Good Buddy

by Dori Ann Dupré

  Loretta grinned at him and handed him a business card.

  “Loretta Cordova,” he bellowed out loud reading off the card. Then glancing at her, he put his hand out and continued, “Nice to meet you. I’m real sorry to hear about your son’s wife and that awful loss.”

  “Thank you, Mister…”

  “Coughlin,” he replied. “Lex Coughlin.” Holding his almost finished can of Coke, he asked, “Are you done with that can of Diet Coke?”

  “No, not yet, sir. Why?” Loretta asked.

  “Well, I’d like to take it with me for my daughter’s recycling project. She’s running a recycling program for her sorority and asked me to grab any extra aluminum cans I could while I was out and about today. I have almost a full box of them in my car,” he stated. “You know these liberal do-gooder kids here in Chapel Hill…always trying to save the Earth and hug a tree and all that.”

  “Yes, they are,” Loretta agreed. “I’m not done with this one yet, though.

  “Oh, alright then,” he responded. “Well, you take care now,” he said and walked out of the salon and back onto Franklin Street.

  A few minutes later, Loretta walked back to her station from the back to replace some color supplies. As she went to grab her Diet Coke to take a sip before starting on Taylor’s color, she realized it was gone.

  “What happened to my Diet Coke? I swore I left it right here,” she asked, hoping Taylor would have an answer. Taylor just shrugged and flipped through the latest issue of People Magazine.

  A Day of Reckoning (Part One)

  Buddy dropped Gabby off at her babysitter’s house so he could get some work done in the peace and quiet. It’s a little tough at times to tend to a toddler, and keeping Gabby out of mischief appeared to be a full-time job lately. Buddy realized, after stopping Gabby just in time from pouring the entire box of laundry detergent onto the kitchen floor, that her babysitter was probably not paid enough.

  Just because the love of your life dies doesn’t mean that your cases stop needing attention and the calendar call stops bellowing out your court-appointed clients’ names and the bills stop needing to be paid on time. It was good for him to work anyway; it kept his mind occupied for a few hours and from dwelling on his immeasurable loss and the deep pit residing within his stomach, which was not letting up at all, even after five weeks.

  Molly finally went back to school after a solid week home full of crying and watching a lot of videos in the living room. If Bo had still been alive, he would’ve been good about helping them through all of this. He would’ve sat with Molly, a constant companion, the guardian of and witness to her pain…like dogs do. But after Bo had to be put down, he and Julie decided they’d wait a while before adopting a new dog. Maybe now a new dog was just what the doctor should order for the devastated Cordova family.

  As he started picking through the folders containing the cases that needed more immediate attention, there was a sharp knock on the door.

  “Hi. Are you Jonathan Cordova?” the young, fresh faced sheriff’s deputy asked.

  “Yes,” Buddy answered, puzzled. He wasn’t expecting a deputy today and had no idea why one would come otherwise. The deputy handed him a large envelope. “You’ve been served.”

  When Buddy went into his house and opened it, he saw something that blew his mind into next Tuesday. It was a copy of a petition to the Court, submitted by a family law attorney in Fayetteville, for full custody of Molly Saint, a minor child. And it was filed on behalf of Jedidiah and Tammy Jo McVicar of San Antonio, Texas, maternal grandparents.

  Buddy felt his stomach lurch. Running into the bathroom, he threw up the contents of his breakfast and probably his dinner from the night before.

  About thirty minutes after the deputy dropped off the envelope, Gaynelle Flowers knocked on Buddy’s door. Buddy let her inside, and she found her way to his couch in the living room.

  He was still feeling ill after receiving the paperwork informing him that he could possibly lose custody of Molly to her grandparents. This thought never entered his mind. Ever. And he was a lawyer for Christ’s sake! He always thought of every possible legal angle in every possible legal situation! He was in between shock and horror with the desperate pang of grief hanging over everything that happened…and then came the overwhelming sensation of fear and dread. What would he tell Molly?

  After some brief small talk about how well her son was doing at the community college in the general education program and in his job at the new Applebee’s, which opened near the mall, she began to tell him an interesting and puzzling story.

  “Well, a few weeks ago, I was mending a hem on my mother’s favorite pants. And this strange man came to my door. He was real big. Well, not big like fat…more like large. Yes, the word ‘large’ is best to describe his size. If that makes any sense.” She looked down at her fingernails, and Buddy started to squirm.

  “Does this have something to do with you needing my help?” Buddy asked.

  “No, it’s not that. There was just…this man…at my door. And he told me that he was looking for a lawyer…you know, one that was ‘affordable’…no offense, Buddy…”

  Buddy waved her off. He knew what “affordable” meant. A cheap lawyer. A lawyer for poor people.

  “Anyway, he asked me if I ever used you before…that he heard you were affordable and good.”

  “I don’t get why that’s so strange. People ask for lawyer referrals all the time,” Buddy stated coolly. He was feeling even worse than before, and the last thing he wanted right now was one of Gaynelle’s stories that he didn’t have time for. He knew he was too nice or something. People just felt like they could tell him their stupid stories. Like he had nothing better to do.

  “No, it wasn’t like that. I just got an awful feeling from him. Nobody knows that I called you in to help my son way back when he was in trouble. So why would this random person show up at my door of all places asking me about you when nobody really knows anything about it?”

  “Well somebody knows about it. Maybe your son told him?”

  “I don’t think so. He was humiliated. He don’t talk about his troubles with the law.”

  Buddy sat back in the cushion. He wanted to go into the fetal position and fall asleep. The gnawing feeling of the pit in his stomach just stayed put, a permanent parasitic resident since that rainy day he stood shell-shocked in the Chuck E. Cheese.

  “Okay, so why are you telling me about this now if he showed up a while ago?” he asked her.

  “Well, at first I thought it was strange but didn’t think much more of it. Until I watched the news about that Scott case you got goin’ on. Look, I don’t know what other cases you’re workin’ on right now, but I know you have the Scott one because the news lady asked you a question in the courthouse and everybody around my street talks about it all the time. No offense, but some of the ladies in my knitting circle don’t know how you can defend someone who is obviously a murderer. But then some of the other ladies think he’s innocent because no one that good looking could be a murderer. But then I remind them of Ted Bundy.” Gaynelle stopped and rubbed her hands together. “But anyway, after I saw it on the news, I got to thinking about that large man. He just came across like he was diggin’ around about something. Like maybe he was a PI or workin’ for somebody trying to fish for information on you and the case you’re working on.” Gaynelle put her elbows to her knees as she leaned over. Then she whispered, like someone else could be listening in on them in the house. “I watch Law and Order, and I know what a PI looks like and their tactics. I’m just tellin’ you that he’s out there, and he’s trying to spoil your case.”

  Buddy wanted to throw up his hands in defeat. Another Sherlock Fucking Holmes TV detective trying to investigate something. Those damn shows have done nothing but make the jury pool tainted with citizens who believe they know everything and are trained investigato
rs.

  “I’m just sayin’ Buddy. I think that son of a bitch you’re defending is guilty as sin, and I hope he rots in prison for the rest of his life. But I like you as a person, so I’m just tellin’ you as a favor that the man was suspicious.”

  “Ms. Flowers, thank you for the heads-up. I think it’s all good, though. My cases are all good, so you don’t need to worry about snooping PIs and the prosecution trying to get one over on me.” He stood up and started to lead her to the door. “Believe it or not, most of the time, we don’t have a whole lot of personality driven drama going on between the prosecution and defense sides. It makes for good TV, but really, most cases are boring in real life.”

  “But Buddy, I’m telling ya, there was something about that man just telling me he was out to get you!”

  “I promise. I’ll be fine, Ms. Flowers. I am taking good care of my cases, so don’t you worry about them. Okay?” He opened the door, and she followed him out on the porch.

  “Alright, Buddy. I know you think I’m just a crazy old woman with too much time on her hands, but if that man wasn’t a PI, then I will get my hair dyed purple next week!” she declared.

  “Okay, Ms. Flowers. Thank you for your concern. I do appreciate it.”

  Buddy walked back into his quiet and empty house and decided to go pick up Gabby from her babysitter’s house a bit early so he could wait for Molly to get home from school. He had no idea how to tell her about what’s happened, but he knew that he had to. And soon.

  Orphan

  Molly put Gabby’s socks over the top of her small pink feet. Then she picked up her white and purple flower print shirt and pulled it over her small head.

  “Want Elmo,” Gabby said in her toddler gibberish.

  “You can have Elmo after I get you dressed,” Molly said with the authority of a mother who has a proper feeding, sleeping, and diaper changing color coordinated schedule posted on a refrigerator.

  “Want Elmo!” Gabby shouted.

  The fluffy red Elmo sat across the room in a heap on Gabby’s new bed. He had a huge smile, and it was difficult not to be happy inside when you looked at him. Molly liked the Elmo when Buddy found him, smiling and gesturing all that joy at them from behind his cardboard prison at the Toys R Us this past December. It laughed when it was tickled. However, Molly found herself hating the Elmo by New Year’s Day because Gabby tickled it and tickled it until Buddy would have to take it and hide the toy away in a cabinet, giving them all a break.

  Just before her mom died, her parents bought Gabby a “big girl bed.” It was really a twin-sized bed, the same size Molly had in her room. They saw no point in buying one of those stupid small toddler beds, which would just last maybe a year anyway. If Gabby needed to be out of her crib, then she was ready to sleep in a normal bed. They added small gates to the sides to keep her from falling out at night.

  “No, Gabby. You need to be dressed first.”

  Gabby started giving her big sister a hard time, but Molly didn’t mind. She loved her baby sister and would do anything for her. She wanted to give her the Elmo, but she knew that Gabby had to first learn that there was a time and place for everything. First, get dressed. Then, Elmo. Then, breakfast.

  Molly worked hard to push Gabby’s pants over her squirming, chubby legs. Her own grief was now back in full force, reversing itself from a lingering dull aching pain, since Buddy’s talk with her.

  Yesterday, when she went to school, she felt better than she had in any of the weeks since her mom died. The constant hole in her gut, which ate not only any food she managed to get down but also any more tears she thought she had inside her, began to dissipate just a little. And then Buddy told her the news: her grandparents wanted her to come live with them. In Texas.

  Molly couldn’t understand why in the world they would want to take her away from her family. She couldn’t understand why they would want to separate her from Buddy, who has raised her for the past five years…as well as her baby sister, who was still so small and had no mommy and needed her to be there to show her the ropes. She couldn’t comprehend why they would want a young girl to come and live in their home, a girl they did not know, a girl who wouldn’t mind visiting or getting to know them…but also a girl who did not want to go live there. They were essentially strangers to her.

  She knew that her mom and her grandmother had some falling out many years ago. But move away from North Carolina? The only place she really remembered living? Away from her friends, her school, her soccer team and her dad and sister? It just made no sense why a couple of old people in Texas would think this was what was best for her, especially after she just lost her mom – the only person in her life who had always been by her side.

  Yesterday, when she got home from school, Buddy tried to explain it to her like she was just an eleven-year-old girl learning about the laws of the land in Social Studies class. He stood in the living room with his hands in his pockets and his eyes shut, trying to keep himself from crying. But she wasn’t fooled. His lip was quivering.

  Molly sat on the couch with her hands and arms around her knees. Her backpack was on the floor, and Gabby was taking a nap.

  “Moll, under the law, you are an orphan. Your father is dead. Your mother is dead. I never legally adopted you. That makes you technically and legally orphaned,” he explained, his voice breaking into cracks, the kind that sound like you’re going to burst into tears at any moment. “I just hate myself for not adopting you. I don’t know why I didn’t insist on it right off the bat, as soon as your mom and I got married. It’s not even that big a deal to do because your real father is deceased. It’s not like how in some cases the real father is still alive somewhere…and still has rights…”

  Buddy looked down at the floor at the juice spot in the carpet as his voice trailed off. He put his hands through his hair, and Molly could see that his face was overcome with the guilt and pain of what his failure to act might cost him. And cost Gabby. And cost her.

  Molly watched him closely. She wasn’t allowing herself to cry…yet…although she was scared to death of what this all meant for her. She knew she was just a kid, and sometimes grownups will make her do things she doesn’t think make any sense just because she is a kid and they are the grownups.

  Buddy stood tall, clearly drained of energy, and Molly could feel herself hurting all over again. Only this time, it was for him. Buddy loved her. They were father and daughter, no matter what the stupid laws say. No matter what science says. The only steps at their house were the ones that led to the door inside. And inside was a family. A sad family…a small family…but a family nonetheless.

  She had no idea that she was considered an orphan. Orphans were kids with no parents, like in the movie Annie. They were kids who lived in a big unkempt old house with peeling lead paint on the walls and were forced to clean floors and no one would bring them home to live with them because they were too old to love once they got around eight years old. Orphans were babies in foreign hospitals, screaming in cribs, their fists clenched in the air, their cries ignored, where their mothers dumped them because they were poor and had no one to help them.

  Orphans were alone. They had no one.

  How can she possibly be an orphan when she has a dad? Sure, her “real father,” whatever that even meant, has been gone for half of her life. He loved her, and she loved him…but he died and was never coming back. Buddy is now her dad. He became her dad when her mom married him and made it all official.

  But to Molly, he became her dad long before that day. Like the time when he taught her how to ride the two-wheeler and the time he took her to the beach to see the USS North Carolina Battleship and the time he brought her to Welby to show her where he grew up and the time he took her to Chapel Hill so she could get a haircut by his mom, Loretta. Buddy became her dad when he carried her up the stairs and put her to bed while he was babysitting when her mom went to a late
meeting at the library. Buddy thought she was asleep, but she wasn’t. She just wanted him to carry her and put her into bed, like how her daddy used to before he died. He became her dad when he sat on the floor and let her brush his hair…and he became her dad when he helped her prepare for her math test.

  After he married her mom, he proved he was her dad when he went to Kerr Drug and bought her some maxi-pads when she first got her period in the bathroom at the Long John Silver’s. He proved it when he listened to her read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone until late at night, long after she was supposed to be asleep. And he proved he was her dad when she told him about her day and talked about the crush she had on Tyler Grey when she started the school year. He proved he was her dad when he set her up her own bank account and put $100.00 in it as her “starter savings.” He proved he was her dad every single day he worked hard to provide for her, her mom, and her baby sister…and how he led a life of integrity with everything he did.

  As Gabby ran across the bedroom to finally claim her Elmo, Molly laid back on the mauve carpeting of Gabby’s small girly room, still very much set up like a nursery, except for the “big girl bed” along the wall. The backs of her legs felt good resting on the cool strands beneath. Her mind continued to race. What in the world was she going to do if the people at the courthouse made her go live all the way in Texas?

  Tears started streaming down her cheeks, covering the time-lightened childhood freckles, thick with the unknown angst of a young life turned upside-down. Gabby hopped over to her and laid down alongside of her big sister. She held Elmo up in the air, then put one of his tiny red hands in Molly’s hand and the other tiny red hand in her own hand…an imaginary happy friend suspended between sisters.

  Chapter 11

  June – September 2001