“I don’t think so.” I shake my head as I continue to ponder my options. “I hadn’t realized it until now, but I don’t think I’ve been passionate about the real estate game for quite some time. I think maybe this is a blessing in disguise, time to choose a new direction.”
“Why don’t you just not work, then?” Kai asks as he puts two pieces of corn on the cob on his plate and sits down next to his grandmother. “Like Aldo and Zack’s moms? And doesn’t Xander’s dad stay home, too?”
I study Kai as I try to figure out how that would play in court. Would it look better if Kai has two working parents? Or will it cut in our favor if one parent has more time to devote to the kids? I could even spin the situation for a judge’s benefit and say I decided to focus on the kids because of how confusing current circumstances have become, show how I’m always putting them first. As I’m thinking it through, I realize that maybe this isn’t just about pretending that Kai and Teddy need me around more. Maybe they actually will need me around more. Maybe this case is going to require so much focus that it’s best if I’m just as present as possible.
And then the worst thought of all hits me, which is that I better make the most of the time I have left with the family we’ve created. It could all be over soon.
After another hour of cannonballs and pencil dives, the boys have finally tired themselves out, and, and they are now sitting quietly in the backseat of the Range Rover with damp hair and fresh clothes. As I navigate through the tree-lined streets of Greenwich toward the highway, the phone rings and Chip’s number appears on the car’s dash screen.
“Hey,” I answer with genuine cheer in my voice. It’s such a relief to have returned to a place of affection with him, a sliver of sunlight in the otherwise bleak family drama we’re suffering through at the moment.
“I just got fucking served with court papers!” His angry voice fills the car at high volume.
I swerve to the side of the road and take the phone off speaker as I move the gearshift into park.
“Jesus, Chip, I’m in the car with boys.” I glance in the backseat and quickly add, “The language on you,” as if that is the reason I didn’t want the kids to hear what he said. “You’re not on speaker anymore.”
“Shit,” he says, but pauses for only a moment before he continues. “A process server, this shady guy with a beat-up messenger bag and a ratty suit—he came to my office, to my desk.”
I want to ask if Chip has read the papers, what they say, if he’s called Lorraine, our lawyer, if we’re going to survive this. A lone car appears in my rearview mirror, making its way down the winding suburban road where I’ve stopped, slowing as it approaches us. I roll down the window and wave the car past us.
“I can’t now,” I say, glancing in the rearview again. I see Teddy pulling down the TV screen in the backseat. I shake my head no, and he rolls his eyes at me but flips it back into the closed position.
“Ok,” Chip says, the timbre of his voice so much higher than I’m accustomed to. He’s breathless and panicked in a way I don’t think I’ve ever heard him. “I’ll go through these and talk to Lorraine. Call me as soon as you’re home.”
As I pull the car back onto the road, Kai asks, “What’s he so upset about?”
“Just something that happened at his office this morning. You know how he gets worked up sometimes,” I add, trying to play it off. Except that Chip almost never gets worked up. Histrionics are my thing, not his. And damn their little ten-year-old brains, but the squinty eyes and tight lips I see in the mirror tell me they’re not buying it one bit.
“It’s about the Wingates.” Teddy says this as a statement, but I know it’s really just a question in disguise. He’s acting like he already knows the scoop so that I won’t try lying.
“Look,” I say, “let’s just talk about something else. It’s not important right now.”
“About the Wingates?” Kai asks, looking at Teddy. “About them how?”
Teddy opens his mouth, but I shut him down before he can say something to frighten Kai.
Or rather, frighten him more. There’s no reason that innocent boy needs to feel the abject terror that I’m suffering at this moment. “It is about the Wingates,” I confess. “They want to be able to spend more time with you, Kai, and we’re just figuring out how to handle it in a way where everyone can feel the most comfortable.”
“More time how?” Kai asks, and I can’t read his voice. He almost sounds excited.
“We’re not sure yet,” I say as I merge the car onto the highway. The clanking sound of a truck barreling past us punctuates my statement.
“What if they want him to go live with them in Arizona?” asks Teddy.
So much for hiding the ball.
“Way to cut to the chase, kid,” I answer. “We don’t know exactly what they’re asking yet, but there’s no reason to jump straight to that scenario.”
Tell that to my blood pressure, I think as I glance in the mirror again. Kai is looking out the window, while Teddy has his gaze on me. I give a small shake of my head. His lips tighten in surrender, an understanding that he needs to put his brother’s emotional comfort above his own at this moment. He blinks at me a couple of times and then he trains his gaze out the window, just like his brother beside him.
After we get back to the apartment, Kai and Teddy begin unpacking their overnight bags and I call Chip, as he instructed, but the call goes straight to voicemail.
We’ve only been home about twenty minutes when I get a call from Rory, the doorman. There is a man named Antonio Sharp in the lobby, Rory tells me, who has a package he’d like to hand deliver. I know exactly what this is about, and I’m not interested in having the guy come up here. I contemplate asking Rory to send him away, to tell him I’m not at home, but I’ve seen how these things shake out on TV. Eventually, the guy will find me; I might as well succumb to the inevitable. I tell Rory that I’ll come down to accept the delivery, and then I shout to the boys that I’m running to the lobby for a minute. They holler back a muffled, unified response, and I hurry down to face my fear.
When the elevator doors open into the brightly lit lobby, I’m surprised to find Chip there already, engaged in conversation with a middle-aged man in a hellacious brown blazer and mismatched yellow necktie. Chip catches sight of me and gives an almost imperceptible shake of his head, like I should either stay back or walk on by. I suppose the custody battle can’t begin in earnest until both of us have been served with the court papers—but what is the end game here? Am I going to spend the next eight years dodging the process server, running around in disguises or never setting foot outside the apartment? As much as I’d prefer to avoid this guy and his combover, I think this is a moment for ripping off the Band-Aid.
I walk up to where they’re standing, alongside rows of mailboxes. “I’m Donovan Gallo-Rigsdale,” I say. “Lay it on me.” I hold out my hand for the manila envelope he’s clutching.
“Have a good day,” he says with a curt nod as he hands me the folder, and then he pivots toward the building’s revolving door without finishing whatever he had been saying to Chip.
Chip and I stand underneath the lobby’s art deco chandelier in silence for a moment, watching the man’s departure, and then we look back at each other.
“Why are you home so early?” I ask, not that the sight of his chiseled face doesn’t bring me instant comfort.
“I just needed to be here.”
I try not to think about the fact that Chip would only leave the office early in the direst of circumstances. “Come,” I say. “The boys are upstairs. They were asking in the car about your outburst.”
“We should tell them,” Chip says. When we step into the elevator, he presses the button for our floor and then leans against the brass railing on the wall as if he can’t bear to hold his own weight up for another moment.
“But not until after we read the papers,” I say. “Because”— I perk up with a sudden hope—“maybe it’s no
t even what we think.”
“I already read them. It’s exactly what we think. A total shitshow.” He shakes his head in anger.
I blink once, twice, devastated all over again. The elevator opens to release us, and I follow Chip toward the apartment, but when he opens the door, I hover outside.
“You go in,” I tell him. “Give me a few minutes out here to read these for myself.” I hold up the envelope. “I need to know exactly what we’re up against.”
Chip nods and kisses my temple before stepping over the threshold and closing the door behind himself.
I sink down beside the door and take one long, deep breath before tearing the top off the envelope. I’m expecting to see a lengthy legal memorandum or at least a complaint, but instead I find two short documents. The first is a pro forma summons, literally a fill-in-the-blank kind of form, demanding that Christopher Latham Rigsdale III and Donovan Gallo-Rigsdale appear at New York County Family Court on a date in September that is approximately three weeks from today. I flip to the second document, which bears the title “PETITION FOR CUSTODY” in big, shouty capitals, as if the simple fact of this document is not terrorizing enough. I read quickly through the paragraphs, most of which also seem to be written in stock language for filings like this, talking about “Petitioners this” and “Respondents that,” but mainly making clear that Petitioners want to wrench custody of Kai away from Respondents, post-haste.
I scan the paper quickly, taking in where they’ve entered names, the relief they are seeking, and so on, until I reach the paragraph numbered 13. The document asks the person filling it out to complete a statement: It would be in the best interest of the child for the Petitioners to have custody for the following reasons, the form states, and then it leaves a blank space. The Wingates—or, more likely, their lawyer—filled in a list of seven answers.
1. Petitioners are the child’s biological parents;
2. Petitioners reside with the child’s biological sibling;
3. Custody was granted to Respondents under erroneous information;
4. Due to the surrogacy arrangement and fertility interventions, Petitioners were unaware this child was their biological offspring;
5. Petitioners believe child will thrive more in traditional family setting with parents to whom he is biologically related than with two men to whom he bears no genetic relationship.
I gasp as I read number five. For some reason, I didn’t imagine Maggie and Nick would bring up our sexuality. I mean, that’s dirty pool. Our orientation didn’t matter to her when we entered into the surrogacy contract eleven years ago. Though it did matter to Nick, I remind myself, remembering their long-ago breakup. How foolish of me to believe that people could truly evolve. I brace myself for the remaining two points:
6. Petitioners believe the child would flourish in a suburban environment instead of a crowded city;
7. Petitioner Margaret Wingate is a trained educator who possesses the necessary expertise for rehoming the minor child and orienting him to the painful reality of his biological history.
I shove the papers back inside the ripped envelope and rest my head back against the wall. Orienting him. Yeah, I’d like to orient her about the real meaning of family. My chest begins to feel tight as I realize that a judge, someone who doesn’t know any of us from Adam, might consider these reasons compelling, might truly grant custody to the Wingates. I close my eyes and follow the breathing exercises that I learned as a teenager, a tactic I’ve resorted to with increasing frequency lately.
As I take in a deep breath and hold it, I shock myself by wondering if we’re in the wrong here. Have we really and truly stolen a child who doesn’t belong to us?
Chapter 27
MAGGIE
SEPTEMBER 2018
Nick and I are sitting at the kitchen table brainstorming all the ways in which our home would be a better environment than the Rigsdales’ city apartment for Kai to finish out the remaining portion of his childhood. After the petition for custody was served, we were given an appearance date, an actual time and day when we will stand in front of a New York City Family Court judge to plead for custody of our son. Our lawyer says this hearing will just be pro forma, a prerequisite to setting the actual trial date, but you never know what might come up at this first hearing. Chip and Donovan will obviously attempt to refute each of the claims we proffered in the initial petition, so our lawyer wants us to stockpile additional arguments to have on deck. The more ways we can show that we would out-parent the Rigsdales, the better.
The sky has begun to darken outside the kitchen windows, and I know that any minute, Nick will declare his intention to return to the restaurant. I’m about to flip the page on the yellow notepad, hoping to eke out one or two last ideas before he goes, but then he releases another deep sigh. It’s the third one in an hour.
“What?” I finally ask as I try, but fail, to read the meaning behind the pinched lines on his face. “What are you not saying?”
He drops his pen onto the table and leans back in his chair to stretch. His gray T-shirt pulls taut across his chest as he interlocks his fingers and extends his arms behind his head. He’s quiet for a moment as he straightens and looks down at our notes about our flexible work hours, our large yard, the fresh mountain air we breathe here, information about Kai’s religious heritage, his older brother, his grandparents, and more. There is a shadow of stubble along Nick’s chin that has returned since the morning, but I don’t point out that he’s running low on time to shave before returning to work.
“I’m starting to second-guess this again,” he says, motioning to the notebook. His eyes meet mine and then shift to the ceiling, as if he’s looking for answers up there among the high-hats, seeking out any opinions other than mine.
“What do you mean?” I’m cautious, hoping he’s focused on a micro issue. “Something on the list?”
He’s quiet, his eyes still focused on the paper in front of us. His reluctance is telling me everything I need to know.
“Or do you mean attempting to get custody at all?”
He’s so slow to react that I begin to feel like we’re on a long-distance call and there’s a delay each time I speak before he hears me.
“The second thing,” he finally says, his lips tightening in defiance.
I’m immediately livid. Now? After two weeks of prepping, after telling our parents, our son, that we are going after Kai, that we’re going to bring him into our family and get him back where he belongs—now he’s having second thoughts?
“I think it’s a little late for that.” I’m careful to keep my tone measured, not to explode and prove to Nick yet again that I too often lead with emotion over logic, even though the man is damn near killing me at the moment.
He’s watching me, waiting for the inevitable outburst. I can see preemptive agitation written in the upward protrusion of his chin, like he’s ready to take whatever I’ve got. I shove my hands into the pockets of my denim shorts so he won’t see the fists I’m making, the nails digging little half-moons into my palms. I don’t want to admit that I’ve been having thoughts similar to his, wondering what is best for Kai, for Wyatt, for our marriage. But even with my doubts, I keep arriving at the same conclusion.
“We’ve already set everything in motion,” I continue, still using my indoor voice. “Filing with the court, telling the Rigsdales. Look, everyone is already miserable about this on both sides. We’re not saving anyone grief by backing out at this point. I mean, not Kai. What message would that send to him, that his birth parents wanted him back, but actually not that badly?”
Nick blinks a couple of times at that, a slight acknowledgment that maybe I’ve made a fair point, that it might be more hurtful to Kai if we stopped fighting for him at this stage of the proceedings.
“We could throw the case,” he offers. “Like a sports game. Lose on purpose.”
The ridiculousness of his words set off an intense visceral reaction in my gut. Suddenly, I can’t
take the sight of his face, like I literally might vomit if I have to look into his questioning eyes for one second longer. I toss my pen onto the table, beeline toward the back door, slide it open, and storm into the night.
The fresh air quells the nausea, but not the anger, the disgust. I stand in the backyard with my hands on my hips, glad that Nick hasn’t followed me, and I stare up at the Sedona sky. Even though there is still a hint of light in the atmosphere, the stars are plain to see. It’s a whole different sky than what I grew up with in Manhattan—another reminder that I’m so many miles away from home, from my dad and Tess.
I can just make out the constellation Lyra above me; its brightest star, Vega, catches my attention. Wyatt once learned in school that the Earth wobbles on its axis, and the direction that was north thousands of years ago is no longer north today. That star, Vega, used to be the North Star, and apparently, as the wobbling continues, in many thousands of years, Vega will eventually be the North Star again. Wyatt kept mentioning this fact long after they finished the astronomy unit in school, fascinated by the idea that there could be a new North Star, a different beacon to follow.
A thought ripples through my mind, something that’s been subtly niggling at me for days already. I take a deep breath and walk back into the kitchen. Nick is still sitting where I left him, watching me.
“Maybe we should move to New York,” I declare.
“What?” His mouth remains slightly agape as he tries to grasp the many implications of my statement.
“Come on, Nick. Keep up, here.” I snap my fingers like I’m trying to wake him.
“We can’t just move to New York,” he scoffs. “And what, you’d want to withdraw the custody petition then?”
“No.” I’m not entirely sure what my plan would be. “But I think it would strengthen our case, showing how much we’re willing to do for Kai. And he’d probably be more comfortable coming to live with us if it didn’t also entail being shipped across the country. He could see Chip and Donovan whenever he wanted. We’ve both said we don’t want to cut them out. So.”
He Gets That from Me Page 21