gut twisting up into knots at the idea of the little girl watching her mother die.
“No, no. Nothing like that. She was in daycare when it happened.” The warmth of her brown eyes surrounds me almost like a mother’s hug.
“Good.” I nod.
“So, Janet had a will and in it she expressed that she wanted you to have full custody of your daughter if anything happened to her,” Doreen explains.
I slowly shake my head. I know Janet didn’t have any brothers or sisters, but she was really close to her parents. “I didn’t even know I had a daughter. Doesn’t it make more sense for her to go to her grandparents? She has no idea who I am.” I rub my hand down over my neck.
“Apparently Janet’s father was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease and it has progressed pretty quickly. He’s already lost mobility in his limbs. Her mother was giving him full-time care, but then took a nasty fall that resulted in a spiral fracture. The doctors informed her she has osteoporosis and that caring for a young child is physically impossible for her.” Doreen frowns slightly at the folder.
“Fuck,” I whisper. “Sorry, I mean, I just meant that’s awful.” I can’t even begin to understand the pain her mother must be suffering through. First to watch her husband slowly become a shell of the man she once knew, then to lose her only child only to top it all off with a debilitating disease herself. It’s like life just stabbed her in the gut and then twisted the knife right up into her heart.
“It is,” Doreen agrees. “Both of her parents are receiving outside care right now. That’s why Janet made the arrangements for you to take custody if anything should happen to her. Now, I know this is a lot to process, but obviously the best interest of the child is the priority here. So,
if there’s any reason you can’t or won’t be able to take in Chloe, we are prepared to put her into the foster care system and try to find a good match for her.”
I bite my tongue. I refuse to tell her that I can think of more than a few reasons why I should never be responsible for a child. Mainly the fact that I was ready to blow my brains out this morning. Maybe I should tell her. The kid would probably find a better family in the system.
But what if she doesn’t?
What if I sign those papers and the little girl goes from watching her grandfather deteriorate and losing her mother to a life of loneliness and abuse? What if my ‘responsible decision’ is the worst thing I could ever do for her? What if, in fifteen years, she ends up sitting at a kitchen table with a gun tucked under her chin all because I decided I was too broken to even try to give her a good life?
“No, I’ll take custody of her,” I find myself saying the words with a force, with a conviction, I haven’t felt in a long time. My daughter needs me. And maybe there’s a part of me that needs her too.
“Are you certain?” Doreen peers across the desk at me. “Would you like some time to think it over more?”
Everything inside me screams that I’m not certain. I’m not ready for this. I don’t even know if I can do it. I don’t have the first clue about raising a little girl. Outside, I keep my face stony, never revealing the swirling cyclone of emotions rushing around in my gut.
“I don’t need any time. I’ll do it.”
“Okay then.” Doreen beams at me, her brown eyes crinkling in the corners. “There’s a lot of paperwork to go over and some hoops to jump through, but we can get through most of it pretty quickly.” She opens up the file folder and grabs a pen.
“Great,” I answer flatly. All I can do is hope this isn’t the worst decision I’ve ever made. It’s one thing to fuck up my own life, but I can’t stand the idea of doing anything but my best for this little girl.
Prologue | Jackson
“I don’t know how familiar you are with the development phases of children,” Doreen talks to me over her shoulder as she leads me through the hallways to meet my daughter for the first time. My stomach hasn’t been tied this tight in knots since I was getting ready to parachute into my first mission with the SEALs. Somehow, this feels more frightening.
“Uh, I’m not,” I answer her. I don’t know what age kids are when they can feed themselves, or use the bathroom on their own. I don’t know if Chloe will talk clearly or if she’s going to use the garbled language of toddlers. Basically, I don’t know the first thing about any of this.
What have I done?
A layer of cold fear coats my stomach as self-doubt creeps up inside me, like it’s trying to claw a path up my throat and out my mouth. No matter how much I try to swallow it down, it’s still just past the edge of my tongue, urging me to let it free.
“Don’t worry, you’ll learn as you go. In the meantime, there’s a lot of good reading in the brochures I gave you. The only reason I bring it up is so you know that Chloe isn’t going to have a firm understanding of her mother’s death. At three, she can’t grasp that this is a permanent change in her life and that Janet isn’t coming back. It’s completely normal for her to be cheerful one second and sad the next. She’s only going to understand in pieces that things aren’t going to go back to the way they were.”
“Okay.” I nod grimly and stuff my hands in my pockets. “I should probably get her a counsellor, right?” I tilt my head as I realize that, while I’m looking, I should find one for me too.
“That would be a great idea. And I can give you a list of therapists that we recommend, if you’d like.”
“That would be helpful.” I stop next to her and wonder if she’s trying to size me up.
Doreen stares up into my face and puts a warm hand on my shoulder. “Take a deep breath, Jackson. Are you ready to meet your daughter?”
I swallow hard to steady my nerves. I can’t believe how much my hands are shaking. Keeping them hidden from sight, stuffed in my pockets, is the only way I can hide the telltale tremors traveling through them. “I think so,” I answer unconvincingly.
“Here we go.” She opens the door and leads me through into what looks like a large daycare. There are children of all ages playing and doing crafts around the space. I scan the room as Doreen tries to point out Chloe to me, but I don’t need her help. I spot her right away. With fluffy hair the color of a bonfire and pale skin that looks like the sun has never touched it, I can see the child I made with Janet right away.
“Do-wene,” Chloe cries out as she spots the child welfare director at my side. She clumsily runs over to us and wraps her arms around Dorene’s leg, giving her a big hug.
“Hi, sweetheart.” Dorene pats her on the head. “There’s somebody I want you to meet, Chloe.”
My heart stops in my chest as the little girl, as my little girl, shyly smiles up at me.
“Hi,” she whispers and crinkles her fingers on her chunky hand into a timid wave.
“Hey, Chloe.” My voice catches in my throat as the waves of emotions crash over me. I bend down on one knee and look into her perfect face. “I’m Jackson.” I hold out my hand, which I’m sure is stupid because no kid shakes hands. However, she circles her hand around my fingers and squeezes them.
I’m not sure how I’m going to do any of this. My house is barren. My life is a mess. I don’t know the first thing about being a dad, and I sure as shit didn’t learn anything from the deadbeat who got my own mother pregnant. I could fuck this all up, and, if I think back to where I was only this morning, it seems inevitable that I will.
Yet, as Chloe holds my finger and regards me with those big, blue saucers for eyes, as I take in her innocent face and think about how much this child has already lost, how much she’s already suffered, I just know I’ll make it work. I might not know how, I might make mistakes along the way, but somehow I’m going to give this kid the life she deserves.
Thank you, God. I say the words silently as my heart fills with a love so pure and so overwhelming, I just know this is the answer to my prayers.
1 | Ella
I plunge the wet rag into the soapy pail of water and squeeze it out between the canary yellow gloves covering my hands. Moving back across the huge master bathroom on my hands and knees, I scrub Sylvia and Raymond’s floor. The marble radiates a chill through me, keeping me cool as I rock my body back and forth, pushing all my weight onto the rag, washing each square inch clean enough to eat off of. But I wouldn’t recommend it. Not when Raymond has such a disgusting habit of pissing at the foot of the toilet and then leaving it there in dark, gross puddles of yellow.
I push the thought from my mind. The last thing I want to think about is Raymond’s piss, or anything else that comes out of him for that matter. I prefer to think of him like a Ken doll. All abs and no… package. Even though he’s gone out of his way to grind up against me like a Chihuahua in heat a couple of times, refusing to let me indulge in the idea that he’s only half a man.
Dragging the heavy bucket of hot water back toward me, I continue cleaning the floor exactly how Sylvia wants it done. She’s very particular about how I clean, how I cook, what I buy, how I talk. It’s endless really, and at times it’s exhausting. However, I know that without her I would be dead.
Literally.
An unwelcome mosaic of thoughts overwhelms me. They kick down the door I try to keep them behind and intrude on my mind just like the men who broke down my family’s door that night. I freeze as the memory grips me tight in its grasp, forcing me to watch, yet again, as the men my father screwed over in Colombia stormed our house.
I hid underneath my big brother’s bed, scurrying behind his huge duffel bag full of old, smelly gym clothes. I cowered in the corner, hidden from the men who took turns raping my mother above me. I cried silent tears as she struggled, and felt the weight of the mattress as it pressed down over me while they violently fucked her. Two other men waited f
or their turn, holding my brothers nearby, making them watch.
My older brother, Alejandro, screamed at them and tried to fling himself free. He wanted to protect her, but the men just beat him down until he was on his hands and knees, bleeding onto the floor. Miguel, my younger brother just cried. They slit his throat first. They beat Alejandro until he stopped moving and then cut his next. My mother screamed, she stopped fighting them once they killed her babies. She didn’t even try to defend herself when they opened her throat and let her bleed out into the mattress.
They left, laughing and zipping themselves up, wiping the bloody edges of their knives against their pants. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. For hours I stayed curled up, my family slaughtered, completely frozen in terror. My mind played tricks on me, told me that maybe they knew I was there. Maybe they were just waiting for me to come out of hiding so I could meet the same fate as my mama. My body ached and my muscles tensed, but still I didn’t come out. I barely even breathed.
Finally, the door fell open and I heard the loud, heavy footsteps that could only belong to a man enter the house. I shook uncontrollably as I tried not to move, waiting for the next man to find me. I was praying so hard, I didn’t fully understand the noises I heard at first. They sounded like the squeals of a pig, but then I saw his shoe. My father. He had come home and seen what his betrayal had cost him. What it had cost us. When I came out he was crying. I’d never seen him cry before. My tears had all dried up. I looked around at the bodies of the people I loved—my mother, my brothers—then my eyes locked on my father.
“I hate you,” I whispered.
“Ella, I’m so sorry,” he pleaded. “I’ll get you to safety. I’ll make sure you’re okay,” he promised, but I didn’t believe him. We had always grown up knowing my father’s life of crime paid for our clothes and food. Just like every other family in Colombia, we knew that the Úsuga Clan ran the country, and that to try to cheat them was certain death. Yet, my father only thought of himself and it took away everyone I ever loved.
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