Sawyer
Jackson hung up the phone and tossed it on the coffee table. “Not the best news. The officer said since Molly is an adult and left of her own free will, she’s not technically ‘missing.’”
I looked up from the baby in my arms taking a bottle Molly had left in the gigantic diaper bag. “She abandoned Olivia,” I said. “That has to be illegal. You’ve finished the Family Law section. Tell me. They’ll track her down for child abandonment, right?”
Jackson rubbed his chin. “Safe Haven laws protect her. She can’t be arrested. If she leaves the baby with a parent—you—it’s considered legal abandonment after six months. If she leaves her with a non-parent—maybe also you—it’s one year.”
“I can’t do this alone.”
“You might not have to do it at all,” Jackson said, his Mac open on his lap. “They sell paternity tests at the Walgreens. It’s non-legal for any official capacity, but accurate. You’ll at least know if Molly was telling the truth. And if she was lying, you take the baby to CPS and go back to your life.”
I glanced down at Olivia. Go back to my life, I thought. Like nothing happened. I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat.
“How long does the test take?”
“Three days from the time you mail it to the lab,” Jackson said. “Simple enough.”
“The test won’t hurt her, right?” I asked. “If I have to draw her blood or prick her finger, forget it.”
“Nah, man, cotton swab to the cheek.”
I nodded. The baby stirred, made a little sound as she ate. I settled her better in my arms. Around me—us—the detritus of the party lay scattered across the coffee table and on the floor. Olivia’s bottle from this morning stood next to an empty pilsner.
I was still in my Man in Black costume. I’d had to sleep with Olivia on my chest, propped on my bed and surrounded by pillows, paranoid she’d roll out of my arms, and woke up every time she moved. I had no place to put her down.
I didn’t want to put her down.
Jackson shut his laptop. “I’ll go get the test. There’s no point in panicking until we know for sure what the deal is.”
“Three days until results?” I said. “What the hell do I do in the meanwhile? I have nothing.”
“We’ll take her to my mom,” Jackson said with a grin. “Henrietta will set you up.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
I stared at the people in front of my house.
Everything’s going to be okay.
Except at that precise moment, the words felt laughably weak. I tightened my grip on my briefcase.
“Mr. Haas,” the lawyer, Holloway, said. “We’d like to have a sit-down with you. The four of us.”
My gaze darted to the Abbotts, who were watching me with a strange mixture of sadness, fear and hope in their eyes and painted over their features.
“I have a final this morning,” I said. “My last final for law school. It’s kind of important.”
The Abbotts stiffened at my sarcasm. Holloway was unperturbed. “Perhaps, after?”
“After, I have a meeting with my advisor to sign off on my graduation requirements. My schedule is full.”
“Please,” Alice said. “We only need a little time. An hour?” Her glance darted to the house behind me. “Is she there? We’d like to see her…”
“Not going to happen,” I said, making her flinch, and despite my bone-numbing fear, I felt a little sorry for her.
Fuck that, they want to take her away from me.
I straightened my shoulders. “How do I even know you’re who you say you are?”
Gerald reached into pocket for his wallet to show ID, while Alice pulled a small stack of photos from her purse.
“Mr. Holloway said to bring these. Here’s Molly as a little girl, and one as a teenager.” Her voice thickened with tears. “Here she is at her Sweet Sixteen birthday party…”
She held the photos to me while Gerald flashed his driver’s license. I barely glanced at them and I didn’t move any closer. They exchanged troubled looks again, their arms slowly lowering. Holloway cleared his throat.
“We need to sit down, Mr. Haas. Today. I advised the Abbotts to limit all contact with you for the hearing before the court, but they insist on speaking to you first.”
A hearing. There’s going to be a hearing…
My heart dropped to my stomach, but outwardly my armor was on, my face impassive. “Three o’clock,” I said stiffly. “At the Starbucks on Market and 8th. One hour. I’ll be bringing my attorney.”
I said all this as if I were calling the shots, while inside I felt like I was disintegrating.
“Very good,” Holloway said. He opened the back of the sedan, and indicated for the Abbotts to get in.
They did so, reluctantly, both of them looking like they wanted to say more. Both of them giving the Victorian a final, longing glance. After his wife was in the car, Gerald Abbott fixed me with a stern look.
“Good luck with your test,” he said, then climbed in.
I watched the sedan drive away. The instant it rounded the corner, out of sight, I sank to the steps, my briefcase scraping along the cement beside me as I dropped it to cover my face with my hands. I sucked in deep breaths, grasping for calm when panic was tossing me like a tiny ship on a vast ocean.
Holy fuck, it’s happening. And I was so close. A few more weeks…
Defeat tried to drown me, but I shrugged it off. I had rights. If the Abbotts were here for a fight, I’d give it to them. I’d give everything until there was nothing left of me.
Livvie…
I fished my phone out of my jacket pocket. “Jackson,” I said, my voice hoarse. “I need you.”
I’d never been more grateful for my eidetic memory in my life. The American Legal History exam was all names and dates, statutes and by-laws, ground-breaking precedents and Founding Fathers. I scanned my mental database for the answers, and finished the exam in record time.
At the meeting in my advisor’s office, she asked me twice if I needed a glass of water and once if I wanted to reschedule when I was ‘feeling better.’ I pushed through, pushed my emotions aside where they sunk their claws in my back and shoulders. Under the conference table, my leg wouldn’t stop bouncing.
The day crawled and yet flew by, and at a quarter to three, I met Jackson at the Starbucks.
“Jesus, will you calm down?” he said while waiting in line to order. “I’m getting an ulcer just looking at you.”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” I said. “A fucking horrible feeling. I have rights,” I spat. “They can’t just take her from me…”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Jackson said. “We have no idea what they want yet.”
“They want a hearing, Jax,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at the front entrance. “It’s already set up.”
“We’ll see,” he said.
“Do you know what you’re doing? It’s a far cry from tax law…”
Jackson fixed me with a raised-eyebrow stare. “You have the money to retain someone else? ‘Cause if you do, I’ll give you my phone to call him right now. I’m taking time out of my work to be here.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, sucking in a breath. I clasped his hand. “God, I’m sorry, man, really. I trust you. I’m just scared shitless.”
“I know you are. Go ahead and be an asshole to me if it helps, but as your attorney, I’m officially advising you to not be an asshole to these people, okay? They’re Olivia’s family, for one thing. For another, you catch more bees with honey, or some shit.”
I nodded absently. My mind was reeling, going in a thousand different directions. One thought stuck out from the rest, in bold type.
Molly is dead.
I’d spent the last ten months praying she wouldn’t come back to try to take Olivia from me. She’d obviously been a mess the night she gave her to me; drunk and disheveled, and looking as though she lived out of her car. Maybe that wasn’t the real her, or she’d had a bad night, but that was the mental snapshot she’d left me of her as a mother.
But she had been Olivia’s mother, and in the back of my mind, I’d always assumed she’d be in our daughter’s life somehow. Now that was over. I would never have to explain to Olivia that her mother had left her. Instead, I would have to tell her she died.
She has no mother, either.
A deep pain for my little girl that I added to the noxious concoction of emotions swirling in my guts.
It was my turn to order. “I’ll take a tall coffee.”
“Decaf,” Jackson told the barista, and shot me a wink. His reassuring smile faded as he looked over his shoulder. “This must be them.”
I looked to the front where the Abbotts were coming in, Holloway holding the door for open.
“That’s them,” I said.
“They look like money,” Jackson said.
The knot of fear twisted tighter. The Abbotts had money. Enough to fight me. Enough to tell a judge they had the means to provide Olivia with a life I couldn’t afford.
Jackson sighed and elbowed me in the arm. “Hey. You’re jumping to conclusions in that big brain of yours. Cut it out. Nothing’s happened yet.”
“Yet.”
We took our coffees to a table in the corner that was big enough for five and waited for the Abbotts to join us. My leg bounced under that table too.
“Mr. Haas,” Holloway said, extended his hand.
This time I shook it, and gave the Abbotts a small nod in greeting.
“This is Jackson Smith, my attorney,” I said.
Jackson offered his hand and a bright smile. Introductions were made all around and then the five of us sat with drinks in front of us that only the attorneys touched. The Abbotts studied me with that same mix of hope and fear in their eyes. They had nice faces. Kind. They weren’t monsters, but a grandma and a grandpa. Olivia’s grandma and grandpa.
I tried to loosen my clenched-jaw and unfurrow my brow to look less like an asshole next to Jackson’s friendly smile.
“I’ll get straight to the point,” Holloway said. “Mr. and Mrs. Abbott were only recently made aware of their daughter’s passing six weeks ago.”
“She’d always been on the run,” Alice said in a shaky voice. “We tried to give her everything but it wasn’t enough.”
Gerald covered his wife’s hand. “We hadn’t seen her in so long. We had no idea she’d been in an accident. Nor did we know that she’d had a baby.”
“We knew nothing,” Alice said. “So much joy and sadness all at once…”
Jackson nodded sympathetically. “And when, exactly, were you made aware that you had a granddaughter?”
“Two weeks ago,” Holloway answered. “Through a friend of the late Miss Abbott’s.”
Alice sat straighter, imploring me with her eyes as she spoke. “As soon as we knew, we wanted to see Olivia. To be a part of her life.”
“In what capacity?” Jackson asked. He looked to Holloway. “What’s this I hear about a hearing?”
Holloway folded his hands on the table, his gold watch glinting in the sun in tandem with his gold pinky ring.
“The friend of Molly’s informed us that Olivia’s birth certificate is most likely in your possession. Is that true, Mr. Haas?”
My heart did a slow roll in my chest. I nodded.
“And is your name listed as the father?”
“No, it is not,” I said slowly. “There is no name there. It’s blank.”
Holloway nodded. “I presume you have taken a paternity test?”
I glanced at Jackson. He nodded his head. Once.
“Yes. A few days after Molly left Olivia with me. She’s my daughter. And I’m not saying another word until you tell me what you want.”
Holloway opened his mouth to speak, but Alice put her hand on his arm.
“Wait, please. This is not going at all as I’d hoped. Perhaps it was a mistake to bring our attorneys into this so quickly.” She looked to me. “Can we see her? We’d like to see her.” Her voiced teetered on the edge of breaking. “Our daughter is gone. Our only daughter. All we have left of her is Olivia. We’d like to spend some time with her and maybe…get to know each other better. And you, but in a warmer setting.”
She looked to Jackson when my hard stare shut her out. “Is this possible?”
“Let me confer with my client.”
Jackson ushered me onto the sidewalk outside.
“You’re not making a great impression.”
I gritted my teeth. “Jackson…”
“I know. We’ll deal with that later. For now, let them see Olivia. Do what she said; get to know them. They don’t seem like bad people.” He cocked his head. “Don’t you want a family for Olivia?”
“Yeah, I do, but on my terms,” I said. I took my friend’s arm and gripped it tight. “She stays with me, Jax. You do whatever you feel is right. If they want to come see her, fine. But I want full custody. I’m keeping full custody. They can visit, they can have a weekend, maybe a week in the summer, but they’re not taking her from me.”
Jackson’s expression showed no trace of his usual cheerful self. He gripped my shoulder and met my eyes with an unwavering, intense stare.
“I’ll do my best, Sawyer, but it might not be up to us,” he said. “And you know it.”
The Abbotts took the sedan, and Jackson and I took an Uber back to the Victorian. Four o’clock on a Wednesday. Where was Darlene, I wondered as I climbed out of the car. Rehearsal? I would’ve given my right arm to see her smile just then. Her smile that made all the bad shit in the world seem far away.
But I fucked up. The thought of her with someone else hurt more than I was prepared for. Instead of talking to her, I renamed that pain jealousy, and shut down. Walked away.
Maybe I’ve lost her too.
I gave myself a shake.
Get a grip, you haven’t lost Olivia. This isn’t over. It hasn’t even started.
But unlocking the front door of the Vic for the Abbotts and their lawyer felt like inviting the dragon straight into the damn castle.
“This is quite a lovely old house,” Alice said in the entry. “I just love San Francisco architecture.”
“Are you not from this area?” Jackson asked.
“Huntington Beach, in southern California.”
The night Molly and I hooked up in Vegas whispered in my memory; Molly in a pale dress in the dimly lit bar. I’m from So Cal, originally. My folks are still there in their huge, white bread mega mansion…
“Jackson can take you to my place,” I said, my voice wooden in my ears. “I’ll get Olivia from her sitter and bring her up.”
I waited until they were upstairs, then knocked on Elena’s door.
“You’re early today,” she said with a smile. It faded at once. “But you’re so pale, my dear. Is everything okay?”
Everything is going to be okay…
I nodded. “I got finished early.”
Elena’s mouth turned down in concern. “Come in. I’ll just get her bag.”
I stepped inside Elena’s place. Olivia was on the floor in the living room with Laura, Elena’s two-year-old, playing blocks. Olivia looked up and her little face broke into a smile.
“Daddy!”
Oh Christ…
My chest constricted and goddamn tears stung my eyes. With trembling arms, I picked her up and held her tightly, my hand behind her little head. Her arms went around my neck. I closed my eyes and fought to contain the maelstrom of emotions, to push them down, lock them up. If there was a battle to be fought, I needed to be strong.
Elena’s hand on my arm and her voice gentle. “Sawyer.”
I sucked in deep breaths, still holding Olivia tight to me. When my exhales were no longer shaky and I opened my eyes.
“Thanks for watching her,” I said, shouldering the bag Elena handed me. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Bye-bye,” Olivia said to Elena. “Bye bye bye bye…”
I took Olivia upstairs on leaden legs.
In my place, the Abbotts were seated at the small kitchen table with Jackson, glasses of water before them. Mr. Holloway was standing with his hands clasped behind his back in front of the wall near my desk, eyeing my degree from UCSF with Honors; my Valedictorian certificate; my award for a full scholarship at Hastings that had been like winning the lottery.
He turned and all conversations ceased as I stepped inside and set my daughter down at my feet.
“This is Olivia.”
Alice’s hand flew to her heart, and Gerald’s jaw clenched as if fighting back some strong emotion.
“Oh my heavens, she’s beautiful.” Alice rose slowly and approached Olivia who stood clinging to my pant leg. “Hi, sweetheart. I’m your Grandma Alice.”
“Hey, there, angel,” Gerald said gruffly, joining his wife. “I’m your Grandpa Gerry.”
My own jaw tightened. I want this for her. I felt like I was in a dream and I didn’t know if it was going to turn out to be everything I wanted or a nightmare.
Olivia pressed herself closer to my pants.
“She likes blocks,” I said, indicating the pile on the floor. “Can’t get enough of them.”
Alice clapped her hands on her thighs. “Would you like to show us your blocks, Olivia?”
Alice and Gerald sat down on the floor with no aching or complaining about joints or bad knees. They were fit, strong, good people, with a lot of money, and their DNA in Olivia’s veins. My little girl babbled in a baby talk/English hybrid, and plopped down beside them.
I moved to the kitchen for a glass of water and Jackson joined me.
“Not so bad, right?” he said in a low voice.
I poured a tall glass with a shaking hand. “I’m going to puke.”
Jackson chuckled. “Be cool. I have a good feeling about this.”
Jackson and I joined the others in the living room, sitting on my small couch while Holloway took the chair. The Abbotts stayed on the floor with Livvie, playing and chatting and making her smile.
“She looks just like Molly, doesn’t she?” Alice said, and her smile wavered. I reached for the tissue box beside me and handed it over. “I’m sorry,” she said, dabbing her eyes. “It’s still so new, losing her.”
“What happened?” I asked in a low voice.
Alice smiled sadly.
“Molly was always the rebellious girl but when she turned eighteen, she began to drink pretty heavily. It was like she’d been stricken with a disease. That’s what they say it is, don’t they? A disease.”
I shifted in my seat, blue and red lights dancing across my vision.
“She had a happy childhood, or so we thought,” Gerald said.
Alice smiled weakly. She handed Olivia a block and Olivia stacked it on top of another. “Did she mention us at all?”
I shook my head slowly. “I did not know Molly very well.”
She and Gerald nodded in silent understanding.
“We did our best,” Gerald said, “but whatever was driving her away from us got worse. She called and texted us occasionally, but we didn’t see her for two years. She never said anything about a baby or even being pregnant.”
“A friend of hers got in touch with us,” Alice said. “She told us about Olivia and gave us your name. I guess Molly had told her about you.”
My cold silence created another look between them, and then Gerald continued.
“We’re renting a condo by the Marina. We’ve talked about retiring to the Bay Area.”
“We’ve always loved San Francisco,” Alice said, “and when we found out you were here it seems like the right thing to do.”
I swallowed hard. “What was the right thing to do?” My voice sounded cold and hard but I couldn’t help it. The fear had tightened me up inside so I could hardly breathe.
“To be a part of Olivia’s life. An important part.”
There was pity in Alice’s eyes, which scared me more than anything else.
“We want to make sure she’s provided for,” Gerald said. “And ensure she has everything she needs for a happy and healthy life.”
“Well, she does,” I snapped. “I’m giving her that.”
Jackson put a hand on my arm. I fought for calm, and tried to see these people as something other than the enemy. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been raising Olivia on my own for the last ten months and I’d begun to believe it was always going to be just her and me.”
“But it’s not,” Gerald said, in a low voice. He stood up and put his hands in his pocket and looked at Holloway. “We have rights. And some information…”
My gaze jumped to Holloway who was making a negating motion with his hand.
“What kind of information?” Jackson asked.
Holloway reached into his jacket and pulled out an envelope. Now we were all on our feet but Alice who clapped hands with Olivia, tears in her eyes.
The Abbotts attorney handed Jackson the envelope. “Now, I really must insist we depart,” he said to his clients. “Everything will be elucidated at the Family Court in two days’ time.”
Gerald helped Alice to her feet.
“Bye-bye, sweetheart,” Alice said to Olivia. “We’ll see you again.”
“Bye-bye,” Olivia said and babbled in a sing-song voice. “Bye-bye-bye-bye...”
“She’s darling,” Alice said to me, and that pitying look was there again. She opened her mouth to say something more, and her husband gently took her by the shoulders and guided her toward the door.
I shut it after them while Jackson opened the envelope.
“What is it?” I asked. I could hardly hear my own words for the blood rushing in my ears.
“A hearing notice. For Friday.” He raised his eyes to mine. “They’ve filed an Order to Show Cause for custody of Olivia.”
“Based on what?” I asked. “What cause?”
But of course, I already knew. The Abbotts had plenty of cause and if they didn’t know it yet, soon they would.
I turned the letter over and over in my hand, the Sensaya Genetic Lab address disappearing then reappearing with every rotation. Beside me, Olivia slept in the middle of my bed. I had barricaded the three-month-old in a ring of pillows to keep her safe but I was still paranoid she’d roll off. I sat beside her, watched her sleep. Watched the shallow rise and fall of her chest, and her rapid pulse beat in her neck.
Was it my blood that flowed in her veins?
Slowly, so as not to wake her, I tore the envelope open. Inside were the test results that would tell me probabilities. The probability that my life would change forever, or that I would turn this baby over to the proper authorities and my life would continue on, as planned. But a whisper in the back of my mind told me my life was already changed— probability 100%—no matter what the test said.
I unfolded the paper with shaking hands, and scanned the columns of numbers; they meant nothing to me. It was the conclusion at the end that mattered.
0% probability.
A burden had just been lifted. Eighteen years and more. My life could carry on as it had. On track. Law school, clerkship, federal prosecutor, District Attorney…
I waited for the relief to hit me.
It never did.
I shook myself from the memory. It felt like a bad dream that had been on hold for ten months, and now was picking up where it left off.
Jackson was shaking his head, and his gaze dropped to Olivia. Mine followed. To my little girl, because why did I need a piece of paper to tell me what I felt in my heart? In my goddamn soul?
Olivia looked up at me from her pile of blocks on the floor and smiled. “Bye-bye!”