by Emma Scott
I did neither.
“Fuck me,” I muttered.
I opened my laptop to the document I’d begun for Judge Miller’s assignment when writing by hand wasn’t working. Typing didn’t work either.
He wanted life. The brightest burst of life I knew was right above me, and I was down here, afraid of how much I wanted to be with her, knowing all too well how the things—and people—we care about most can vanish right before our eyes.
I went to bed and tossed all night.
The next morning, I dragged myself through the motions of getting Olivia and myself ready for the day.
“Everything all right, querido?” Elena asked when I dropped Livvie off.
“Fine,” I said. I kissed my daughter. “Be good. I love you.”
“Wuv, Daddy,” Olivia said. From Elena’s arms she pressed her palm to her mouth and then flung her arm spastically to blow me a kiss.
My stung as I turned to go.
She’s the most important thing in the world. Focus on her.
The idea of having more happiness than that would have to wait.
I stepped outside the front of the Victorian and started down the stairs. A silver sedan was parked at the curb in front. Before I took one step, the door opened and a man looking to be in his early fifties stepped out. He straightened his pale blue, seersucker suit jacket. He looked like he just stepped off a yacht.
“Sawyer Haas?”
I froze. “Yes.”
“A moment.”
The man opened the back door of the sedan and an older couple, both looking to be in their mid-sixties stepped out. The man wore khaki pants and a white button-down shirt, the woman in a lavender dress. The June sunshine glinted off his gold Rolex and sparkled in diamond studs in her ears. They stood hand in hand on the sidewalk, nervous smiles on their faces.
“Hello,” the man said. “My name is Gerald Abbott and this is my wife, Alice. We’re Molly’s parents.”
The blood drained from my face.
Molly’s parents. Molly. She’s here. She’s back and now—
“This is our attorney, Mr. Holloway,” the woman, Alice said, indicating the man in the dark suit.
“Mr. Haas.” Mr. Holloway extended his hand to me.
They stood at the bottom of the three stairs, me at the top. I stared back without taking it.
“What do you want?”
Gerald and Alice exchanged grief-stricken looks, a shared pain that only they knew. They couldn’t speak, so their attorney spoke for them.
“Molly has unfortunately passed way,” Holloway said.
I went cold all over while breaking into a sweat at the same time, as my body tried to process the thousand conflicting emotions that shot through me at those words.
“She’s…dead?”
He nodded. “Yes. A car accident.”
Alice slipped her hand into Gerald’s and they exchanged a pained look that was brief but went miles deep.
“What happened?”
“Car accident.”
“When?” I choked out.
“Six months ago.”
My eyes darted between Gerald and Alice Abbott, and I felt like I couldn’t move; shouldn’t move, from the front stoop of the house. I had to guard it. Because Olivia was inside and they were here.
“We’re here,” Holloway said, each word like a knife in my chest, “to talk about the custody arrangements for Molly’s daughter—my clients’ granddaughter—Olivia Abbott.”
Sawyer
Jackson hung up the phone and tossed it on the coffee table. “Not the best news. The officer said since Molly is an adult and left of her own free will, she’s not technically ‘missing.’”
I looked up from the baby in my arms taking a bottle Molly had left in the gigantic diaper bag. “She abandoned Olivia,” I said. “That has to be illegal. You’ve finished the Family Law section. Tell me. They’ll track her down for child abandonment, right?”
Jackson rubbed his chin. “Safe Haven laws protect her. She can’t be arrested. If she leaves the baby with a parent—you—it’s considered legal abandonment after six months. If she leaves her with a non-parent—maybe also you—it’s one year.”
“I can’t do this alone.”
“You might not have to do it at all,” Jackson said, his Mac open on his lap. “They sell paternity tests at the Walgreens. It’s non-legal for any official capacity, but accurate. You’ll at least know if Molly was telling the truth. And if she was lying, you take the baby to CPS and go back to your life.”
I glanced down at Olivia. Go back to my life, I thought. Like nothing happened. I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat.
“How long does the test take?”
“Three days from the time you mail it to the lab,” Jackson said. “Simple enough.”
“The test won’t hurt her, right?” I asked. “If I have to draw her blood or prick her finger, forget it.”
“Nah, man, cotton swab to the cheek.”
I nodded. The baby stirred, made a little sound as she ate. I settled her better in my arms. Around me—us—the detritus of the party lay scattered across the coffee table and on the floor. Olivia’s bottle from this morning stood next to an empty pilsner.
I was still in my Man in Black costume. I’d had to sleep with Olivia on my chest, propped on my bed and surrounded by pillows, paranoid she’d roll out of my arms, and woke up every time she moved. I had no place to put her down.
I didn’t want to put her down.
Jackson shut his laptop. “I’ll go get the test. There’s no point in panicking until we know for sure what the deal is.”
“Three days until results?” I said. “What the hell do I do in the meanwhile? I have nothing.”
“We’ll take her to my mom,” Jackson said with a grin. “Henrietta will set you up.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
I stared at the people in front of my house.
Everything’s going to be okay.
Except at that precise moment, the words felt laughably weak. I tightened my grip on my briefcase.
“Mr. Haas,” the lawyer, Holloway, said. “We’d like to have a sit-down with you. The four of us.”
My gaze darted to the Abbotts, who were watching me with a strange mixture of sadness, fear and hope in their eyes and painted over their features.
“I have a final this morning,” I said. “My last final for law school. It’s kind of important.”
The Abbotts stiffened at my sarcasm. Holloway was unperturbed. “Perhaps, after?”
“After, I have a meeting with my advisor to sign off on my graduation requirements. My schedule is full.”
“Please,” Alice said. “We only need a little time. An hour?” Her glance darted to the house behind me. “Is she there? We’d like to see her…”
“Not going to happen,” I said, making her flinch, and despite my bone-numbing fear, I felt a little sorry for her.
Fuck that, they want to take her away from me.
I straightened my shoulders. “How do I even know you’re who you say you are?”
Gerald reached into pocket for his wallet to show ID, while Alice pulled a small stack of photos from her purse.
“Mr. Holloway said to bring these. Here’s Molly as a little girl, and one as a teenager.” Her voice thickened with tears. “Here she is at her Sweet Sixteen birthday party…”
She held the photos to me while Gerald flashed his driver’s license. I barely glanced at them and I didn’t move any closer. They exchanged troubled looks again, their arms slowly lowering. Holloway cleared his throat.
“We need to sit down, Mr. Haas. Today. I advised the Abbotts to limit all contact with you for the hearing before the court, but they insist on speaking to you first.”
A hearing. There’s going to be a hearing…
My heart dropped to my stomach, but outwardly my armor was on, my face impassive. “Three o’clock,” I said stiffly. “At the Starbuc
ks on Market and 8th. One hour. I’ll be bringing my attorney.”
I said all this as if I were calling the shots, while inside I felt like I was disintegrating.
“Very good,” Holloway said. He opened the back of the sedan, and indicated for the Abbotts to get in.
They did so, reluctantly, both of them looking like they wanted to say more. Both of them giving the Victorian a final, longing glance. After his wife was in the car, Gerald Abbott fixed me with a stern look.
“Good luck with your test,” he said, then climbed in.
I watched the sedan drive away. The instant it rounded the corner, out of sight, I sank to the steps, my briefcase scraping along the cement beside me as I dropped it to cover my face with my hands. I sucked in deep breaths, grasping for calm when panic was tossing me like a tiny ship on a vast ocean.
Holy fuck, it’s happening. And I was so close. A few more weeks…
Defeat tried to drown me, but I shrugged it off. I had rights. If the Abbotts were here for a fight, I’d give it to them. I’d give everything until there was nothing left of me.
Livvie…
I fished my phone out of my jacket pocket. “Jackson,” I said, my voice hoarse. “I need you.”
I’d never been more grateful for my eidetic memory in my life. The American Legal History exam was all names and dates, statutes and by-laws, ground-breaking precedents and Founding Fathers. I scanned my mental database for the answers, and finished the exam in record time.
At the meeting in my advisor’s office, she asked me twice if I needed a glass of water and once if I wanted to reschedule when I was ‘feeling better.’ I pushed through, pushed my emotions aside where they sunk their claws in my back and shoulders. Under the conference table, my leg wouldn’t stop bouncing.
The day crawled and yet flew by, and at a quarter to three, I met Jackson at the Starbucks.
“Jesus, will you calm down?” he said while waiting in line to order. “I’m getting an ulcer just looking at you.”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” I said. “A fucking horrible feeling. I have rights,” I spat. “They can’t just take her from me…”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Jackson said. “We have no idea what they want yet.”
“They want a hearing, Jax,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at the front entrance. “It’s already set up.”
“We’ll see,” he said.
“Do you know what you’re doing? It’s a far cry from tax law…”
Jackson fixed me with a raised-eyebrow stare. “You have the money to retain someone else? ‘Cause if you do, I’ll give you my phone to call him right now. I’m taking time out of my work to be here.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, sucking in a breath. I clasped his hand. “God, I’m sorry, man, really. I trust you. I’m just scared shitless.”
“I know you are. Go ahead and be an asshole to me if it helps, but as your attorney, I’m officially advising you to not be an asshole to these people, okay? They’re Olivia’s family, for one thing. For another, you catch more bees with honey, or some shit.”
I nodded absently. My mind was reeling, going in a thousand different directions. One thought stuck out from the rest, in bold type.
Molly is dead.
I’d spent the last ten months praying she wouldn’t come back to try to take Olivia from me. She’d obviously been a mess the night she gave her to me; drunk and disheveled, and looking as though she lived out of her car. Maybe that wasn’t the real her, or she’d had a bad night, but that was the mental snapshot she’d left me of her as a mother.
But she had been Olivia’s mother, and in the back of my mind, I’d always assumed she’d be in our daughter’s life somehow. Now that was over. I would never have to explain to Olivia that her mother had left her. Instead, I would have to tell her she died.
She has no mother, either.
A deep pain for my little girl that I added to the noxious concoction of emotions swirling in my guts.
It was my turn to order. “I’ll take a tall coffee.”
“Decaf,” Jackson told the barista, and shot me a wink. His reassuring smile faded as he looked over his shoulder. “This must be them.”
I looked to the front where the Abbotts were coming in, Holloway holding the door for open.
“That’s them,” I said.
“They look like money,” Jackson said.
The knot of fear twisted tighter. The Abbotts had money. Enough to fight me. Enough to tell a judge they had the means to provide Olivia with a life I couldn’t afford.
Jackson sighed and elbowed me in the arm. “Hey. You’re jumping to conclusions in that big brain of yours. Cut it out. Nothing’s happened yet.”
“Yet.”
We took our coffees to a table in the corner that was big enough for five and waited for the Abbotts to join us. My leg bounced under that table too.
“Mr. Haas,” Holloway said, extended his hand.
This time I shook it, and gave the Abbotts a small nod in greeting.
“This is Jackson Smith, my attorney,” I said.
Jackson offered his hand and a bright smile. Introductions were made all around and then the five of us sat with drinks in front of us that only the attorneys touched. The Abbotts studied me with that same mix of hope and fear in their eyes. They had nice faces. Kind. They weren’t monsters, but a grandma and a grandpa. Olivia’s grandma and grandpa.
I tried to loosen my clenched-jaw and unfurrow my brow to look less like an asshole next to Jackson’s friendly smile.
“I’ll get straight to the point,” Holloway said. “Mr. and Mrs. Abbott were only recently made aware of their daughter’s passing six weeks ago.”
“She’d always been on the run,” Alice said in a shaky voice. “We tried to give her everything but it wasn’t enough.”
Gerald covered his wife’s hand. “We hadn’t seen her in so long. We had no idea she’d been in an accident. Nor did we know that she’d had a baby.”
“We knew nothing,” Alice said. “So much joy and sadness all at once…”
Jackson nodded sympathetically. “And when, exactly, were you made aware that you had a granddaughter?”
“Two weeks ago,” Holloway answered. “Through a friend of the late Miss Abbott’s.”
Alice sat straighter, imploring me with her eyes as she spoke. “As soon as we knew, we wanted to see Olivia. To be a part of her life.”
“In what capacity?” Jackson asked. He looked to Holloway. “What’s this I hear about a hearing?”
Holloway folded his hands on the table, his gold watch glinting in the sun in tandem with his gold pinky ring.
“The friend of Molly’s informed us that Olivia’s birth certificate is most likely in your possession. Is that true, Mr. Haas?”
My heart did a slow roll in my chest. I nodded.
“And is your name listed as the father?”
“No, it is not,” I said slowly. “There is no name there. It’s blank.”
Holloway nodded. “I presume you have taken a paternity test?”
I glanced at Jackson. He nodded his head. Once.
“Yes. A few days after Molly left Olivia with me. She’s my daughter. And I’m not saying another word until you tell me what you want.”
Holloway opened his mouth to speak, but Alice put her hand on his arm.
“Wait, please. This is not going at all as I’d hoped. Perhaps it was a mistake to bring our attorneys into this so quickly.” She looked to me. “Can we see her? We’d like to see her.” Her voiced teetered on the edge of breaking. “Our daughter is gone. Our only daughter. All we have left of her is Olivia. We’d like to spend some time with her and maybe…get to know each other better. And you, but in a warmer setting.”
She looked to Jackson when my hard stare shut her out. “Is this possible?”
“Let me confer with my client.”
Jackson ushered me onto the sidewalk outside.
“You’re not making
a great impression.”
I gritted my teeth. “Jackson…”
“I know. We’ll deal with that later. For now, let them see Olivia. Do what she said; get to know them. They don’t seem like bad people.” He cocked his head. “Don’t you want a family for Olivia?”
“Yeah, I do, but on my terms,” I said. I took my friend’s arm and gripped it tight. “She stays with me, Jax. You do whatever you feel is right. If they want to come see her, fine. But I want full custody. I’m keeping full custody. They can visit, they can have a weekend, maybe a week in the summer, but they’re not taking her from me.”
Jackson’s expression showed no trace of his usual cheerful self. He gripped my shoulder and met my eyes with an unwavering, intense stare.
“I’ll do my best, Sawyer, but it might not be up to us,” he said. “And you know it.”
The Abbotts took the sedan, and Jackson and I took an Uber back to the Victorian. Four o’clock on a Wednesday. Where was Darlene, I wondered as I climbed out of the car. Rehearsal? I would’ve given my right arm to see her smile just then. Her smile that made all the bad shit in the world seem far away.
But I fucked up. The thought of her with someone else hurt more than I was prepared for. Instead of talking to her, I renamed that pain jealousy, and shut down. Walked away.
Maybe I’ve lost her too.
I gave myself a shake.
Get a grip, you haven’t lost Olivia. This isn’t over. It hasn’t even started.
But unlocking the front door of the Vic for the Abbotts and their lawyer felt like inviting the dragon straight into the damn castle.
“This is quite a lovely old house,” Alice said in the entry. “I just love San Francisco architecture.”
“Are you not from this area?” Jackson asked.
“Huntington Beach, in southern California.”
The night Molly and I hooked up in Vegas whispered in my memory; Molly in a pale dress in the dimly lit bar. I’m from So Cal, originally. My folks are still there in their huge, white bread mega mansion…
“Jackson can take you to my place,” I said, my voice wooden in my ears. “I’ll get Olivia from her sitter and bring her up.”
