by Pamela Tracy
“No middle name?” Lucky said, seemingly to nobody.
“No.”
Wilfong, apparently, didn’t have a folder to place on the table. He also didn’t carry a briefcase. He folded his hands in front of him. “Let’s pray first.”
Without argument, Sunni and Lucky both bowed their heads. Natalie sat stunned. Bowing her head seemed almost to imply an agreement, and she didn’t want to agree to anything. And since when did a meeting requiring legal assistance start with a prayer?
Her father’s lawyer never prayed.
After his “amen,” Mr. Wilfong looked at both women. Then he said in a voice that sent a chill down Natalie’s spine, “I’m not a children’s advocate. I’ve never handled a custody case. I do, however, know the right lawyer to steer Lucky to, and I also know, having children myself, that if you two can come to an agreement outside the courtroom, it’s best for everyone. Madam, do you have something to say?”
Natalie glanced at Sunni. Sunni had been hoping to speak first. The prayer certainly one-upped that idea. Sunni had wanted to set the stage, the tone, and have the upper hand because, truthfully, the team of Natalie and Sunni had only one weapon to support their claim to Robby: the guardianship papers Tisha had yet to sign.
Sunni was looking at Lucky. Her hand was atop the folder. Inside that folder lay the birth certificate, a paper that would end the negotiations right now and Lucky wouldn’t need a high-dollar lawyer.
“I say,” Sunni said easily, “we leave the room and let these two see what they can come up with without us.”
“I’d like that,” Lucky said. If trustworthy was searching for a national spokesperson, then judging by the look on Lucky’s face, the self-assured way he held himself, he’d be the man for the job.
“Natalie, say the words. Tell me to go or to stay. You’re in charge,” Sunni prodded.
Great, just great. If Natalie said no, she’d be the one dragging her feet, the one not willing to be a team player. If she said yes, she alone would be negotiating Robby’s future. She swallowed and said, “I’ll stay. You go.”
Wilfong opened the door for Sunni. On the way out, her lawyer’s eyes fell on the folder still lying on the table. Then, her eyes raised to meet Natalie’s. One tiny nod encouraged Natalie that she could do it.
When the door closed, Natalie noticed that she and Lucky sat in a room without a window. She pressed her lips together. Trapped. In a hole she’d dug herself.
“You want to take a walk?” Lucky suggested. “We don’t have to stay here.” Suddenly, he appeared chagrined. “I mean, it doesn’t hurt you to walk, does it?”
“What? I can walk.” For a moment, Natalie was confused. “Oh, someone told you about the accident. My leg only hurts, really, when the weather is about to change or I’m really stressed.”
Lucky grinned. “I’ll take the fact that it doesn’t hurt as a good sign. You’re not stressed.”
“Yet,” Natalie said. “Or maybe I’ve been so stressed lately that my body no longer recognizes stress.”
“I’m going to stand by my original thought, that you’re not stressed.” Lucky stood and came around the table. “Let’s walk. I know it’s cold, but there’s a diner just down the street. I’d love some coffee, and we’ll be in—” he looked around “—a little less sterile environment.”
“Okay.” Natalie stood and took the folder. It lay accusingly on the table, a constant reminder of how impossible it was to discern right from wrong emotionally. Folding it, she put it in her purse and prayed she wouldn’t need to open it.
Lucky walked slow enough. While Natalie waved at people she knew, people who would be sure to call later and ask about the young man she was with, he rambled about the weather, about his mother, about Delaney and about his love for small towns.
Right. Sure.
Like some rodeo Romeo would be willing to settle for one choice at the movie theater, no McDonald’s and streets that rolled up at nine unless you were a drinker.
Okay, his grandparents were from practically next door in Delaney, and it wasn’t fair for her to compare Lucky to Marcus.
Right before the waitress seated them in a back booth, Lucky mentioned seeing her father’s grave.
“When did you see it?” she asked.
“Last week. I headed for Delaney. I wanted to drive by my grandparents’ place. Then I stopped at the cemetery.”
“Makes sense. I probably should have realized. How many years has your family been in the area?” She was surprised to discover she really wanted to know. Lucky, either by the gift of gab or by a burning desire to make her like him, had managed to find topics that felt safe.
“My grandpa moved to Delaney in 1942, following his parents. They were in Abilene first. I think we’ve had family in West Texas for at least a hundred years.”
“You’d love my living room,” Natalie said. “Dad put up pictures from when the ranch was just starting. We have pictures of the Selena and Delaney area dating back more than a hundred years. My favorite old tintype shows what looks to me like an outhouse but I think is actually the original house.”
“I’d love to see it,” Lucky said.
Suddenly, the menu looked like a good defense. Natalie picked hers up and held it so it covered her face. What had she just done? Invited him over? No, no, no. Maybe the gift of gab was beneficial only to the speaker. She’d just walked into a trap.
When she put the menu down, not even noticing a single item she hungered for, Lucky was studying her.
“Natalie, I can’t even imagine how uncomfortable you are, how threatened you feel, but, believe me, I, my family, we don’t want to be the enemy. We want to help. We want to get to know Marcus’s little boy, and if we can make this a win-win situation, everybody, especially Robby, benefits. Please meet me halfway.”
The waitress came at that moment. Lucky ordered coffee and a cinnamon roll. Natalie decided on iced tea. When it arrived, she took a long drink and then said, “What do you want?”
He took a folded piece of paper from his pocket and stared at it. “Paul has a typed, more legalized version of this, but my notes are the same.” Looking at her, he said, “My mother and I put this together yesterday.” He slid the paper across the table. “Here.”
He wrote in all capital letters. They were straight, and he seemed to like leaving extra spaces between each word. The top half of the paper was labeled “short-term.” The bottom half was labeled “long-term.” Each half had only three items.
Six altogether.
Six too many.
Short-term, he wanted Robby to be introduced to the Welches, first as friends, then as family. He wanted that to happen sometime next week. As if he knew right where she was reading, he said, “You can tell him on your own, or we could maybe have a cookout at Bernice’s. Neutral territory. She loves you and says she can’t imagine a better single parent. But you don’t need to be a single parent. We’ll help. Bernice said you dropped out of college to raise Robby. If you want to go back, we’ll help with money.”
“What?” She glanced at the paper, and then back up at him. Going back to school, for her, was listed under long-term, along with money negotiations and holidays.
“We’ll help with money….”
“Are you for real?”
He pinched himself, exaggerating, and with a grin on his face. It looked silly, but it did take an edge off the fear that was starting to pool in her stomach again.
“I’m for real.”
“This is happening so fast. I mean, I’ve hired Sunni Foreman just to try to make sense of what legal rights—” she almost said I have. Instead, she said, “—you have. She seems to think quite a bit. My dad says—said—not to completely trust lawyers. I’m pretty sure he’d also be inclined not to trust you.”
“Your dad must have been quite a man. I hear he looked after Robby as his own. I’m only sorry that I can’t shake his hand, thank him, on behalf of our family.”
He reached across the table and put his
hand over hers. She almost tugged it away, almost made a face, but again, he looked so sincere.
“I’m gone most weekends to rodeos, and people are counting on me. But I’m going to take to flying a bit more now and also make Selena my home base.”
Well, that would take care of the next two items on the short-term list. After the initial meeting, Lucky wanted to take Robby to church on Wednesday evenings, and then he wanted the family to have permission to visit at least one Saturday a month.
Lucky continued, “I’m making Robby my business, at least until we’re all comfortable with where we fit in as a family. Please agree to the potluck at Bernice’s. I promise, we’ll take everything slow. First, this Saturday, and then we’ll wait a few weeks before we either do church or a family outing. If it seems too fast for Robby, we can wait a little while before we tell him. But he needs to know us. We want to know him. We’re going to make sure my brother Marcus’s son has everything he needs. And, as Robby’s mother, we’d like the same for you.”
Natalie swallowed. The words sounded so innocent. And they were true. She’d dropped out of school to take care of Robby. Robby, who was Marcus’s son, not Natalie’s.
The son Marcus apparently hadn’t known about.
“If I say yes to this meeting, to letting your family get to know Robby, all you want to do is help, be involved, not take?” Her voice broke. Just three weeks ago, she’d lost her father. He’d been taken from her. Today, sitting across from her, was the man who could easily take Robby away.
“All you want to do is help, get to know Robby,” she repeated slowly.
“Yes.”
The folder remained in her purse. She didn’t need it. For a moment, she was safe. The list went with it. Lucky wanted to get to know Robby, take the boy to church, help financially and, so far, without legal strings. If she agreed, then the birth certificate remained hidden, at least for now.
“Okay,” Natalie said. “We’ll come to the potluck. Depending on how that day goes, I’ll tell him you’re related to his father.”
She half expected him to whoop; instead, he bent his head. His lips moved, and she could hear his muffled words of thanks.
Lucky was thanking God for answering his prayer. Only Natalie knew that Lucky’s prayer was misdirected and that he deserved a lot more than he was receiving.
The phone call came early morning Wednesday while Natalie uploaded, cropped and then enhanced jewelry photos for one of her clients. The finishing touches, and the ones that kept her clients with her, were the details. For this client, she added what she called diamond dazzle. When a prospective buyer went to the Web site, not only would the display be attractive, but the jewelry the client most wanted sold would sparkle, literally.
Playing with dazzle wasn’t enough to keep Natalie from worrying.
All Tuesday afternoon and evening, she’d been expecting the ax to fall, expecting to find that the list that looked so simple was not. So hearing Betsy Welch’s voice on the other end of the phone was no surprise.
After all, Natalie and Lucky had met just yesterday, sent their lawyers home and agreed on the short-term. But there were twenty-four hours between yesterday and today. Hours that were probably a long time to a grandmother who wanted to meet her only grandson.
Betsy Welch managed to turn Natalie’s name into Nat-tal-lee. Natalie’s own grandmother had done the same, and Mrs. Welch wept more than she spoke. Maybe the tears were more responsible for the name mangling than the Texas drawl.
Natalie left the computer. Mood always affected her overall performance. Her client wouldn’t want to see a digital smorgasbord of black, brooding diamonds when it came to his display. Instead of pounding on the computer keys, Natalie paced in front of the couch as Lucky’s mother talked about wanting to get to know Robby, and about her son Marcus—she assumed, of course, Natalie really knew him—and about staying in Selena longer. Natalie winced at that pronouncement and kicked a toy train out of the way before bending down to pick up a pillow. One thing for sure, if this woman was wrangling for an invitation to the house, she wasn’t getting one. Right now Natalie’s living room did not look like something from the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. It looked like Return of the Three-Year-Old Tornado.
But Mrs. Welch didn’t ask if she could stop by the house, pretend to be selling household goods or a church lady. Betsy wanted something else, something a little more convenient, something straight from the list, except that it was an item Lucky and Natalie had agreed to put on hold. “Let’s meet at church tonight. Real innocent. Just let me see him. I need to see him. I—”
When Betsy finally took a breath, Natalie jumped in. “I’ll think about it.” A no-frills answer, and one that shut Mrs. Welch up, until Robby ran into the room, that is.
“Momma, who’s on the phone? Why I no get to answer?”
“You were asleep, honey.”
He nodded, an exaggerated response and reached for the phone. Until Pop Pop’s death, they’d been letting Robby pick up the beloved instrument and say “Hi” before taking the phone and giving a real salutation.
To Robby, getting to answer or at least talk on the phone was as good as Christmas.
“It’s a lady I know. She’s inviting us to church tonight.”
“Church?”
“Yes, you know, where Patty and Daniel go every Wednesday and Sunday?”
“Oh, yeah. We go?”
“We’re not sure.” Natalie looked at the phone. Betsy Welch was still talking. Natalie could hear her asking, “Is that Robby?”
Maybe Natalie should call Sunni Foreman. Lucky had walked her to Sunni’s office after she’d agreed to a Saturday outing at Bernice’s and after they’d finished eating. It had been a long walk, all of fifteen minutes, and all Natalie could think of was that Lucky Welch was making this his home base just to be near his nephew.
Right. How long would it last?
He was rodeo from his hat to his heart, and he was in his prime.
It wouldn’t last.
But Lucky wasn’t Marcus.
And what really bothered Natalie was that after she repeated, “We’ll think about it,” and hung up, her first impulse was to call Lucky.
After all, it was his list she’d agreed to; it was his list she’d stared at last night when sleep refused to visit. Yes, church attendance was on it. But they’d agreed to start slowly, with Saturday.
One day after their initial meeting was definitely not slowly. One day after their initial meeting, and things were already changing, meant Natalie had to tell Robby a few things about family, and pray that her family—namely Tisha—stayed away until Natalie could sort out what to do, what to say, how long she could hide, and the guardianship issue.
Mrs. Welch suggested an innocent meeting tonight. An “Oh, by the way, Robby, these are some people you need to know” kind of thing. And Natalie, already skittish, felt threatened.
By church as much as by Betsy Welch.
Natalie had gone to church with Patty when they were kids. Vacation Bible School was fun, lots of Kool-Aid and animal crackers, but other than that, it was a lot of sitting still and being quiet. It would drive Robby nuts. He wasn’t a sit-still kind of child. What if he misbehaved? What if Betsy Welch determined Natalie wasn’t a good mother?
Natalie hadn’t agreed to attend, but she hadn’t disagreed, either. It wasn’t easy to say no to a crying grandmother. Her father would say she was prolonging the inevitable. Well, so be it. Then again, her lawyer would say she was tempting fate.
Her lawyer attended the Main Street Church. Yesterday afternoon, with Lucky’s visitation wishes spread on the lawyer’s desk, Sunni asked, “If the roles were reversed, and Robby was your kin and being raised by someone else, is this list more than, just right or less than what you would hope for?”
The list was less than she’d have asked for. Anyone who knew Robby, the kind of kid he was, the joy he brought, would know that no list of sporadic meetings here and there wo
uld be enough.
“It’s a reasonable request,” Natalie had agreed.
Just her luck to find a lawyer who reasoned and who valued right over money.
There’d be no Monday-night movie made about Sunni. What you saw was what you got.
Almost too perfect.
And right there in the office, Natalie had seen a picture of Sunni Foreman standing with a group of kids all wearing Main Street Church Bible Bowl Champions 2008 shirts.
“I wanna go to church. Let’s go.” Robby was up for anything and truly believed that the next place was better than the place he was. It was a characteristic he’d inherited from Tisha.
That comparison was so truly right-on, Natalie sank onto the couch and whispered, “Oh, no.”
“What wrong, Mommy?”
“Nothing. Just something Mommy needs to do. Go get your trains while I make a few phone calls. When I’m done, I’ll build a track with you.”
Robby’s eyes lit up. His favorite thing! Next to talking on the phone and going somewhere and Christmas. They were going to put train tracks together. Life just didn’t get any better.
Oh, to be three again.
“We play train!” he jabbered excitedly.
“In just a minute.” That’s all it took. A moment later, Robby dug out his blue track and was sorting his trains by which had working batteries and which needed new ones.
Most of the trains needed batteries. Batteries had been Pop Pop’s job. Natalie knew where they were, how to put them in, but she cried every time.
Batteries were Pop Pop’s job.
Bandages were Natalie’s job, but they didn’t make one big enough to fix all that was wrong in their lives at the moment.
Chapter Six
T he Main Street Church put every other building in Selena to shame. It received a fresh coat of white paint every year, and if Natalie didn’t know better, she’d suspect the minister, Tate Brown, even spray painted the lawn green.
Natalie, following the Selena church crowd’s example, pulled into the parking lot at the exact moment church began. Just two spots down, Patty was unloading her kids.