Half A Heart

by Kim Hartfield

  “Never mind.” I’d had enough of this conversation. Enough of her. “I’m out.”

  Five – Sylvia

  Since it was the weekend, I didn’t see Max until the Monday after my conversation with Jenelle. And she hadn’t left my mind for two minutes the whole time.

  “You win,” I said, setting my purse down on my desk.

  “I what?” Max looked up from his computer, blinking like he didn’t know what I was talking about. “What do I win?”

  I wasn’t sure if he was faking his confusion. Another time, I would’ve cared whether he was jerking me around or not. Today, I wouldn’t bother to figure that out. I needed his input.

  “You win the bet we made. I talked to Jenelle, and now I feel different about the whole thing. Slightly but significantly different.”

  I didn’t mind being a good sport about this. That brief conversation with Jenelle had kind of opened my eyes. I knew I could be a bit judgmental and that real life wasn’t always as easy as theoretical ideas. Talking to her had been a good reminder of that.

  Max’s eyes lit up, and he pushed his chair back from his desk. “So you see she’s in a difficult situation? That the whole thing isn’t her fault?”

  “I wouldn’t quite go that far.”

  She did bear a lot of the responsibility for the position she was in, and she didn’t seem to see that at all. She’d repeatedly blamed her sister for Mercy getting taken. It was like she didn’t understand that the first violation was only the beginning. Mercy had been taken away because of what the CPS workers saw on all the follow-up visits, too.

  I knew from the case file that they hadn’t approved of all of her yelling and screaming. There had been notes about the little girl’s diet and the cleanliness of Jenelle’s apartment. The judge wouldn’t have ruled the way he had at the court hearing if Jenelle had really only made one tiny mistake.

  “She is in a rough spot, though,” I went on. “Considering how many hours she works, it wouldn’t be that easy to find a job. And she doesn’t have support from her family or from the baby daddy. I thought she’d have people to rely on somewhere or another.”

  “Not everyone does.” Max’s face was filled with smug glee.

  “This woman, though – with the way she acts, I really thought she’d rejected other people’s help out of pride. She said her family disowned her for being gay. Can you believe it?”

  Now Max’s features took on a more somber expression. “That does happen.”

  We’d both been lucky. His family was totally cool with his sexuality. As soon as he came out, they’d encouraged him to find a man. He’d been trying, and he dated a lot, although he hadn’t found the right guy yet. That was no one’s fault but his own. He was ridiculously picky, and I always teased him for waiting for Prince Charming.

  My family was a bit more complicated. They weren’t happy when I first told them I was gay – they were attached to the idea of me having a traditional marriage and a nuclear family – but they ended up coming around.

  These days, my mom liked to ask when I was going to get a girlfriend, and my dad always pushed me to bring someone over for the holidays. “Never,” I told both of them. I dated occasionally, but only for fun. I didn’t see myself settling down.

  My parents themselves had split up when I was ten, and I’d seen the same thing happen over and over to my friends. When we grew up and started having our own relationships, I saw it firsthand. Cheating, lying, even just settling – I didn’t want any part of it. Relationships were so last century. I was better off on my own.

  “I couldn’t believe she was gay in the first place,” I mused out loud. “I didn’t peg her that way.”

  “Because she has a kid? Or because she’s feminine?” Max crossed his legs. “You know, a lot of our clients are probably LGBT, even if they don’t mention it. Queer and trans youth are more troubled in a lot of ways.”

  “Spare me the lecture.” I brushed by him and took a seat at my own computer on the other side of the desk.

  “You need to be aware of these things now that you’re working in this field.” There was a note of admonition in his voice, and I was reminded that he was in fact my supervisor.

  “I know, I know. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “Okay, Sylvia. I’m glad you learned something yesterday. Maybe you could try having an open, honest conversation with some of your other clients sometimes.”

  “Don’t push your luck. I still think Jenelle can get out of her situation. She’s not stuck there.” Although none of her problems were an easy fix, there were things she could do.

  “Oh, yeah?” He leaned around the computer so I could see his face. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Why should I do anything? It’s her job to pull herself up by her bootstraps.”

  “And you expect her to have the knowledge and experience necessary to do that all on her own?” He raised his eyebrows. “Why don’t you help her help herself?”

  “Again, why should I? Her life has nothing to do with me.”

  “I figured you’d want to prove your point. Or maybe that you’d actually care about helping someone. Don’t you have half a heart?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe if we made it interesting.”

  “Okay…” He scooched his chair into the aisle so he could look at me head-on. “If you can’t change Jenelle’s life in a significant way, you buy my lunch for a month.”

  “We need a time limit,” I said. “If I can do that by the end of November, you’re buying my lunches.”

  “That only gives you a month. Are you sure?”

  “Completely.” I folded my hands together, already planning what my first step should be.

  “You might be overestimating your own capabilities… but it’s your pocketbook on the line,” he said. “So, where are you taking me for our happy hour tonight?”

  He was trying to needle me, and it wasn’t working. I didn’t care too much about losing the initial bet. I’d definitely win the new one.

  As my conversation with Max wound down, I opened a few links about getting exes to pay child support. Jenelle truly needed that. Even a few hundred dollars a month would make a huge difference in her life. All she needed was a little nudge in the right direction. I wasn’t going to push her through the process, and I wasn’t going to hold her hand.

  And that was what I told her when she came in again on Tuesday.

  She’d come in a few minutes early, arriving before Mercy this time. I knew I only had her attention until the little girl showed up.

  She had on a glitzy top like the first time, along with painted-on jeans and stripper-style heels. She’d done something to her hair so the curls were bigger and puffier than usual. My eyes drifted down to the neckline of her low-cut top, and for a minute I wondered if she’d ever considered being a stripper. I assumed it would’ve paid better than bartending, and she definitely had the body for it. Those breasts would look amazing spilling out of a demi-bra – or without a bra entirely. My throat tightened. I shouldn’t be picturing my client naked.

  “You can ask your lawyer to help you with this,” I said, ripping my eyes back up to her face. “He or she will be able to help you.”

  She took the printouts from my hand, her features imbued with clear suspicion. There was something elegant about her face, when I took the time to look at her carefully. Something dignified, almost regal. Her eyes were pools of brown, near black, and if I looked too hard into them, they’d suck me in.

  “You can’t get the full seven years of child support that you would’ve been entitled to if you’d put him on it from the start,” I said. “But you can ask for a retroactive twenty-four months of payments. And of course, he’d have to pay from this point onward.”

  “You mean I’d get money every month?”

  “Right now the foster family would get it. Once you get Mercy back, you’ll receive the money. It’s for her, so it goes to whoever is her guardian at the time. Even if it�
�s just a hundred bucks – and it would probably be more, but I’m using a low amount to be safe – you could get twenty-four hundred right away. He owes it to you.” I paused. “You do know who the dad is, right?”

  A flash of anger came across Jenelle’s face. “Of course I fucking know.” As soon as the emotion had come, it was gone, and she frowned. “I don’t want him to have any claim on Mercy at all. She’s my baby, not his.”

  “It takes two to make a baby.”

  “I was the one who decided to keep her.” She shifted the duffel bag on her shoulder. Apparently she was still sticking to her policy of not using our toys.

  “Have you been in touch at all? Has he resigned his parental rights?”

  “No and no.” Her nostrils flared, and I could see she was suppressing some emotion.

  “Were you dating? Did he know you were gay?”

  Her eyes flashed, and her voice rose. “Do you think that’s any of your fucking business?”

  It probably wasn’t. No, it definitely wasn’t. It was irrelevant to the situation with her child support, which was all I was trying to help her with. I was going above and beyond by even doing that. I shouldn’t have been curious about her personal life. And yet, as I gazed at her pretty face, the questions wouldn’t stop coming. They were burning me up.

  The front door creaked open, and I glanced at it. Mercy and her foster parents would be coming through the waiting room now, which meant this conversation was about to end. “Just talk to your lawyer, okay? See what he says about child support.”

  “I’ll try. That guy never has time for me. Shitty-ass public defender…”

  Of course that was the kind of lawyer she had. Why had I been picturing a sophisticated man in a suit who’d sit down with her and go over her options, patiently explaining every part of the legislation that applied to her?

  Public defenders were overworked and underpaid. The man probably didn’t give her the time of day, except at the hearings. He might not be able to meet with her once, never mind multiple times. Too bad she wouldn’t be able to afford a proper lawyer.

  My vision of her being awarded thousands of dollars was starting to evaporate. So was the part where she threw her arms around me and hugged me tight, thanking me profusely and telling me how wrong she’d been about me.

  “Well, look through the information I gave you,” I said weakly. “If you have any questions, I can try to help.”

  She looked up sharply, and her eyes fixed on me. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

  My mouth opened, then shut. I had no idea how to answer that.

  Six – Jenelle

  The strip club was quiet tonight. There were a few regulars who occasionally came my way to order a drink, but no rowdy groups leaving massive tips. I shifted my weight to one foot and the other, trying to decrease the pain in my arches. My stiletto heels were far from comfortable at the best of times, and I’d been on my feet for hours.

  The strip club was a dingy spot that looked like it’d been built a few hundred years ago. A girl was lethargically gyrating around the pole onstage, and the single waitress sat by the door staring at her phone. There was no crowd for her to serve tonight.

  I didn’t feel like going on my phone like the waitress. I polished the dusty bottles behind the bar instead. I needed to move, to feel like I was doing something. I didn’t want to stay in my head for too long.

  “Only five more hours,” I said softly to myself.

  Normally I didn’t mind the occasional quiet shift. My daytime job never had a moment of stillness, and it was nice to have some time to breathe and think. Not to mention that the rowdy groups’ tips sometimes came with a side of trying to grope the bartender.

  But right now I needed to boost my income. I needed more toys to bring to Mercy when I visited her. Needed to make up for the time I’d been taking off to go see her. And I needed to scrape together the money for a decent lawyer, someone I could ask about child support.

  I was pretty sure that’d cost hundreds of dollars, and I could only hope I’d get more than that back from Hudson. Or would the lawyer work for a percent of the amount we got? I let my head hang. I had no idea how any of this worked.

  “Want to go out for a smoke break?”

  I looked up to find Ginger leaning on the other side of the bar rail, giving me a lopsided smile. Ginger was actually her real name – she went by Rouge Princess on stage. Both names paid homage to the flaming red hair that flowed down her bare shoulders.

  I shook my head. “I’m quitting weed.”

  I couldn’t take the risk of being drug tested. It was going to suck to lose one of my few methods of stress relief. I only smoked a few times a week, usually when I was trying to get to sleep. It made me feel so weightless and buoyant. How much else would I have to give up?

  “Then I’ll take a shot of whiskey, please.”

  I poured the shot and slid it over to her.

  She pushed it back. “It’s for you, actually.” She stuck a handful of singles in my tip jar. “You looked like you could use it.”

  “Thanks, but I can’t.”

  Ginger was one of the nicest girls who worked here. It was hard to know where you stood with most of the strippers. Sometimes they had a friendly camaraderie that extended to me. Sometimes they stabbed each other in the back. But I’d never seen Ginger being two-faced to anybody.

  She took the shot instead, throwing it back without any hint of a grimace. “So, why the long face?” she asked. “I can feel your mood a mile away.”

  I fought to keep my eyes on her own face. She was wearing a black lace push-up bra, a matching thong, and nothing else. I was only human – even a straight girl would’ve checked out those curves.

  Several of the strippers did actually date women. One or two had been interested in me, but I’d never gotten involved with any of them. I had no time to date in general. I could’ve gone for a casual fling – but not with someone at my workplace. There was too much potential for things to get messy.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “Just, you know… the usual.” I’d already confessed to her about Mercy being taken, as humiliating as it’d been to tell someone about it. “I saw my baby again today, and it was rough. I don’t know how I’m going to get through six whole months without her.” And that was only the minimum. If the judge decided I hadn’t done well enough, this could go on for a year. Or indefinitely.

  “She’s not doing well with the foster family?”

  “She’s doing too well.” I sighed. “Sometimes it seems like she likes them more than me. She’s still happy to see me, but…”

  “Don’t say that.” She looked horrified. “You’re her mom, and she loves you. She knows how hard you’re working to get her back.”

  “Does she?” My throat was tight. “Because she’s seven. A family with no money problems and a puppy is a lot more fun than a mom who’s always stressed out and yelling at her.”

  Ginger’s lips tightened, and I could see she knew I was right. “Even if she doesn’t understand now, she’ll understand later. That’s what happened with me and my mom. I didn’t get why she was the way she was when she was growing up, but once I went out on my own, I did. Although at that point…”

  “It was too late,” I finished quietly. She’d lost her mom at a young age. I couldn’t bear to even think about it, and I knew she didn’t want to dwell on the topic either. I set the shot glass in the first bin of the sink, the one with soapy water. “This lady at the agency’s been telling me I can put Mercy’s father on child support.”

  Ginger drew back, her eyebrows raising. “You haven’t done that already? You didn’t even try?”

  “Nah. I figured if he didn’t want to be a part of Mercy’s life, I wasn’t going to make him. I thought I could do it all on my own, but… that’s not working out so well at the moment.”

  “You have to get some money from that man!” she burst out. “He did half the work to make Mercy. He should take some re
sponsibility for her.”

  Sylvia had said something similar. “I never thought too hard about it. If anything, I figured it was too late.”

  “I don’t think it is. What else did the lady tell you? Can she help you?”

  “She gave me some stuff to read, but…”

  “So read it.” Ginger flipped her hair over her shoulder. “It’s her job to help you. Let her do it.”

  “That’s the thing.” I grimaced. “She’s a social worker. This stuff is outside her job. She’s doing it on her own, like I’m a charity case or something.”

  “Jenelle, please. Look at yourself. You are a charity case.”

  My stomach churned.

  “I don’t mean that in a bad way.” Ginger seemed to know she’d gone too far. “You were just saying you could use some help. Set your pride aside for a little while and do what’s right for Mercy. You’ll be glad you did.”

  “Maybe you’re right. It’s just… this woman…” I couldn’t even begin to describe what Sylvia was like. Her uptight attitude, the way she openly judged me, the scornful looks she gave me… The fact that, despite all of those things, I couldn’t help but notice her classic beauty. “I don’t want her help.”

  “Set your pride aside,” Ginger repeated. “Do what you have to do. It’s for Mercy.”

  Slowly, I nodded. “Okay, I’ll try.”

  Over the next few days, I tried to make sense of the print-outs Sylvia had given me. If I could figure this stuff out, I wouldn’t need her help. Maybe I wouldn’t even need a lawyer.

  By my appointment on Friday, I’d only managed to come up with a ton of questions for her. I needed to get in touch with a lawyer who’d actually pay attention to me, and I had a feeling she could help with that.

  I arrived at the agency early, hoping I could spend a few minutes talking to Sylvia before I saw Mercy. She was sitting in the waiting room when I arrived, flipping lazily through a file. I wondered if that was mine or somebody else’s. I wondered if a woman like her read stuff for fun – she looked almost content with her nose in the folder.