by Emilia Finn
She nods. “Trust me, I understand more than you could know. I’ve been in your shoes, I’ve fought for a child. And in my case, she wasn’t even mine. She didn’t come from my blood. But I fought anyway. I lived, breathed, and went to war for her, even when it hurt those who didn’t deserve to be hurt. We do what we have to for our children, Mr. Walker. Even when it hurts. Perhaps, especially then.”
“What happened?” Heavy tears blur my vision, and my hands shake as I bring them up to wipe the moisture away. “What happened with your child?”
“Her name is Lily, and she’s a beautiful seven-year-old that attends the same school as Alyssa. They’re only a single grade apart, and I bet, if you asked Lyss about her, she’d know who my girl is. The thing about this being such a small world is that Lily is Britt’s niece, and since Lyssa is yours, which makes her Brooke’s, then that makes Lyss Britt’s niece too.”
She grins and tips a chin toward Bobby. “Like he said, we’re family. Charlie adores Lily, she’s his little cousin, so he takes care of her in that school. And rumor has it that he kind of adores Alyssa too.”
Brooke
Meeting Karla
It’s like a funeral procession. An honor guard. A green mile, perhaps, as Juliette, playing head of Miles’ legal defense, heads out the front door and straight toward the little trio that hasn’t left in the two hours since Lyss and I came home.
They haven’t left, even with the cold breeze outside, and the fact the sun has gone down.
Jules walks alone and exudes power like no one else I’ve ever known. She stops at the gates and speaks for a moment. She and the other chick lawyer exchange words, cards, hands. And then the gates are released.
“Oh god.” Miles walks laps in the living room. Back and forth, with his hands on his hips, and his head in turns drooping low, or thrown back like he’s worried he might be sick.
Lyss is upstairs with Bry and Twain. Everyone seems so relieved that she’s oblivious to what’s going on. She’s unaffected, unafraid now that Miles is in the house, unbothered by the strange visitors.
I don’t think she’s oblivious at all. I think she’s smarter than any of us, and by acting clueless, she’s protecting her father.
“Fuck,” Miles breathes out. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He stops in the middle of the room and turns a full three-sixty. “Brooke?”
“Here.” I step away from the window and move into his arms.
He envelopes me, crushes me, breathes hot air against my scalp, and trembles like he just can’t cope right now.
For six years, he’s been clawing his way out of a hole. He’s been hungry, exhausted, mad, sad, and hurt. And when he thought he was emerging from that hole to find his happiness, he got to the top only to realize it was all a lie. Because now he has a brand-new hole – wider and deeper than the last – to carry his daughter out of.
“It’s going to be okay. There are a lot of people here, and every single one of them is going to fight to keep her here with us.”
“I can’t lose her.” He shakes his head, and jerks me around without realizing. “I refuse. Jules says don’t run, but I’m not letting them take her.”
“We’ll let Jules and the others do their thing.” I press my face to his chest, and hold my breath when his racing heart nearly chokes me up. “We do it legally,” I barely manage to continue. “We do it right, because that’s how you become truly free. But if they make a pass to snatch her, we do it our way. I’m with you, okay? However it goes, I’m with you.”
“Here they come.” Daddy stands at the large floor-to-ceiling window and turns to us. “Fight faces. You know how we get it done.”
“Be brave.” I stand on my toes, and stare into those whiskey eyes. “Be strong. They’re the ones who are scrambling right now. We have her. She’s safe, and she’s ours. Don’t let them psyche you out.”
“I love you.” He presses a kiss to my lips. “Thank you.”
I smile. “Love you too. I’m staying here with you.”
I take his hand, and step away, only to stand shoulder to shoulder and hide our clasped hands between us as Jules leads the trio into the house.
The lawyer – Miranda – I don’t think she loves her job today. No matter how much I want to hate her, I don’t think she wants what her clients want. And call me crazy, but I don’t think the skittish Karla is on board either.
Lorna. Lorna is the purse and the puppeteer.
But I have to focus on Miles now, as his former lover, the mother of his child, walks into the same room as he’s in for the first time since she said she was heading out for groceries.
He takes a step forward without thought, squeezes my hand in his so hard that I barely hold in my hiss. He ignores Miranda, skims over Lorna, and stops on Karla with pure… helplessness in his eyes.
Okay. Not the unfiltered loathing I was expecting.
“Karla?” His voice croaks and cracks. “What the…” His breath comes out on a groan. “What have you done to yourself?”
The woman that weighs eighty pounds – on a heavy day – wears tight jeans and a fur-lined jacket, knee-high boots that emphasize the length and slenderness of her stick-legs, and her arms, thin and wrapped in pea green jacket sleeves, remain folded over her chest as she nibbles on her thumbnail.
“Karla…” Miles takes another step forward, and drags me with him. “What is…” He scrunches his nose. “You look…”
Awful, I supply in my head. Underfed. Overmedicated.
“Hello, Miles.” Her head is up, but her shoulders remain bowed in, her nail between her teeth. “I’ve come for Alyssa.”
“You can’t—”
“Why don’t we take a seat?” Jules gestures toward the couches. “Please, come inside, sit down, and let’s see if we can discuss this.”
“We don’t want to discuss it,” Lorna seethes. “We’ve come for my granddaughter.”
Miles’ fiery gaze snaps to his former sort-of mother-in-law. “She wasn’t speaking to you. If Karla would like to come in and speak, then she’s welcome to. But you aren’t entitled to our hospitality.”
“I’m here with my daughter.” She lifts her chin, looks down on us, despite the fact she’s the shortest person in the room. “I will do anything to make my daughter happy and safe.”
“Funny,” he growls. “I feel exactly the same.”
He turns to Karla again, but his concern is gone. “Sit down. Speak.”
“Where is she?” Lorna looks around the living room. “Where’s Alyssa?”
“She’s being cared for somewhere else, where she’s not witness to this.” Miles drags me to the couch opposite where Karla and Miranda sit, drags me down, and boldly keeps a hold of my hand when I instinctively try to pull back.
He shakes his head, reaffirms his grip, then places them in his lap. “You cannot have my daughter, Karla. You walked away from us.”
“Miles.” Juliette shakes her head. Then she turns to Miranda. Lawyer to lawyer. Professional to professional.
“The child will remain in the home she knows, with the people she knows, with the father she’s been with since birth. And there’s not a judge in this state or the next that will allow you to take her from him.”
“Miss Davis is entitled to her daughter, Miss Jones. No formal custody agreements have been submitted, which means she has just as much right as your client.”
“That may be so, in which case, we’ll see you in court. But know this; you will not take her from this house while we wait for that judge. If, once the courts come to a decision, custody is split, then we’ll work on that.”
“Juliette,” Miles snaps. “We’re not working on a damn thing. She’s not going with them.”
Jules turns to us, flattens her lips, and widens her eyes in that way that says she’s about to staple his lips shut.
Then she turns back to Miranda. “Is your client the younger or older Miss Davis?”
“The older,” Miranda answers quickly, “but—”
/>
“No buts. Your client has no legal rights to the child whatsoever.” She turns to Lorna and leans a little forward. “I don’t know your game, lady. But you’re wasting your money on a lawyer that literally cannot win. You have nothing to gain here. You may leave.”
“I will not!” she blusters. “She’s my lawyer, but I’m paying her to represent my daughter!”
Jules looks to Karla, gives her one of her friendly smiles. “Karla? You’re the child’s mother, which means you have a right to be here. But you need to ask yourself, your mother, and your lawyer what each of you would like to achieve from this meeting. You say you want your daughter, but you walked six years ago, and have made no efforts to contact her since. You walked out, you were not forced out, so you will find this an uphill battle that’ll become costly very quickly. Miranda is here to make money. And your mother seems intent on spending money for no reason…” She leans forward. “Nobody spends money for no reason. I suggest you get to the bottom of her motives.”
“I want my daughter.” Karla’s voice is rough, scratchy and quiet. “I couldn’t cope six years ago. But I can now. I want her.”
I look to the oldest woman. A woman I have no business speaking to. I really should sit back and shut my trap, but a thought niggles at me.
“Lorna?” I pat Miles’ knee when he tenses up, but I look the barely-wrinkling woman in the eyes. “You’ve been without your daughter for six years, you’ve missed her, had people searching for her. You’ve been desperate to have her back.”
“Who is this?” She flicks a hand in my direction, dismissive and rude. “Why is she here?”
“She’s mine,” Miles growls. “And this is her home. That’s why she’s here. And I know you already knew that, so watch your fucking attitude around her.”
“You think you get to create your own family?” she snaps. “You move here, you follow the gravy train, all of that Kincaid money, and now you’re one of them? You’re living with them, you’re with one of them?”
“You want him for Karla,” I guess. “You want him back, you want her back, and wherever they go, Alyssa goes. Is that what this is?”
She shakes her head with ugly, head-snapping movements. “I don’t have to speak to you. You’re not a part of this.”
“You came to my home; you made me a part of this. If you wanted to speak only to him, then you should have done this at Jules’ office. Now you get all of us, and we’re not inclined to let you throw a tantrum because Miles left you.”
“He can’t leave!”
“He waited six years! Six years he stayed in that apartment, he sat by and did his best by his child. He stuck close for you, for Karla, for Lyss. But then he left to make a better life for her. You can’t hate him for that.”
“Can we begin with supervised visits?” Miranda inserts. She looks to Jules. “Let my client see her child while we wait for the judge.”
“No.” Miles sits back and inclines his chin. “Absolutely not.”
“Miles.” Jules turns to us. Then she turns to Miranda. “Excuse us for a moment.”
She jumps up from the couch and snags our hands. In just seconds, she drags us up the stairs and into the hall just outside Lyss’ room.
“I’m not letting them have her!” Miles hisses.
Jules steps in closer, murmurs, “Lorna, that old bitch, I hate her as much as you do. But the girl, Karla… she’s barely more than a child herself. Still. She’s just a baby, even after all these years. Her mother is controlling her, her mother is controlling this whole situation, and we need to understand why. But as far as Karla is concerned…”
She pulls back and studies my eyes. Then Miles’. “Imagine if the situation were reversed. Imagine if they had Lyss, and you had to wait months until the custody hearing. Supervised visits are the best you can hope for.”
“Juliette,” he groans. “I can’t hand her over. I won’t—”
“Completely supervised,” she continues. “Just Karla. Not Lorna. She has a right to spend time with her child.”
“She walked!”
“And now she’s back. Send a representative; I can go, I can be the supervision. Or Kit. Bobby. Bry. Whoever you wanna send. Or it can be you, though I doubt you can be impassive enough not to create friction.”
“I don’t need to be impassive,” he growls. “She’s my fucking daughter.”
“It will look good when this goes to court,” Jules presses. “You took care of her, Miles. You stuck for six years, then you left to give her a good life. Now that your history has come back to kick you in the ass, you’re cooperating, you’re not hiding the child.”
As a group, we all turn to the closed bedroom door.
We’re hiding her, alright.
“I can’t lose her,” he pleads. “I can’t risk it. Karla has no fucking clue how to care for her. She doesn’t know her allergies, she doesn’t know her medical history. She doesn’t know that my baby is sensitive and likes to hug just for the sake of hugging.”
“Send a representative you trust,” she repeats. “You trust her with Bryan, so send Bryan. He’ll play the part of bodyguard while mother and daughter stack blocks.”
“I’ll go,” I blurt out, then back up when their penetrating eyes come to me. “I know her, Miles. I know how to keep her safe. I know how she likes her hugs, and you know I won’t let anyone take her. I won’t take my eyes off her, not for a second. And if Karla takes her out to eat, I’ll make sure the food is safe.”
I take his hand. “I can do it. You trust me to bake for her all the time now. You trust me to feed her. You know I can fight. You know that if I go, I’ll have a hundred sets of eyes on my back anyway.”
“My girlfriend…” Miles murmurs on a pained groan, “and my ex-girlfriend. How is this my life?”
“I’ll be there as Lyss’ friend. I’ll be her touchstone; she’ll know she can trust me. She can hang with Karla, but if she needs a little piece of home, I’ll be right there. And if Karla needs a little help with food choices, I can be that person too. I can be impassive. I’m just the friend.”
I squeeze his hand. “I’m not usually this… impassive about something so important, but I don’t hate Karla. I know you do,” I rush on. “I know you have reason to. But that girl downstairs, she’s scared, and…” I shrug. “I can’t muster any hate for her. She’s weak and afraid, she won’t look anyone in the eyes. She’s letting her mother call the shots. If the courts decide that we must share, then creating a relationship now is in our best interests. Show mercy now, collect goodwill for later. You said she used to be wild and free and always ready to party…” I shake my head. “She doesn’t look all that free to me.”
Miles stares for a minute more. His jaw grinds, and his eyes plead for someone to wake him from this nightmare. But when I do nothing but hold his hand, and when Jules only shakes her head, he groans and turns to the bedroom door we’re guarding.
He releases my hand, gently taps the door in warning, then he walks in to find Bry sitting on the floor with his legs crossed, Lyss in his lap, and in front of them, one of my books spread open while Lyss reads for him.
“Hey, Daddy.” Lyss picks up the book – the book I wrote about Bry – and grins.
I never told her, but I feel that deep in her heart, she knows who each book is about. And now she’s gravitating toward her favorite uncle.
Her smile falters when Miles doesn’t reciprocate. “Are you still mad?”
“No, baby. I’m sorry.” He moves forward and plucks her straight from Bry’s lap.
He pulls her up so her limbs wrap around his body and he buries his face in her neck. And he holds on tight enough that tears come to my eyes.
It’s like he’s already saying goodbye.
“Are the visitors still here?”
“Yeah, baby. Can we…” He releases her, and allows her space to sit back in his arms. “Did Uncle Bry tell you who’s down there?”
Bry shakes his head behind Lyss.
“Yeah.” Miles reaches up with a shaking hand and brushes loose hair behind Lyss’ ear. “Um… the woman downstairs, the one with the red hair, that’s your mom. Is that…” he hesitates. “How do you feel about that?”
“I feel…” she shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t know her. I know Miss Brooke.”
I bring a hand up to my mouth and pray that I don’t cry. Keep it in. Hold it in.
“We do know Miss Brooke, don’t we?” Miles fakes a smile and presses a kiss to Lyss’ cheek. “We love her very much.”
Lyss nods.
“But that other woman, Karla…” His voice cracks. “She’s your mom. And she’d like to spend a little time with you. She wants to have a playdate with you,” he croaks. He gives a violent sniffle until his chest expands, then he locks his emotions in and shakes his head. “Um… Karla would love it if you could maybe play with her sometimes. Does that… is that something you’d like to do?”
“When do I have to do it?” Scared eyes flick to me. Then back to Miles. “Can Twain play too?”
“Yes.” Miles nods. “Yes, Twain can go anywhere you go. And there’s nobody on this planet that can say no.”
“Oh… okay.” Tears fill her whiskey brown eyes despite her attempt at bravery. “Will you play too, Daddy?”
He looks to Jules.
She shakes her head.
He looks back to Lyss. “I don’t think so. But Miss Brooke will play. She’ll be with you too.”
“The whole time?” her eyes light up. “For real?”
I choke out a laugh. “For real. The whole time.”
“I can do that.”
She grabs Miles’ face, pulls him around until their eyes meet, and then she proves her maturity. “Will that make you happy, Daddy? Do you want me to play with Karla?”
“I want…” He coughs and clears his throat. “I don’t know what I want, baby. I’m scared.”