“Don’t you want to know why he’s here?”
“The school called me and told me he didn’t show up today or yesterday. I’m assuming someone caught him skipping class and brought him here.”
“That’s not exactly the case. I mean, yeah, he was skipping school, but that wasn’t all he was doing. What he was doing was endangering the lives of other people.”
“What?” I asked in shock. I knew my son had been getting into trouble, but he’d never tried to hurt anyone before. “What was he doing?”
“Your son was dropping objects off the overpass, trying to hit cars that were passing underneath. He didn’t hit anyone today, but his actions could have easily resulted in someone crashing. He might not be so lucky next time.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered, swallowing hard. CJ needed to be seriously punished for what he had done, and I fully intended on punishing him. I had no idea what good it was going to do, though. I’ve tried punishing him many times in the past, and it has never done a lick of good. “I’m really sorry about this, Chance. We’ve only been in town for a few weeks, and he’s having a hard time dealing with the change. I think that once he adjusts to his new surroundings, he’ll be okay. I can promise that this won’t happen again.”
“I certainly hope not. I can tell you that he has no respect for anyone. I had him sitting in that very chair you’re sitting in earlier today, and he was completely defiant and disrespectful. He needs some serious discipline. Where are his real parents anyway?”
I straightened myself up in the chair, offended at what he’d just said to me. I was a single parent doing everything I could to provide for my son and me.
The last thing I needed was someone being critical of the way I was raising my son, especially Chance.
“What kind of question is that? I’m his real parent. He’s my son.”
* * *
Chance
Who in the hell did she think she was fooling? Did she have me pegged as an idiot? There was no way she was the mother of that boy.
I wasn’t able to get any info out of him, but I guessed him to be about thirteen. Latrice and I had been inseparable since grade school, and I’d remember something like her getting knocked up and having a baby.
“I understand that you may be taking care of him, Latrice, but I need to know who his biological parents are and how you ended up being responsible for him. I know you weren’t pregnant thirteen years ago.”
“You’re right, Chance, I wasn’t. He isn’t as old as you think he is. He’s really tall so he looks older than he is, but he’s really only ten. He’s mine. I gave birth to him myself. I have the stretch marks to prove it.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?” I asked, having trouble believing that the girl I had hoped to spend my life with was now a mother of a ten-year-old boy.
“I don’t know what’s so confusing to you, Chance. He’s my son. Can I see him now?” She stood up from the chair and made a move towards the door. I reached out and grabbed her arm before she could walk out of my office.
“Let me get this straight. You’re saying that you had a son after you left Kansas City?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
I let go of her arm, my heart and mind suddenly pained.
“Wow, it didn’t take you very long to find someone new after you left me, did it?”
I regretted the words almost as soon as they came out of my mouth, but then again, I’ve never been one to mince words. I’ve always said how I felt, no matter what the consequences were.
Latrice’s face hardened, and I could tell I offended her. I didn’t know what she could have to be offended about, though. She had left me and went on to have someone else’s child.
She always told me how much she loved me and only me, but as soon as she was away from me, she let somebody else knock her up.
“Why do you care what I did when I got away from Kansas City? You proved over and over that you didn’t want me. I tried for years to get you to stop doing the things you were doing. Your boys were more important to you. You running the streets were more important than me. It was our anniversary, and you blew me off because one of your boys got beat up. You left me sitting in a restaurant while you got yourself arrested. You wanted your life as a thug much more than you wanted a life with me.”
I closed my eyes, remembering every word of the conversation we had the last night I saw her. We were on our way to the restaurant when one of my friends came running up to me, yelling that a group of guys had jumped another friend. She told me that if I went, she might not ever speak to me again.
Instead of staying by her side, I told her my boys needed me and went with them. I’ve never regretted a sentence in my life as much as I regretted that one.
As I was replaying that night in my mind, I opened my eyes and saw the pained look on her face. She appeared just as stricken as she had been the night it all happened. There was no way I could ever forget the look she had that night.
“Listen, I’m really sorry,” I started before she cut me off.
“Chance, I think we’ve said all we have to say to one another for now. Please just get my son for me so I can get him home.”
I knew it was too late to say all the things I wanted to say to her. Too much time had passed and whatever feelings she used to have for me were obviously long gone. I grabbed a folder off my desk and pulled out the forms I needed.
“Before I can release him to you, I have some paperwork that needs to be filled out. This normally would have been done already, but he refused to tell me anything about himself so we’ll need to take care of it now.”
“Fine. I just have one question. I fully intend to get him going down a straight and narrow path. How will what happened today affect him in the future?”
“It won’t. I’m not going to be treating this as an official arrest. I will keep this on file in case we ever run into him again, but this isn’t going to go on his public record or anything.”
“Good. I appreciate that. I’m going to try to figure out something that will work as punishment.”
“Well, from the little bit of time I’ve spent with him today, I can tell you he hates cleaning. If you’d like, you’re more than welcome to drop him off here for a couple hours every day after school. We can put him to work. Maybe he won’t have the energy to be as rebellious after that. It might be a good way to keep him out of trouble. I don’t want to scare you, but if I pick him up again, he’ll probably have to go into juvenile court. I won’t be able to keep something like that off his juvenile record.”
“I understand. That might not be a bad idea. I’ll see how he acts once we leave and take it into consideration.”
I grabbed a pen and turned my attention back to the paperwork that I needed to complete before I could release the boy back to his mother.
“What is his full name?” I asked.
“CJ Walker,” she replied, swallowing deeply as she answered.
“Is that his legal name?”
“No, but that’s the only name he goes by.”
“I understand, but I need to know his legal name.”
I looked down at the papers, waiting to write down the answer to my question, but was met with only silence.
I looked up and could tell something was wrong. I might not have seen Latrice in over ten years, but I could still tell when something was on her mind.
“Latrice? His legal name?”
I watched her as she looked away briefly before looking me directly in the eyes. Without blinking, she replied, “Chance Jeffrey Walker.”
Chapter Two
Chance
I couldn’t breathe. It was as though someone took a machine and sucked all the air out of my office. My heart began to beat at a rapid pace, and the room was slowly starting to spin.
Nausea was beginning to take over as I bent down, gripping onto the corners of my desk. That only made things worse because my hands were shaking. My whole
body was shaking.
There was only one thing I wanted to know. Why did she give her son my name? Was it because I held a special place in her heart or was there something more to it?
I looked over at Latrice and could see guilt clouding her eyes. That’s when I knew. She didn’t even have to say another word. I knew already.
Still, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. I wanted to hear her confirm what my heart already knew. I forced myself to stand upright and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her in close to my face.
“When was your son born?” I asked, wording it more like a demand, the words coming out as a growl. She looked down at the floor, swallowing as if it was difficult to do so. “I want you to look at me and tell me when he was born.”
Latrice looked up from the floor. Suddenly, her nervousness had disappeared, and she was as confident as the day is long. “He was born on June 18th,” she replied defiantly.
I let go of her arm and stumbled back towards my chair. It felt like someone has just landed a few hard punches to my body, knocking the wind out of me.
I had my first taste of heartache when I got out of juvenile and Latrice was nowhere to be found, but this was much more painful. My heart was physically in pain. I’d never experienced anything like that before.
“So what are you saying? Are you saying you were already pregnant when I got locked up? What were you? A couple months pregnant by then?”
“Yeah, about that,” she replied, taking a couple steps back away from me.
Suddenly, the pain I was feeling went away, and it was replaced with anger. This wasn’t a normal anger that I was used to feeling. This was a feeling or rage. A rage and hatred so deep, that I felt like my eyes were going to bulge out of my head and my nostrils were one flare away from fire coming out of them.
“So Chance is mine? I have a son?”
The question came out of my mouth so softly, that it even surprised me. I was still feeling a burning rage, yet I was able to talk softly. Latrice didn’t answer me at first. How do you respond to a man who just found out you’ve been hiding a kid from him for the last ten years?
* * *
Latrice
It sounded weird to hear the words coming out of his mouth. Yes, he had a son. When I pictured the first time the two of them would meet, it was never under the circumstances that I found myself in.
Yes, it was true that I moved away without letting him know that I was pregnant, but it wasn’t like I wanted things to be like that. It sure as hell wasn’t the way I planned it.
Even after everything that had happened between us, there was always a part of me that couldn’t help but be proud that Chance was the man who had fathered my son. He was the only reason I decided to make my return to Kansas City. I wanted to find him and be a part of CJ’s life.
“Yes, you have a son. CJ is your son,” I confirmed once again.
“A son that you didn’t think I had the right to know about? A son that I didn’t know existed for ten damn years? I had no clue that there was a part of me walking around with no clue who his daddy was!”
Every word that came out of his mouth had a hint of rage. Chance was upset, and understandably so. If I were in his shoes, I’d be upset as well.
At the same time, I had to make him get where I was coming from. He needed to know why I made the decision that I had made.
“It wasn’t that easy, you know. I found out that I was pregnant two days before we were going to go out to dinner. I didn’t want to tell you about it over the phone. I felt like it was something that needed to be said in person. Unfortunately, that was the night you decided that your boys were more important than me, and you ended up getting locked up. I didn’t know what kind of person was going to come out of there, but if it was the person you were becoming back then, there was no way I was going to let my child be around any of that.”
“So that was it? I didn’t even get to have a say in any of that?” he asked, his eyes burning a hole through me.
“That was exactly it. The moment you chose all that bullshit over me, you lost your right to be any part of that decision-making process.”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve saying that to me. What right did you have to go away knowing that you were carrying my child? What right did you have to hide him from me?”
Hearing him question the decisions I had made as a parent had me downright pissed off. Who in the hell did he think he was?
“What gave me the right?” I asked, but it was more of a precursor to what else I had to say. “Your actions gave me that right. The path you were on gave me that right. You were doing nothing to show me that you were going to change, and I wasn’t going to let my son get caught up in all that mess. I loved you so much, but I love my child even more. Don’t you ever question me.”
He started to say something else to me, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of getting the last word in.
When we were together, he always had to have the last word. Things were different now. I didn’t have to put up with that. Before he could utter a single sound, I turned around and walked out of his office, slamming the door behind me.
* * *
Chance
My throat was burning as I did everything in my power to swallow the anger that was raging inside of me. If I had let it, the fury would have consumed me, perhaps causing me to do something I would later regret.
I couldn’t remember the last time I was so mad, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it other than stand in place, trying to process the news that was just handed down to me.
I was a father.
Walking towards the door, I wanted to rip it open, following her out into the lobby. I also knew I had to be smart. I needed to pull myself together before speaking to her again.
A few minutes to think would do me some good. I went back to my desk and couldn’t fight the urge to slam my fist down on the hard, mahogany surface. I didn’t even notice the pain as all of my feelings were taking a back seat to the fact that I had a son.
I sat down in my chair, thinking about the fact that Latrice had given the boy my name. She may have referred to him as CJ, but that didn’t change the fact that his name was Chance, just like me. My son had at least part of my name. If I had my way, he’d end up with my last name as well.
If I didn’t do something, I was going to end up going crazy and tearing up my entire office. I glanced out the big window and saw my son pushing the mop bucket down the hall and into the janitor’s closet.
The boy who had been in my office mouthing off to me just a little earlier suddenly appeared differently. I saw someone who I needed in my life, and I wanted badly to be in his as well.
When I picked the boy up, I saw a lot of myself in him. I just had no idea how much of me he actually had in him. He was stubborn and had no respect for authority, just like me when I was his age.
There was nothing good that could come from acting like that. This boy needed me in his life to try to change the direction his life was heading in. I could feel it.
The sound of the phone ringing on my desk caused me to jump, knocking me out of my deep thoughts. The blinking red light showed me that the call was coming from Virginia in the lobby. I did my best to collect myself before picking up the receiver.
“Yes, Virginia?”
“Sir, Miss Walker is out here with me, and she wants to get out of here. Have you taken care of everything you need to take care of?”
“No, I’m not even close,” I told her as I glanced down at my desk, staring at the barely completed paperwork that needed to be finished.
“Okay, what should I say to her?”
“Just tell her that I need to take care of a few more things before I can release her son into her custody. Let her know that I’ll finish up this paperwork and then I’ll speak with her again. For right now, under no circumstances is she to see her son.”
“Oh okay, I’ll just let her know that it’s gonna be a little wh
ile then,” Virginia said before she hung up the phone.
Latrice was crazy if she thought for even one second that she was going to be able to walk out of there with my son before she and I had another long discussion about what was going to happen next.
I put the phone down and grabbed the form that I’d began filling out earlier. I figured that if Latrice was going to be difficult, I’d have to fill out the paperwork myself.
The forms in front of me didn’t contain any difficult information. Every question in front of me was pretty much standard information. Unfortunately, I didn’t know anything about my son, so I was having trouble filling it out.
How was I ever going to be able to forgive Latrice for what she did to me? Whatever her reasons were for taking off didn’t matter to me. She’d kept me completely in the dark for more than ten years. There was no excuse for that.
I could remember the day I got out of juvenile like it was yesterday. I was excited to get out and see my girl, but when I got to her house, nobody answered the door.
Whenever I tried to call her, I got a message that the number had been disconnected and that there was no forwarding number. I had no way to contact Latrice, no matter how badly I wanted to.
Frustrated but not ready to give up, I tried everything I could to figure out where she had gone. Her parents would never answer the door, so I went to their church and spoke with their pastor, who had always been close with the family.
No matter how many times I asked or how I pleaded with him, when it came to where Latrice was or how to get in contact with her, his lips were sealed.
I stared at the paper I was holding and decided that it might be time to pick up the phone. I had a cousin named Samuel Sparks who was an attorney in Springfield.
I knew the law when it came to the kids I picked up but had no clue about the law when it came to making sure a parent could have a relationship with their child. I needed legal advice before it was too late.
Second Chance (A Secret Baby Romance Novel) Page 2
