“I want to thank you,” I say to her instead. “For letting me come along.”
“It’s important to maintain the familiar with Lily. Having you here will make the transition easier, especially when transferring custody to another state.”
I nod like I’m only here for official reasons and not to scream once Lily’s ripped from my hold.
Closing my eyes, I rest my chin on Lily’s head, full of ringlets now, but just as warm as I remember. It fits perfectly, and I breathe in her scent, enjoying smelling like baby powder again.
Eden doesn’t make any further conversation—she hasn’t said much since meeting me at the Jacksonville airport with Lily in tow. I’d fallen to my knees upon seeing Lily, arms open, completely and utterly bemused by the fact she was on her own two feet.
Her still toothless grin spread wide upon spotting me, and while very, very unsteady, she toddled over into my arms, and my tears soaked her neck. When her little arms looped around mine, I nearly fell prone on the terminal floor, taking her with me and cuddling close.
Our reunion was short-lived and the plane ride much too quick, because we’re now descending into JFK, where Locke somehow did enough to convince these people that Lily could be his.
“You’ll always be mine,” I whisper closely in her ear. Her baby hairs tickle my mouth. “I’ll forever be yours.”
Lily continues sucking on her bottle, her attention riveted by the reading light above us. I swallow and wrap myself around her as much as I can, dreading the moment when I have to stand.
Too soon, the plane hits the tarmac, and we rumble to the gate. Too quickly, Eden rises, taking the diaper bag with her and gesturing for me to come along. Too surprisingly, the people in front of us exit the plane fast and efficiently.
“That’s not supposed to happen,” I say to Lily as I rise out of the window seat and step into the aisle. “People are supposed to take forever to get their baggage and leave the plane.”
The pilot and flight attendant say good-bye to me with professional cheer once I turn left into the gate, and I can’t muster a smile in return. Lily’s tight against my chest, and while she mutters at the grip, she doesn’t seem overly angry about it, so I keep her there, close, safe, near.
Every step carries weight, every space between clogged with uncertainty.
Am I doing the right thing? Just because Paige wanted it, should I have found Locke myself, confronted him, somehow convinced him to take Lily? Was she better off with a happy, full family and not her single father? Was she going to be okay in this city, a place she’s never known, a home with no grass, only a concrete jungle to play in?
Oh, God. My steps halt.
“Carter?” Eden asks in front of me.
Other flyers are having to traverse around me, making their annoyance clear, but I can’t move.
Eden, sensing and likely well-used to this kind of hesitation, hurries to my side. “It’s okay. Lily will be safe here.”
“You can’t know that,” I say with terror.
“I can, and I do,” she assures. “She deserves to be with her family. Don’t you agree?”
“I’m her family.”
I can’t fight it anymore. I break.
“And you’re doing what’s best for her. Come,” Eden says softly, ushering me along. “Come.”
Lily whimpers in my neck, and for a thousand reasons, that sound breaks my heart.
But I follow Eden because there is nowhere else to go. What can I do? Run back onto the plane and hide under the seats? Get trampled by TSA security? Have Lily torn from me that way?
“I have his number,” I say to myself as we trod along. “I can call him any time.”
Whether or not Locke likes it.
We pass the security checkpoint and enter into the public domain, where families with signs await, some with balloons, most hopping up and down on impatient feet, awaiting their loved one.
I find Locke immediately, as he’s the only one on his own, hands in his jeans, hair askew, his lips flat-lined as he searches the crowd.
Too heartbreakingly fast, he lands on me.
And breaks into a grin.
“Hey!” he says when I approach, half my face still buried against Lily. Then, softer, kinder, he looks down at Lily and says, “Hey, there.”
I halt in front of him, aware of Eden, but my attention is solely on the man in front of me, and when he’ll decide to take Lily out of my arms.
He looks up at me with Lily’s blue eyes and asks, “Can I…?”
I tense, but he only puts his wide palm on Lily’s back and rubs. “Hi, honey.”
He’s speaking in a voice I’ve never heard, so awed and tentative.
“Wanna look my way?” he asks her.
At some point on our walk, Lily crammed her thumb in her mouth, but I can picture her peeking out at him suspiciously, the rest of her fist curled against her chin.
“Hey. Hi,” he says, bending closer. I can count the pieces of scruff on his cheek. He lifts his hand from her back into a wave. “I’m…” His voice catches, and it makes me peer at him closer. “I’m Dad.”
The sight is so endearing that I loosen my hold. Just a fraction.
“Well, how about we have lunch somewhere?” Eden asks, and it’s as if she’s burst a bubble.
“Sure, ma’am.” Locke straightens, but it’s tough for him to tear his attention away from Lily. “I rented a car, but I bought a car seat. It’s installed. Ready.”
My brows quirk. I could never picture Locke nervous, but at this moment it looks like he’s about to eat a lemon.
“Show us the way then, dear,” Eden says, then lays her palm on my back, a subtle clue to keep going through the motions. That I could have Lily for now, but eventually, I won’t.
Everyone’s quiet as we walk to short-term parking, even Lily. Air travel has made her drowsy, and a full bottle on top of it has virtually guaranteed a nap. Once we get in the car, I know she’s going to conk out. This is disappointing because it means the three of us will have to make small talk.
Turns out, my nervousness goes unheeded, because nobody wants to talk once I’ve secured Lily in her car seat and take the spot beside her. Eden sits in the front passenger seat, and Locke starts the car without a peep. He does, however, continuously look back in the rearview, glancing at his kid.
His kid.
I draw in a breath and stare out the window, but my hand won’t leave Lily’s chest.
Locke chooses a restaurant nearby his place. He parallel parks with surprising ease, and the three of us step out into a sunny, cool day. I hear kids laughing somewhere, that musical peal that all crowds of children can maintain.
“There’s a playground nearby,” Locke says as he meets me on Lily’s side of the car. “I checked.”
“Ah.” It’s all I can think to say because I don’t expect him to read me or my concerns that well.
“Do you mind if I get her out?”
I clench at the thought but don’t need Eden’s grounding stare to spit out the right answer. “Sure. Go ahead.”
It kills every fiber in me to step aside.
Locke opens the door and bends down, his shirt riding up and his jeans sliding down, showing off a peek of Calvin Klein boxer briefs.
I don’t know why, but it seems so juvenile to me, so out of place for a father to be reaching for his child.
Stop. Lily’s his. It’s been proven. Suck it up, already.
I hear Lily’s whimpering while Locke gently prods her, soon to become wails because she hates being woken up.
And yes, right there, when he unbuckles her harness and reaches for her, are the screams I expect.
It takes every rationale I possess not to shove him aside and reach for her, but I notice his wide eyes, his hand's frozen mid embrace as he debates what to do with a child who, such a sleeping angel a minute ago, is turning into a fast-second nightmare.
“She likes it when you sing,” I say over wails that hurt my soul.<
br />
“Sing?” he echoes, still bent over the car seat like some ghoul.
“Nursery rhymes, Twinkle Twinkle, something like that. Do you know any?”
He’s got that stunned look like he’s frantically trying to recall his childhood, and before I can intervene, because fuck this, he starts belting out Mary Had a Little Lamb.
In an instant, Lily, the traitor, trails off into happy babbles, the tears not even dry on her cheeks. She reaches her chubby arms for him as he continues to sing, making up words at this point because he only knows the chorus, bumbling as he rests her on his hips, then bursting at the seams when he tickles her tummy and makes her laugh.
“They have a table for us,” Eden says as her heels clip-clop over. I didn’t even register that she’d gone into the restaurant and found us seats.
“Great,” Locke replies, but he doesn’t tear his eyes off Lily.
“Let’s go!” he says with extra cheer. He puts some air into his steps as he makes his way to the restaurant’s stoop and Lily screeches with mirth.
Grumbling, sinking into despair, I follow with way less bounce.
8
Locke
Well, that car ride sucked.
What should’ve been the beginning to a new life chapter, a drive off into the sunset with a daughter I’ve been gifted, turned into a miserable, silent, chamber of doom, the entire way back to the ‘burg.
And I can’t even be mad about it. After not seeing hide nor hair of Carter Jameson for a month, it was easy to reduce her to paper. A mere blockade as I went through the motions of finding a lawyer, gaining parental rights, and being proven the father of Lily James Tobias.
Of becoming her dad. Officially.
I pretty much forgot about Carter, my vision tunneling only to this little girl, a kid that—the more I thought of and further steps I took to have her—felt right and true.
She’s meant for me, this tiny thing sleeping in the back seat of the car, her lashes so dark compared to her hair, and wow, that hair. Curls everywhere. Like Einstein, except girlier. Have to figure out a brush for that.
And yet, despite all the happiness and excitement, it’s impossible to ignore the black cloud hovering beside my daughter. As we drove, it was easy to dismiss Carter as a sore loser, someone who couldn’t game the court system even though she wanted to. Too bad for her. But I caught her expression in my rearview more than a few times.
The girl was devastated. No, she was broken in two.
And there wasn’t much I could do about it except give her the time to come to terms with the moment she was going to have to say good-bye.
After picking them up from the airport, it was arranged with the social worker on my end for us all to go to lunch. An easier, less traumatizing way to hand Lily off. Miss Munch and Carter would unobtrusively leave the table without Lily noticing too much, and then I was to begin my life with her.
Holy shit. I’m gonna be left with a baby.
Deep breaths, man. That’s the mantra I assume when I step out of the car and get Lily out of her brand-new car seat. It’s a phrase that’s worked well for me over the years—on the field, and when committing to the decision to take full custody of Lily.
Yeah, I was up on the legal terms now, as much as Carter wishes I wasn’t.
Here we are, pretending to eat at a breakfast spot I’d scoped out thoroughly, ensuring it was suitable for Lily. Cursing and cussing are to a minimum, and it’s as clean and sanitary as a Brooklyn restaurant can be.
My improvised health inspection was all much to Ben’s chagrin yesterday morning as he tried to eat his pancakes while I inspected his fork for water stains.
But hey, can’t be too careful with an innocent baby.
“How was the flight?” I attempt to ask and crunch down on a piece of bacon.
“Uneventful,” Eden responds politely.
Fuck, it’s like talking about the weather. You know a conversation is going south when clouds or travel comfort is involved.
Carter doesn’t bother with a response. She’s too busy staring at Lily, whose arms and legs are everywhere as a wooden high chair somehow contains her.
“Don’t like your coffee?” I ask Carter. The chick has to acknowledge me at some point.
Slowly, as if strings are attached to her eyeballs, and a puppeteer is forcing her to look, she focuses on me. “It’s fine.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” Eden says as she stands. “I’m going to use the ladies’ room. Haven’t since the plane.”
No doubt, I think as she leaves. Now that Carter is with me and Lily’s firmly ensconced in this high chair contraption, there’s little chance of Carter making a run for it.
And does she ever wish that. I don’t need to be an expert of women to understand that every joint she possesses wants to be in action right now.
“I know this is hard,” I say. Commiserate, buddy. Make her feel all right.
“You don’t have a fucking clue,” she snaps.
Hard fail.
Instead of adding anything more, I watch her tear off pieces of her pancake and put them near Lily, whose tiny hands enclose like they’re squishy toys.
Lily shoves a piece into her mouth, most landing on her lap.
“She can eat that?” I ask.
It takes every effort for Carter not to regard me as an idiot. “She may not have teeth yet, but she can chew. Soft solids, like this, pasta, fruit—”
“Steamed veggies like sweet potato, carrots, pureed broccoli, and cauliflower. I read up,” I say as I finish my bacon, then wipe my hands. “Childcare classes have helped, too.”
“You went to those?” Carter screws up her face like she can’t believe what she’s hearing.
“Yeah, I did.” I try not to but scoff anyway. “I’m not gonna kill her as soon as I’m left alone with her.”
Carter goes pale, and I blow out a breath. Great. I just joked about killing babies before Carter has to leave Lily for good. Excellent people skills.
“That’s not what I mean,” I say. “I’ve done everything I can to educate myself before she came here. You should see my apartment.”
Carter tucks her hair behind her ears. I remember this is how she works through things when she’s nervous or agitated.
I can’t help it. I love how I get on her nerves and agitate her.
Suddenly, I’m hit with a moment of clarity. “How long have you had her for?”
Carter cuts her gaze to me. She knows exactly what I’m asking. “A total of five hours.”
“That’s rough,” I say while looking at Lily, and I mean it.
“Promise me you’ll protect her” Carter whispers it, and I barely catch her meaning. “That you’ll sacrifice everything, do anything, to keep her happy and whole.”
Normally, if some asshole demanded that much of me, I wouldn’t deign with an answer because it’s so obvious. But Carter is about to break apart at her seams. I grab her hand and squeeze, keep squeezing, despite her initial resistance.
When she softens, I say, “With all I am, I will be everything to this child.”
After a moment thick with welling tears, she nods.
Eden approaches, and the second Carter notices, she tenses up at the same time her expression falls.
“We’d better get a cab,” Eden says once she’s at our table. “Get back to the airport and check in.”
“No,” Carter says before she can stop herself.
“Carter,” Eden says firmly. “It’s time.”
“Not yet,” Carter pleads. “It can’t be.”
“The judge has given you a lot of allowances, dear, and so has this young man. It’s time to let her go.”
“I…” Carter frantically scans her surroundings, then looks at me like I have the answers. But, a part of her comes to an understanding, because despite the tears falling, she lands on Lily.
Sniffling, Carter wipes her cheeks with her sleeve. “Lily, honey.”
The baby glances up from th
e pancake mess at her name.
“I love you,” Carter says. “I love you.”
“Bah.”
“Yes,” Carter laughs, understanding the language even if I don’t. Carter puts her arms around the small high chair, burying her nose in the crook of Lily’s neck.
“Adah,” Lily says while leaning away and refocusing on the pancake crumbs on her fingers.
“I know.” Carter lifts up, kisses Lily’s cheek, then forehead, then the nose, leaving a salty sheen in each spot she chooses. “You’re the best, sweetie. You are loved.”
A crack sounds, but no one looks up from their meals. Servers don’t pause, the bar doesn’t stop pouring drinks. Sun shines through non-smudged windows, decorative plants stay bright green. Patrons still laugh.
It’s like no such thunder occurred. Why am I the only one feeling the gray? The shadowed crest of incoming clouds?
Carter stands, and the motion pains her. It’s written over her skin, her face, piercing through her eyes. Eden has already left, giving Carter this moment, and is somewhere outside waiting for a cab.
“Be good, okay?” Carter says to the top of Lily’s head. Then, unable to resist, she plants another kiss within the curls.
“Baby,” she says into Lily’s hair. “I’ll miss your smell so much.”
Ah, fuck.
I think about the minute Carter leaves this restaurant. Lily stares at me across the table with flat shark eyes while she squeezes pancakes in each fist, as either a threat or a dare.
If she freaks out, I won’t know what to do. Textbooks don’t tell you how to run with a screaming child out of a crowded place without appearing like a kidnapper. Childcare teachers aren’t perched on your shoulder, coaxing you through how to handle a baby who topples over their own high chair.
Deformed, soggy bits of pancake plop to the ground as potential dangers continue to unfold.
So many options can occur at this moment. A server can slip. Hot coffee could be spilled on Lily’s head. She could choke, and I’d have to actually do the terrifying baby CPR move of flattening her against my thigh.
Trusting You Page 5
