by C. J. Box
I realized both Garrett and I were staring at the monitor, straining to hear every word, every sound.
“Ah,” Moreland said. “She’s beautiful. She looks like her father and me.”
Silence from Melissa.
“See that little birthmark on her calf? I have that birthmark. It’s a sign of being a Moreland.”
“No!” Melissa said.
What was he doing?
He said, “I want to pick her up.”
“I said no.”
“Okay, okay,” Moreland said. “I’ll let her sleep. Can I take a photo of her at least? To show Kellie?”
“Please, I’d rather you didn’t,” Melissa said, sighing.
“Just a photo? Just one?”
Her silence was taken as acquiesence by both Moreland and me. I heard the click of a digital camera.
“I want to look at her for a few more moments.”
Melissa said, “Just look. That’s all.”
I put the glass of ice on the coffee table and prepared to go upstairs. My hands were trembling and knotted into fists, and I felt myself on the verge of losing control. If he said anything more, took more photos, touched her …
“Please, Mrs. McGuane …” the judge said. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”
Melissa said, “She’s my baby, and you want to take her away from me.”
“I understand how you must feel,” he said gently.
I took a deep breath, tried to calm myself. It had been a long time since I’d been as angry. I wondered what I would have done up there. I thought again of the Colt .45. And I knew that Melissa and I had entered a whole new place, where everything was different.
I noticed Garrett watching me, a smirk on his face.
“What were you going to do?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“I bet nothing.”
“You don’t want to see the baby, do you?” I asked.
“No,” he said, with that lazy curl of his lip.
“Sign the papers,” I said.
“You have a nice wife,” Garrett said. “I like her.”
His demeanor changed from the smirk back to stoic as Melissa and Moreland came down the stairs. His eyes were on Melissa, not his father.
“Maybe I’ll come over and watch the Bronco game with you,” Garrett said.
“What?” I was stunned once again.
“I should probably get to know you better,” he said, his eyes still on Melissa. “We should hang out.”
I didn’t know how to react to that. I could tell by their faces that both Melissa and Moreland had missed the exchange.
Moreland stopped on the landing and shook Melissa’s hand.
“Thank you,” he said. “She’s beautiful.”
“She is,” Melissa said, letting a tiny smile escape despite herself. “And she’s ours,” she added.
“Ah, we need to resolve this.”
“No,” Melissa said. “There’s nothing to resolve.”
Damn, I admired her for her toughness. Simply no.
Moreland turned to me. In response, I nodded toward Melissa as if to say, It’s out of my hands. The answer is no.
“Come along, Garrett,” Moreland said. And to us, “Thank you for the coffee. It was nice to meet you.”
Garrett drained his Coke and handed the empty can to me, letting Moreland walk by until he was out of earshot. He had an incredulous look on his face, as if he couldn’t believe his sudden good fortune.
“What?” I asked.
The corners of his mouth tugged upwards and his pupils dilated and I could almost hear him say to himself, I own you people now, don’t I? You don’t dare do anything or say anything that will make me mad, or I won’t sign the papers.
Then he smiled outright, and something danced behind his eyes. I felt a chill roll down my back.
“Son?” Moreland opened the front door and Garrett ambled out, shooting a look at me as he went by. “Later,” he said.
Moreland said to Melissa, “I need to do some thinking. You are very impressive people. But…”
There it was again, that but.
“The circumstances of this issue are black-and-white. I’ve reviewed the case law, and met with lawyer friends well versed in family law. The birth mother signed away her parental rights, but the father—Garrett—didn’t. Garrett should be the custodian of the baby, simple as that. No court would disagree. Regardless,” he said, waving the legal argument aside though he’d made his point, “I still feel we can work together. You obviously have feelings for the baby, and you’ve acted in good faith. There may be some wiggle room we’d agree to. Maybe you could visit her occasionally and be a positive part of her life, like an aunt and uncle. But the fact is the baby is our blood, and she legally belongs to us. One can’t diminish that fact. Blood is blood, the law is the law. Any judge can see we have the means to take excellent care of her and a wonderful home environment.”
“What does that mean?” Melissa asked. “That we don’t?”
“Of course you’ve done your best,” Moreland said, not without sympathy.
“We love Angelina,” Melissa said, a note of panic showing.
John Moreland nodded and pursed his lips.
“Think about having Garrett sign the papers,” I said. “You say we can adopt another baby and Garrett needs to accept responsibility. Maybe he can visit her on occasion. Maybe Garrett can be the uncle.”
I felt Melissa’s eyes bore into me. She wanted nothing to do with either of them.
“Ah, compromise,” Moreland said, toasting me without a glass as his way of acknowledging what I’d said. “That’s not going to happen. I just hope we can resolve this among ourselves, without a protracted legal struggle you’d eventually lose. That would make it tougher and more emotionally draining on you and the baby. In fact, it could be cruel to her, since the outcome is certain, and your ability to pay lawyers is finite.
“Look,” he said gently, “I know this is tough on you right now, and your head is probably spinning. But my offer still stands. There are other babies to adopt, and I can help make that happen. There are thousands of babies out there who could be nurtured and loved in a home like yours. My offer still stands to make things right for you.
“Let’s talk about timing. While we have every right to demand the baby right here and now, that wouldn’t be compassionate. And we want to avoid any scene of sheriff’s cars rolling up to your house with lights on and having them forcibly return the child. So we’ll give you three weeks to say goodbye—until the end of the month. That’s a Sunday. That should give you enough time to get new adoption proceedings under way—with my help—and to say goodbye to the child. I’ve already notified the sheriff of the date, and he and his team are available. He won’t come unless he has to, so please don’t make him have to. That’s the best we can do, I’m sorry. Three weeks.”
Garrett stood there, his face stoic, giving no signal of what he was thinking.
“Well,” Moreland said, “we had best be going. Go Broncos, I guess,” he said. “At least we can agree on that, right?”
He closed the door behind him. Melissa joined me at the window. There didn’t seem to be much oxygen in the room. We watched Garrett climb into the passenger seat, close the door, stare straight ahead. Moreland paused before reaching for the door handle to gaze at our house, as if making a decision that pained him. He looked remorseful, but at the same time he had a determined set to his face. My heart sank. I knew then he would never change his mind.
But he couldn’t leave yet. My friend Cody had chosen that moment to pull up to our house in his police department Crown Victoria and unwittingly block the judge’s car in the driveway. The judge stood there with his hands on his hips, glaring at him. Cody was oblivious. He swung out of his car and opened the trunk, his always-present cigarette dancing in his mouth. I could hear the loud twang of country music from the Crown Vic’s radio. Cody grabbed the power drill he had borr
owed months before and finally remembered to return as well as a twelve-pack of cheap beer and turned toward the house. That was when he saw the judge, and the judge saw him.
I couldn’t hear their exchange of words, but it was obvious Cody was apologizing all over himself and backing up. He threw the drill and beer into the trunk and quickly backed up to let the judge and Garrett out.
Melissa saw none of it because her face was buried in my chest.
“This can’t be happening,” she cried.
“I know.”
She looked at me fiercely. I’ve never seen such absolute manic conviction. “Swear to me, Jack, that you’ll do everything you can to save our baby from them.”
I nodded, squeezed her tighter.
“Swear it to me!”
“I swear,” I said. “I promise.” My stomach churned.
Cody let himself in the front door. His sandy-colored hair was uncombed, and he wore stained sweats. “Jesus Christ, I hope that judge didn’t recognize me out there. I’m not supposed to use the car when I’m off duty to run errands. What was he doing here, anyway? Hey, what’s wrong with you two? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
From the other room, we heard Angelina stir over the baby monitor. We listened as the baby yawned, gurgled, sighed. We heard the crib squeak as she tried to pull herself up. She said, “Ma …”
THREE
TWO MINUTES INTO THE first quarter of the Broncos game that evening, I heard the bass burbling of a car motor outside in my driveway. Melissa was upstairs bathing Angelina.
The doorbell rang.
There were three of them: Garrett, a young Hispanic covered in tattoos who looked like a gangster, and an emaciated red-haired Caucasian who was dressed in the same hip-hop style as the Hispanic. Garrett’s bright yellow H3 Hummer was parked in the driveway, looking like the muscle-bound older uncle of my Jeep Cherokee.
Garrett said hey in an overly familiar way. Then: “I hope you don’t mind that I brought my friends Luis and Stevie.” They’d come, Garrett said, to hang out.
I said nothing.
“Problem?” he asked, wide-eyed and mocking. Stevie smirked.
Luis said, “Hey, amigo,” and nodded at me with a deadeye stare.
Garrett and Luis sat on the same couch Garrett had occupied earlier in the day. Stevie sat on the arm. Stevie’s body language suggested he was subservient to them. The three boys watched the game in utter silence, not commenting on anything. I can’t say they looked bored, because they were alert and didn’t miss a thing. They both watched Melissa come downstairs and go into the kitchen and close the door. And I caught the “See? What did I tell you?” look Garrett gave Luis after she was gone.
Luis was shorter and darker than Garrett, with a blunt pug face that looked like it had been hammered in. He wore an oversized white T-shirt with an even larger open long-sleeved plaid shirt over it and massive cargo pants. He had close-cropped black hair and dull black eyes, and a tattoo on his neck below his jaw reading “Sur-13.” Unlaced and oversized heavy boots with Vibram soles were splayed out in front of him. Stevie wore the same oversized clothing as well as a red bandana on his head. But his haircut, perfect teeth, and expensive new sneakers gave him away as a rich kid pretending to be a gangster. I could see Stevie as Garrett’s friend. But Luis was the real deal and didn’t seem to fit.
During a commercial for curing erectile dysfunction, I asked, “Garrett, is there anything you want to talk with me about?”
He looked at me sincerely, said, “Yes, there is.”
I nodded, urging him on.
“I’d like a cold drink. Another one of those Cokes would be just fine. I’d bet my friends could use a cold drink, too.”
“I’d like a beer, man,” Luis said, grinning, showing gold teeth.
“Me too,” Stevie said with a slight—and false—Mexican accent intonation.
I shook my head. Unbelievable.
“Maybe some snacks,” Garrett said. “Chips and dip? Nachos? Don’t you have snacks during a game?”
“We always have snacks,” Luis said. “We like snacks during a game.” Mocking me.
I cursed under my breath and went out to get soft drinks. No beer for Luis or Stevie, though, and no damned snacks. Back in the living room, I could hear them chuckling. I had to close my eyes and take deep breaths to keep a handle on my anger.
DURING THE THIRD QUARTER, I asked Garrett if he’d thought about signing the papers.
“I haven’t thought about it,” Garrett said dismissively. “You need to talk to my father about that.”
I detected an intransigent smirk on Luis’s face when Garrett spoke.
“Does he always speak for you?”
“On this he does.”
“Why?”
He locked eyes with me, and I felt a chill that made the hair on my arms rise.
“We have an agreement,” he said.
Before I could ask what it was, Melissa came out of the kitchen to go upstairs to go to bed and Garrett’s eyes and attention went with her.
Harry, our old Labrador, padded in from the kitchen. Garrett recoiled and sat back in the couch.
“He’s harmless,” I said, smiling. “Harry loves everybody.”
“Can you please get him away?” Garrett asked me, his voice leaden.
“Sure,” I said, puzzled. I am always surprised when someone doesn’t like dogs. I put Harry out into the backyard. When I returned, the boys hadn’t moved, although Garrett had a lingering look of what I can only describe as disgust on his face.
“Somebody allergic?” I asked.
“No,” Garrett said in a way that signaled he no longer wanted to discuss the matter.
“He don’t like dogs,” Luis said. “Me, I got four. Fighting dogs, man. Nobody gives my dogs any shit.”
“Do you mind if I use your bathroom?” Garrett asked.
“It’s upstairs and to the left,” I said, wondering if his plan was to sneak a peek at Melissa in Angelina’s bedroom. But he was in and out quickly. As he came down the stairs, Luis said, “I’m next, man.”
With Luis upstairs, I turned to Garrett. I ignored Stevie. “What do you want from us?” I asked. “Why did you bring your friends here?” I knew I was gripping the arms of the chair too hard.
“What, you don’t like Mexicans?” Garrett asked innocently. “Does Luis make you nervous?”
“It’s not that.”
“Seemed like it to me. What do you think, Stevie?”
Stevie said, “Seemed like it to me, too.”
Garrett smiled to me, “You remind me of my stepmom. She doesn’t like Luis either.”
“Your stepmom?”
“Yeah. My real mother died. Kellie’s my stepmom.”
“She’s fine, too,” Stevie said.
“We both know you gotta be nice to me,” Garrett said, “or there’s no way I sign the papers. You gotta be real nice. I know it’s killing you, but hey.”
“What kind of game are you playing?” I asked.
“No game,” he said.
“Do you have any intention of signing?”
He shrugged. “I’m still thinking about it. It depends how nice you are to me and my friends. If you insult me or them, well, you won’t get what you want.”
I wanted to throw myself across the room and slam my fist into his mouth, but instead I gripped the arms of the chair tighter.
He looked up as Luis finally came down the stairs, his face oddly flushed.
“All through?” Garrett asked him.
“Yeah,” he said. Then, to me, “There’s something wrong with your toilet, man. You need to get that fixed.”
“There’s nothing wrong with…”
“We need to go,” Garrett said, smiling at me. “I’ve got school tomorrow, you know?” To his friend, he said, “Ready, Luis?”
“Catch you later,” Garrett said to me under his breath. They let themselves out. I heard the Hummer fire up. The three of them sat there for a few m
inutes in the dark with the motor running and a tricked-out muffler pounding out a deep beat. I shut the lights off inside to signal to them to leave and so I could watch them. I couldn’t see them well, but it appeared by the way their heads bobbed that they were talking and laughing, which enraged me. Finally, the car backed out of the driveway and slowly, slowly, went down the street.
As their car rumbled away, Melissa cried out from upstairs, “Jack!”
Stained brown water pulsed out of the toilet bowl, flooding the carpet. The smell was horrific. A floating mass of feces bobbed in the water, breaking apart, pieces of it cascading over the rim.
“I’ll call a plumber,” I said.
“Call Cody,” Melissa said, gagging. “Call Brian, too.”
FOUR
I GREW UP ON a series of ranches in Montana. I remember each one clearly. What I mean is I remember the layout of each place, where the buildings were, the corrals, the hiding places. The ranches were near Ekalaka in eastern Montana, Billings, Great Falls, Townsend, Helena. My father was a ranch foreman, and he moved us around with his jobs. I wish I could say he moved up, but he didn’t. Some ranches were better than others, but all seemed to have owners my dad couldn’t get along with. He had his own ideas about cows, horses, and range management, and if the owner didn’t completely agree with everything he wanted to do, my father would tell my mother that he and the owner “didn’t see eye to eye” and my mother would sigh and they’d start asking around until he found another job. Once the new job was in the bag, he would angrily quit the old one, pack all of our possessions in the pickup and stock trailer, and we’d go off to the next ranch. My only constant was my parents, and as I grew older I became ashamed of them.
I’ve since reconsidered in part, and I feel guilty for being ashamed. They were simple people from another era and mind-set. They were the Joads. They worked hard and didn’t even look up as the world passed them by. They rarely read books, and their conversation was about land, food, and weather. My dad didn’t buy a color television set until he no longer had a choice. But in many ways they gave me gifts I just didn’t recognize or appreciate at the time. They gave me perspective. I am the only person I know who grew up outside. I know hard work and suffering because that’s what my family specialized in. When my coworkers complain about long hours or the amount of paper on their desks, I contrast it with calving time during a spring blizzard where if you don’t get the newborn to the barn within minutes, it will freeze to death in midbawl.