by Karina Bliss
He appreciated that she was exploring all avenues.
“Jess is estranged from her parents.” Remembering her drunken confidences, his fists tightened around the chains supporting the swing. Sometimes having a family is worse than not having one. “She talked about everyone looking the other way when she was young, vulnerable, and needing help.”
The import of his words struck him. “Fuck, I have to take that baby. But how, when I know nothing about what they need? I don’t know what they eat besides milk. What they wear, when they sleep, how to change diapers. I don’t know what’s normal and what’s not. I’ve held Rocco a few times but he’s nearly two and huge and this baby is…” He spanned his hands to show her and saw they were trembling.
Lily caught them between her own. “You have me,” she reminded him. “I can look after her for the next couple of months. You have friends. We can give you the time and space to work out what’s best for both of you.”
His friends. “The band doesn’t need this kind of publicity. Especially not when we’re finally making headway.” Why the hell hadn’t Jess involved him from the start? His heart hardened against her.
“The press don’t have to know yet.”
“How will we keep it from them?”
“Leave it with me, I’ll think of something.” Lily stood up from the swing. “Your first priority is get legal advice for you and… What’s your daughter’s name?”
He winced. My daughter. “Grace.”
“It’ll be okay, Moss,” she said gently.
Except she was already wrong. He’d never had a snowball’s chance in hell with her and yet it seemed he’d held onto some tiny unacknowledged hope. It died now. When he had leisure to think, he would mourn that loss, deeply. Meantime, he reached for his cell.
Being a rock star had given him access to good lawyers. He phoned Lincoln’s office to be told he was in a meeting. “Get him out. It’s an emergency.”
When he heard the whole story, Lincoln didn’t pull any punches. “Your rights as an unmarried father are tenuous because you haven’t legally accepted paternity through the co-signing and filing of the birth certificate, nor provided financial or emotional support through the pregnancy and since the child’s birth.”
“Because I didn’t know.”
“The courts can take the view that ignorance is no excuse. If you have unprotected sex it’s your responsibility to follow up possible pregnancy and—”
“I did.”
“Do you have any proof of that?”
“Texts…and Jess’s responses.”
“Forward them to me.”
His hand tightened on the swing. “And in the meantime it’s okay for me to take the baby?” Please say no.
“Currently, you’re the mother’s nominated babysitter. When Jess dies it gets complicated, which means we should file all the relevant papers and apply for emergency temporary custody today. Give me all her details.”
Moss told him what he knew. Which wasn’t much. It seemed to him that Linc’s disapproval iced over the line.
“Now reassure me that you can look after a baby.”
“I can’t, but I employ someone who’s qualified to.” He thrust the phone at Lily and she filled Lincoln in on her experience and credentials. Moss’s panic eased.
Thank God for her.
When she returned his phone, Lincoln said crisply. “Give me two hours to get the paperwork together and I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
Moss’s next call was to Jess. He was still floating in a cloud of disbelief but those clouds were black and roiling, with flashes of anger breaking through. Jess cried when he said he’d take Grace. It was all he could do to keep his tone polite. “I’ll see you shortly.”
“I’m not defending Jess,” Lily said quietly as they returned to Paula’s house, “but I understand how a woman in love does stupid things.”
“You’re incapable of lying if it will hurt someone. And love had nothing to do with Jess and me.”
“I’m talking of her love for her baby,” she said softly. “She’s dying and she’s the mother of your child. If you could forgive her.”
“Right now, it’s as much as I can do to take that baby.” He hadn’t felt this helpless since his first night on the streets. Anger had protected him when there was nobody to care. Until he’d needed nobody to care. He anointed himself with anger.
There was one more call to make, and it was a tough one. He chose the bandmate best suited to handling emotional Armageddon.
“Moss,” said Seth. “Where the hell are you?”
Even so, maybe he should lead into this. He took a deep breath. “So, you know how I was cool at Christmas when you arrived home with a puppy?”
Chapter Eighteen
Lily didn’t get more than a glimpse of the sleeping baby before Paula moved Grace to another room so they could pack up her belongings. Bottles and formula, baby blankets and soft toys, a car seat and stroller—all loaded into the Honda by Moss with the precision of someone who’d once lived in a VW bus.
It might be coincidence that it also kept him out of the house, but she doubted it. The few times he passed the room where the baby was sleeping, his footsteps sped up, but other than that he showed no sign of the terror he’d revealed when he’d first told her of baby Grace’s existence.
He’d reverted to his usual unreadable self, and his daughter—his daughter!—had become a simple logistical problem. Paula might have been adamant about her inability to cope, but the older woman was clearly torn about handing over the baby she’d had sole charge of.
Lily knew how it felt to be wrenched from kids you cared for, so she gave Paula the reassurances she needed. “You’ve done a great job… Of course you can see Grace… It’s awful that you can’t visit Jess in hospital because you’re full of germs.”
Moss called a cab to take him to the hospital to sign papers and was clearly relieved to be leaving before his daughter woke up. “I don’t know when we’ll wrap this up so I’ll meet you back at the house. Buy whatever you need for the baby.”
“Good luck.” She wanted to hug him so badly, but he’d drawn a curtain over his emotions, and whatever he was feeling remained private. It was clear he was barely holding it together and sympathy might blow him apart. From the anger he’d expressed earlier, Lily suspected what came out would not be an outpouring of paternal joy and love. But she’d only gone five steps before he said hoarsely, “Lily.”
She turned.
Green eyes burned into hers. “Thank you.” He strode to the taxi. After it disappeared she gave herself a few moments to collect herself. Moss wasn’t the only one in shock. Had it only been yesterday when she’d sat in the hair salon listening to her character being ripped to shreds?
Driving here, she’d been doing mental math. In three weeks she’d have enough money saved to leave and be okay. Even with the best will in the world she couldn’t stay and watch Moss pick up women. You don’t want him but no one else can have him? Yeah, Lily, just a little bit fucked up. And she’d get over it. But not without the buffer of distance.
But when he’d told her about the baby and she’d seen his suffering, the only thought in her head was ‘Yes.’ Yes, I’m here for you. Yes, I’ll help you. He’d been there for her when she’d desperately needed a job. There was no question that she’d return the favor.
She returned to the house to pack up the last of the baby’s personal belongings.
It was a relief to get out of her head and into the caregiving she was good at, but heartbreaking work under these circumstances. Jess’s love for her baby was evident in every soft toy, every neatly-folded garment. A collection of story books suggested she wanted Grace to grow into an avid reader. Lily stacked them in the suitcase and picked up a bedside photograph in a heart-shaped frame. A woman who must be Jess and her newborn. Jess had the evangelical, exhausted look of a woman who’d just been given a miracle.
And now she was dying. It was so terribl
y sad.
As Lily wiped away tears, she caught Paula watching her from the doorway. “It’s not fair,” Paula said heavily.
“No.” It wasn’t fair that Moss had been kept ignorant either, but she kept that thought to herself. Carefully she packed the frame with Grace’s other belongings. She would treasure this when she was older.
Cries started from the other room and Paula turned to answer the summons.
“How about I introduce myself?” Lily suggested.
“Good idea.”
The older woman had put the baby in her double bed and the first thing Lily saw when she opened the door were tiny arms and small fists waving above a wall of safety pillows. “Hey you, hey Grace,” she called above the wailing, “did you wake up and not know where you were?”
She pulled the pillows away and looked at the red-faced scrap of humanity lying on the bed. “Oh, you got your daddy’s frown. Let’s see if we can do something about that.”
Picking up the baby, she positioned her where the infant could see her face. “I’m Lily and I’m going to be looking after you for the next little while.” Grace’s cries softened as she listened. All babies were adorable and this one was no different, all gray-eyed solemnity. “I promise I’ll love you twice as hard for your mommy too, okay? And we’ll visit her tomorrow.”
Jess must be desperate to see her child. Murmuring soothing nonsense, she moved to the change table and made short work of changing the baby’s wet diaper. Grace cried. “Yeah, it’s uncomfortable, isn’t it, but you’ll feel better when it’s done. I bet you’re hungry, too.”
Paula entered the room with a bottle and handed it to her. “You’ll do,” she approved.
Doing isn’t good enough, Lily thought. I have to be great. Until Moss comes round, I’m all this little girl’s got.
* * *
Jess was dying and you didn’t yell at a dying woman, however much you wanted to.
Moss sat in the hospital cafeteria while his lawyer talked to the mother of his child, finalizing the documents they needed to secure his rights.
Which amounted to choosing between the lesser of two evils. Sign paternity and apply for temporary custody, or sign paternity and allow his daughter go into foster care while Moss sorted this whole sorry mess out.
With no say in who fostered her.
Jess had left him ignorant through her whole pregnancy and he wanted to stand over her bed and rage and yell and vent and he couldn’t do that either. There was nowhere for the anger and frustration to go so he locked it down with iron will and rivets of resentment, and brooded over his coffee.
No one took his choices away from him. He’d been trapped by circumstances beyond his control too many times as a kid to let anyone do that to him as an adult. He’d chew his own fucking leg off first. Jess hadn’t just thrown him in the deep end, she’d wrapped him in chains and dropped him into a fathomless ocean to spiral down until he drowned in his deepest fears.
Didn’t matter that there were caring families in the foster system; that only saints could have won the trust of the feral teen he’d once been. He. Could. Not. Do. It.
And yet he wasn’t fit to be a father and had no interest in taking on responsibility for another human being.
You should have thought of that eleven months ago.
That was the crux of it. He’d screwed up and now he had to man up. Do the crime, do the time. But it could have been done so much better than this. That was what he bitterly resented. They could have done better by their child, and now it was too late. He was the best of their baby’s bad choices.
“Moss McFadden?”
He lifted his head out of his hands to see an imposing black man in a suit and tie, with a hospital lanyard around his neck.
“Yes?”
“I’m Dan, the hospital chaplain. Jess suggested we talk.”
“Shouldn’t her priority be making her confession? Otherwise she’ll have a shitload of explaining to do at the Pearly Gates.”
“You’re angry with her. That’s understandable. May I join you?”
“Only if you want more of the same.”
Dan pulled up a chair.
“I hope they pay you well,” said Moss.
“Jess is aware that she—”
“Fucked up?”
“Fucked up,” Dan agreed. “It may not be a consolation to you now, but she deeply regrets not disclosing her pregnancy earlier.”
“You’re right, it’s no consolation.”
“I did qualify that with a ‘now,’” Dan reminded him.
Moss looked at him. “Are you spiritual types allowed to be smartasses?”
“If it helps.”
He sighed. “A little.”
“What are your concerns? You can share them frankly. Everything you say to me is confidential.”
His mother had been a churchgoer and he’d absorbed enough to have one line reverberate in his head. Lord, take this cup away from me. Aloud, he said, “I feel nothing for the baby. If I had a paternal instinct wouldn’t I feel something for her?”
“How much time have you spent with Grace?”
“A minute, but isn’t it supposed to be instantaneous? Hell, I don’t even know that.”
“I think you can give yourself more time than that.” If the older man found him pathetic, he didn’t show it by tone or expression.
Moss hesitated. “Has Jess told you anything about me? What I do, where I come from…that I was a teenage runaway?” That I have no experience of a home or family, no domestic skills. His memories of his mother were mostly of the senses. The deliciousness of her stew; the lilting way she said his name, “Aiden”; her green eyes softening when she looked at him. “I know you don’t want to go to church, but you’re going, you little devil.”
Dan nodded. “She also said that you’re a better man than you think you are, and a famous musician.”
Moss let the first observation pass and talked to the second because practicalities mattered more than Jess’s wishful thinking. “B-list famous,” he corrected. “I’m building a new band and we’re on the road next year. I have no family to help and Jess is estranged from hers. I don’t know if I’m the best person to raise a baby.”
“None of what you’re signing today—paternity, requesting temporary custody—precludes adoption if you feel that’s in the best interests of your daughter. But give yourself time to make good decisions. Spend time with her. If you’re of the same mind in a few weeks, I or your lawyer can recommend an adoption agency. As Grace’s legal father you could have a role in choosing the family, even have contact visits. But to be clear, you would relinquish all paternal rights. You would not be her parent, nor responsible for her in any way.”
Panic eased its vise-like grip. “Thank you, that helps.” Requesting temporary custody didn’t have to be a life sentence. His cell chimed and he checked the screen, then said grimly, “Showtime.”
Dan pushed back from the table. “Your lawyer’s asked me to witness.”
They had to wake Jess to sign papers—acknowledging Moss’s paternity, her wish that he have full custody, and an admission that she’d concealed her pregnancy from him.
Moss balked at the last one. “Is that really necessary?”
“You’re an unmarried father with no relationship history with the mother,” Lincoln reminded him. “The judge needs to understand that you acted responsibly when contraception failed.”
“It’s okay,” Jess said faintly.
She seemed to diminish further with every passing hour, but there was a serenity about her since he’d agreed to take Grace that made him avoid her eyes. He didn’t want her to see his resentment, his doubts. However badly she’d handled this, they’d made this baby together and Grace was also his responsibility. And punishment.
Lincoln drew him aside for a private word. “If you married her, your rights would be more secure.” As if this was all about making the paperwork easier.
“Marry her? I hardly kn
ow her.”
His lawyer coughed. “This should probably cover it. Let me go file these. Over the next few days someone will come visit, check out your living arrangements. I’ll be in touch re the requirements of permanent custody next week.”
“Thanks, Linc, I owe you.”
“I’ll send my bill.”
After the lawyer left, Jess glanced at the chaplain. “Can I talk to Moss alone?”
“Of course, I’ll call in again a little later.” Dan shook his hand and Moss had to resist tightening his grip, and making him stay. He’d already sat through twenty questions on the baby, none of which he could answer.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” What did beauty constitute in babies?
“Did she seem well? I’ve been worried Paula wasn’t coping.” I was too busy not coping myself to notice.
He’d simply said she was asleep and seemed healthy. Fleetingly, he remembered the worried little brow.
Jess gestured weakly to a chair and he sat. “Paula phoned to say she really liked the woman who’ll be looking after Grace.”
“Lily.” Moss relaxed slightly. He couldn’t imagine what the fuck he would have done without her. “She’ll take good care of your baby.”
“I haven’t seen Grace since Paula got sick. Will you bring her in later?”
Hell, no. He’d reached his limit today. “Sure.” Lily would be glad to. “But let’s make it tomorrow.”
“You are okay with all this, aren’t you? I know I forced you into it.”
“I wouldn’t have signed papers if I wasn’t okay with it.” I’m doing what has to be done, let that be enough for you.
She swallowed hard, her expression plaintive. And scared. “You will look after her for me, won’t you?”
This wasn’t the future Jess had planned either. Pity stirred in him, and he picked up her hand. “I swear every decision I make will be in our baby’s best interests.”
Her gaze searched his face. She was obviously seeking more. “She has to be loved.”
“Yes.”
“Promise.”
“I swear to you, Jess.”
