She shook her head. “I’m not saying that. That has to be between you and God. I just . . . I can see how attached you already are. What if he ends up having to go into foster care?”
“Mom, Misty has asked us—in writing—to take him. Surely that counts for something and if—”
“But for how long, Danae? Even if she ends up in prison, would you guys be required to take him to visit her?”
“We’d want to, Mom.”
“What if they send her to Lansing or—”
“We’ll cross those bridges when we come to them. Dallas and I have been talking about this a lot. We’re not going to jump into anything until we know what we’re getting into. But even if it meant making long trips every few weeks to visit Misty, I think
. . . I think it’d be worthwhile.”
“I just don’t want to see you get hurt. I’m not meaning to be discouraging. I know you well enough to know that you love so deeply and so fully. If you go into this whole hog and then things go south, that would kill you, Danae.” She did not want to fall apart in front of Danae, but she was glad she’d had a chance to speak her mind.
“Mom, I may as well tell you right now. We’re already in it ‘whole hog,’ as you say. And if anything happens that keeps us from being a part of Austin’s life, it will devastate us. But I’m kind of starting to think—” She stopped abruptly as if collecting her thoughts. Or deciding whether she should finish her thought.
“Go ahead.” Audrey patted Danae’s arm. “I won’t hold you to anything you say. I’d love to know what you guys are thinking. Maybe it will calm my fears so I can get some sleep.”
“Mom. You don’t need to lose any sleep over this.”
“Oh, well thanks. Now you tell me.”
Danae laughed, then quickly sobered. “I’m kind of bracing myself to have my heart broken. But I think Dallas and I are supposed to take care of Austin for however long he needs it.”
Her face must have shown her trepidation because Danae gave her a quick hug.
“I know you worry about us, but Mom, I’ve been such a wreck. For three years I’ve been in turmoil over what I can’t have. A baby. This whole thing with Austin has given me a sense of purpose I haven’t felt in forever. It’s not how I hoped or dreamed it would be. He’s not a baby. He’s not mine. But I feel like, for however long God lets us, we’re simply supposed to love him as if he was ours.”
“Oh, honey. I admire your attitude so much. I really do. I only hope—”
“I know it won’t be easy. But honestly, I’d rather feel this kind of pain—pain because I loved somebody and then lost him—than be the way I’ve been up until Austin. I’ve been so
self-absorbed, so turned inward that I made everybody else miserable. And myself too! I ruined Corinne’s enjoyment of this baby that’s coming—and it was already hard for her. I was such a jerk. And poor Dallas. He’s put up with so much.”
“I’m guessing he thinks you’re worth it.”
Danae cringed. “I’m afraid it was a toss-up for a while there.”
“Oh, stop. I know better than that.”
“Maybe. But that’s the thing, Mom. It’s better now. Dallas and I are in this together and if our hearts get broken, well, we’ll be in that together too. And it’ll be OK. Somehow, I just know it will. Even if it’s hard.”
Audrey couldn’t speak for the ache wedged in her throat. She was so proud of this beautiful girl. This precious daughter.
Please, God, don’t let her heart be broken.
22
The uniformed officer entered the room ahead of them and held the door open. The low-ceilinged space had a musty odor, like a cellar that hadn’t been opened in months.
Dallas took Danae’s hand, noting it was as clammy as his own. He steered her to the metal table where Misty sat, and beside her, her court-appointed attorney, a young man who looked like he should still be in high school.
Misty sat with her back straight, her hands cuffed in front of her. Dallas almost didn’t recognize her. She wore no makeup and there were dark, puffy circles under her eyes. Her wavy hair hung loose and limp in front of her face.
As soon as they were seated, he reached for Danae’s hand again.
“Hello, Misty.” Danae’s voice came out in a squeaky whisper and she squeezed Dallas’s hand so hard it hurt.
“How is he?” Misty leaned forward. “How’s Oz?”
“He’s good,” Dallas told her. “Austin is doing really well. He’s no trouble at all.”
“No. He’s a good boy.” Misty spoke in a monotone, almost as if she were high on something. But given that she’d been locked up for days now here at the jail housed in the Justice Center, it was more likely she’d closed off her emotions to the reality of what was happening to her.
Dallas looked to the attorney, hoping he would steer the conversation. Dallas didn’t have a clue how this was supposed to go, but he assumed the purpose of the meeting was to iron out the details of Austin’s custody.
Misty looked over at the attorney. “Can I talk to them, or do you have to?”
“You can talk to them. Just remember what we discussed.”
“Yeah . . . I know.” She looked down at her hands, clasped in front of her, the handcuffs looking tight and uncomfortable. When she peered up, it was Danae’s eyes she met. “You got my note? About taking Oz . . . Austin?”
“We did. But we’re not sure exactly what that means, Misty.”
“I want you to take him. Please.”
“You mean until you’re out of jail?”
Misty looked to the attorney again. Leaning forward, the young man cleared his throat. “Mrs. Arato has pled guilty to murder in the first degree. She knowingly and after deliberation, in front of witnesses, shot her husband in the back. In the state of Missouri, murder in the first degree is a class A felony, and the punishment is either death or life without probation or parole. Because multiple witnesses corroborated Mrs. Arato’s confession and because there is evidence that the murder was premeditated, we had no choice but to enter a guilty plea for Mrs. Arato.”
“You’re not even going to fight it?” Dallas asked. “What about the fact that her husband beat her and her son?”
“Physical abuse is not grounds for premeditated, cold-blooded murder.” The attorney gave a smug smile, as if he were answering a question correctly on a test.
“Misty?” Danae reached across the table and placed a hand over the younger woman’s. “Why did you do it?”
“Ma’am,” the attorney said. “I’m sorry, but you’re not allowed to touch my client.”
Danae withdrew her hand.
Misty didn’t answer her question, but looked at Danae with pleading eyes. “I need you to promise me you’ll take Austin. You’ve got to take my boy.”
“It . . . it’s not that easy, Misty.” Dallas said what Danae had been saying to him all the way to St. Louis. “We need to find out exactly what would be involved. We don’t know where you might be . . . what it would involve for us to bring him to visit you?”
“No. No, that’s exactly what I don’t want.” She lifted her hands, as if to fling them wide, but the shackles brought them back to the table with a thud.
“Misty?” Danae sounded confused. “You don’t mean that. You can’t just—”
“I don’t want my son to see me in prison. I don’t want that baggage on him. I know what that was like, and it’s not what I want for my son.”
“Is there anything that can be done?” Dallas turned to the attorney. “An appeal? Something?”
“Her husband beat her!” Danae said. “And Austin. He followed them to the shelter they’d escaped to, which is where we met Misty. Surely the courts have to take that into account!”
The attorney’s demeanor softened. “I wish that were true, but when a man is shot in the back in front of witnesses, it makes it pretty difficult to build a case for leniency.”
Dallas sighed. This was really happening. And A
ustin was going to need a home. “So what happens next?” he said. “Has the arraignment already taken place?”
“Yes, sentencing has been set for February”—he flipped open the folder on the table in front of him—“February 24.”
“Will she be released until the trial?” Danae asked.
“No ma’am. And . . . I’m not sure you understand, but there won’t be a jury trial. Mrs. Arato has pled guilty to murder in the first degree and has waived the right to a trial.”
“Misty? Is that true?” Danae asked.
“What choice did I have? I don’t want to die.”
What was she talking about? Dallas gave the attorney a questioning look.
The man returned it with a one-shouldered shrug. “This judge won’t set bail for murder one at any rate. But frankly, as I’ve told Mrs. Arato, unless she wants to take this to trial and risk the judge handing down a death sentence, she’s chosen the wisest option. The law in the State of Missouri is clear about the penalty for murder one, and I’d say a guilty plea in exchange for life without parole is the best deal she could ask for.”
“Surely she has other options?” It felt rude to talk about Misty as if she weren’t sitting right there, but Dallas didn’t know if they’d get a chance to speak with the attorney after they left this room.
He felt Danae tense beside him. Neither of them had imagined there wouldn’t be at least the possibility of parole, but it was sounding as though Misty was doomed to life in prison. If not a death sentence. But he couldn’t bear to bring this up with the attorney. Not with Misty in the room.
But if she’d shot her husband in the back as they said—as she admitted to—it wouldn’t be right for her to get off without penalty either. He and Danae had only ever known Misty as Austin’s mommy. And he assumed that, in her own mind, Misty saw her actions as a way of protecting her child. Dallas raked a hand through his hair. Who knew whether he might have done the same in similar circumstances?
But where did this leave Austin?
Danae straightened and slid a hand across the table, stopping just a breath away from Misty’s hand. “Misty, I promise you we will make sure Austin is taken care of. I don’t know if it can be us. We have a lot to talk about before we can decide that. But we won’t let him be hurt. We’ll see to it that he’s—”
“No! It’s got to be you. It’s got to be you and Dallas. Your family. I never would have done it if I thought you’d say no. If I thought you’d let me down.”
“What are you talking about?” Dallas wanted to reassure her, but he didn’t like the implication of her words. He glanced at the lawyer, hoping to make it clear that he truly didn’t know what Misty was talking about. “Misty, we never gave you any reason to think we’d be willing to take Austin under . . . under any circumstances.”
“You love him. I can tell you do. And he’s happy with you. I can’t offer him nothing.”
“Misty . . .” Danae put her hand over Misty’s and glared at the attorney, daring him to stop her.
He let it ride.
“Austin loves you with all his heart.” Danae’s voice was barely a whisper. “Why did you do this when you knew it would keep you from him?”
“Like I already told everybody, I don’t have anything to give. The shelter kicked us out, and I’ve got no money. If Hank got Austin back, God help us. And things was heading just that way because I couldn’t take care of my baby anymore. I want my kids—” Her voice broke. “I want Austin to have a future. I don’t want him growing up like I did. Kids making fun. Being marked like that. I don’t want him ending up like I did.”
“Oh, Misty—” Danae’s words came out on a sob. “Why didn’t you talk to us before? Why didn’t you—”
“What good would it’ve done?” Misty’s voice held a hard edge.
“We could have helped you find someplace. We could have—” She stopped short, swallowing a sob.
Dallas wanted to pick up the plea for her, but he couldn’t honestly say what they would have, or could have, done to stop what happened. And it didn’t matter now. It was too late. The damage was done.
And Austin was so much more than collateral damage.
* * *
The sun rode low in the sky, framed by the towering Gateway Arch as they drove east on Walnut Street, trying to get back to the Interstate. She’d lived in Missouri, not three hours from St. Louis, all her life, and she’d never been up in the arch. She wondered if the view from the top might somehow give her a perspective she certainly didn’t have now.
And needed desperately.
Dallas drove in silence, the hum of the tires on the highway affording an invisible wall of privacy between them. But when the city landscape gave way to rolling hills and wooded fields, he reached across the console and took her hand. “What are you thinking?”
“I wish we could see the future.”
He nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. “If we knew for sure Austin would spend all his childhood and teenage years with us, it would be a no-brainer. We love him. He needs a home. We have one to offer.”
“But if by some miracle Misty gets paroled five or ten years from now, could you give him back, babe? I don’t know if I could!”
He heaved a long sigh and squeezed her hand. “It’s already gut-wrenching to think about sending him back now.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she let them run down her cheeks unchecked. “Everything in me wants to give him back now before we set ourselves up for the most painful thing we’ve ever experienced. But . . . I really think God is saying that Austin needs a family, and we are the very ones God has prepared to be his family.”
Dallas started nodding hard. “Yes. That’s what I think too. But we have to go into it knowing that we might be asked to give him up. We have to treat him as if he belongs to God.”
“The way Hannah gave up Samuel in the Bible.”
“That couldn’t have been easy.”
“No. But Dallas, sometimes God asks birth parents to give their babies up too. Remember when my cousin lost her baby?” Grant’s brother’s daughter had given birth to a stillborn baby. A perfect little boy, full-term. It had devastated them. But now their Christmas cards showed three precious little stair-step towheads about the age of Corinne’s girls.
“So . . . you’re willing to take Austin and raise him as long as God allows? Even if it means we might not be able to actually adopt him?”
She nodded, her throat full. “We have a little boy, Dallas. He might not belong to us in the way we’d hoped. But we have a little boy to love and to raise.”
“For however long,” Dallas reminded. “We don’t know how this all works. There are still too many unanswered questions.”
She nodded, not wanting to let him put a damper on the overflowing of awe and joy and grief and confusion that bubbled up in her. “We need to start making lists!” She rummaged in her purse.
“Danae . . . We’ve got to talk to an attorney and see what this involves. To be sure we can get him medical care when he needs it and permission for whatever vaccinations and that kind of stuff he’ll need.”
“We need to talk to Misty about so many things. Surely they’ll let us have a couple of hours with her to iron things out—”
“I wish we could convince her to let us bring Austin to see her. At least once in a while. And tell her that she’ll always be his mother, but that we’ll do our best in her absence.”
Danae wanted to change the subject. She couldn’t bring herself to admit it to Dallas, but she’d been relieved when Misty said she didn’t want Austin to visit her.
“I just don’t want her to think we’re giddy about this,” Dallas said.
Danae cringed. “Oh, Dallas. I am a little bit giddy. I know that sounds terrible. My heart is crushed for Misty, but I love Austin so much. As much as if he were my son. And we get the privilege of raising him. It seems so amazing!”
“Just guard your heart a little bit, babe, OK? Until we’ve talke
d to an attorney. Until we know for sure this is really happening. I don’t want you to get—”
She held up a hand. “I know what you’re saying, I do. But Dallas, I’m starting to wonder if this is what all our waiting has been for—preparing us for Austin. I think I’d rather pour my heart out—our hearts—and if we get hurt in the end, at least we know we gave it our all.”
He looked at her with love in his eyes. “You are an amazing woman, do you know that?”
“Yeah, well, I have a lot of lost time to make up for. I’ve spent too much time whining. I’m so sorry you’ve had to put up with me. But now it’s time to suck it up and man up and all that good stuff.”
He laughed. “I love you.”
“I know you do. And I’ll be forever grateful for that.”
He turned back to the road and she swallowed hard, trying not to fall apart. When she finally could speak again, she put a hand on his knee. “And in case you were wondering, I love you too. Now, could you drive a little faster? I’m missing our boy.”
23
Grant turned away from the chaos that was currently reigning in his living room and adjusted the damper, then closed the fireplace doors, and took a step back to check his handiwork. The fire burned hot and the logs crackled—just the way he liked it. He turned to warm his back at the fire.
Christmas wrapping was strewn from one end of the house to the other, a veritable Toys“R”Us had popped up in his living room, and kids and adults in various stages of sugar-stupor were flopped on the furniture and floor. The guys were sprawled on the sofa, and NBA basketball droned in the background. Perfect Christmas music, all of it.
He loved every inch of the mess, every minute of the day. Christmas was his time. And this had been an extra good one. He caught Audrey’s eye across the room and knew she was reciting the same litany of gratitude he was. Bree had taken CeeCee home and gone on to be with her family, but the rest of them had stretched out and made themselves comfortable in the lull between lunch and leftovers.
Corinne’s girls chattered in the corner of the great room, playing a game of Candy Land with Austin at the kid-sized card table. Austin and the girls had hit it off from the moment they’d met at Thanksgiving. Seeing Danae so happy, so nurturing with little Austin, did his heart good. He’d fit into the family almost seamlessly, though with things still unsettled with the boy’s mother, Grant still hadn’t let himself think of Austin as a grandson. Although, he didn’t know who he was kidding. He already loved the kid like crazy.
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