We dropped Sophie off in the morning, and pulling away from Julianne’s house without my baby in the car felt like leaving a piece of my body behind. Even though I know Aubrey and I will be coming back in a few hours for dinner where I can possibly see her, it doesn’t help. Every minute apart from my daughter is torture, and it only serves to drive my need to fix this to feverish levels. I’m going to make it right. Even if it fucking kills me.

I hope for Jake’s sake that he doesn’t decide to show his creepy face any time soon, because right now I might just knock his head off his shoulders if he got in my way.

The hours before Aubrey and I head to Julianne’s are the slowest, most torturous hours I’ve ever endured, and by the time we’re driving over, my jaw is sore from being clenched and my hands are numb from involuntarily squeezing the shit out of whatever I touch. For her part, Aubrey looks like she’s ready to kill something. Despite the blackness surrounding me, seeing the protective side of her extending toward my daughter makes me feel a surge of love toward her. Love. The old me would laugh at the thought.

I told myself I was done with the idea of love after Julianne. If I thought I loved that woman, I obviously can’t be trusted to make judgments on love. Or if that was love, then what’s the big deal? If it can be so temporary and fleeting, why even bother giving the word a classification.

But what I feel for Aubrey eclipses anything I ever felt for Julianne. I thought what I felt for her was love all those years ago, but it was only because I had never experienced the real thing for someone other than family. My feelings for Aubrey are so strong they frighten me. Just like with Sophie, I would die for Aubrey in a heartbeat. If I thought it was the only way to protect her, even if I thought it would protect her from the possibility of harm, I’d lay my life down for her.

It’s not an empty promise, either, and that’s what is so overpowering. In such a short time, this woman has taken a place in my heart that I know will never go away. That’s love.

Any other time, the thoughts running through my head would make me happy. Now, they only mingle strangely with the confused bleakness surrounding me. It’s as if I have to sideline that happiness, because I know I can only enjoy it if the next few days play out like I need them to.

“You ready?” I ask Aubrey when we pull up to Julianne’s.

“I think so,” she says.

“So just remember. We try to find chances to get away and on our own as often as we can. Take pictures of anything you can. And you have the USB drive if you manage to get into her computer. Download any emails or whatever you can. Worst case, just forward them to yourself, okay?”

“Yeah. Got it,” says Aubrey in a tight voice.

“You look great, by the way,” I say.

She really does. Her brown hair is done into flowing curls that bounce with every movement of her head. She wears a green dress with straps that cross in the back and show off her figure, a point which I didn’t fail to notice when I saw the outfit she chose. I also noticed she spent a little longer getting ready than normal, and even now, seeing the competitive side of her come out over meeting my ex makes me feel good. I like seeing the fight in her, even if it’s subtle.

“Thanks,” she says. She leans over the middle console and straightens my tie with a small smile. “Let’s go,” she says.

We approach the house. It’s not my first time seeing it, but I’m still surprised by the excess on display. My own house is excessive, I’m not blind to that, but I also have more money than I know what to do with. When we divorced, Julianne got enough money from me to live a very, very comfortable life where she’d never have to want for anything again. But she didn’t get enough money from me to buy a place like this and have much left over. This house must have cost her eighty percent or more of what she got from me.

It’s a French style estate--a building bathed in white and decked with architectural flourishes meant to impress. The landscaping surrounding the building would require a full staff of gardeners to maintain, and it’s clear at first glance that it has gone neglected. Once-sculpted bushes are now lopsided and growing wild. The path leading up to the house is in need of a pressure wash, and when we step up to the front door, I notice spiderwebs and clusters of dead bugs in the corners.

Seeing how foolish Julianne has been might have once made me laugh with pleasure, but now it only makes me feel empty. This is the woman who gave birth to my daughter. It’s potentially the woman who is going to be taking care of my daughter. Whether she’s dead to me or not is irrelevant. Part of me is never going to feel right unless she shows Sophie something other than disinterest. My baby girl deserves to know her mom loves her, or at least cares about her as more than a bargaining chip.

Julianne opens the door, flanked by a thin boy who can’t be past his mid twenties. He is lanky and thin, but has the high cheekbones and face of someone who could probably get work as a model. I narrow my eyes, noticing the way his arm is around Julianne.

Fuck. Seriously?

“I’m so glad you could come,” says Julianne, smiling with too many teeth, more like a predator looking at its meal.

“Yes,” says the kid. “Please, come in.”

“I haven’t had a chance to meet your…” I say, looking to the kid.

“This is Pierre,” says Julianne with no hint of shame. “My honeybuns,” she squeezes his butt viciously, and the kid smiles smugly at me.

“What a lovely couple,” says Aubrey, failing to hide the astonishment and disgust in her voice.

“Well, come in, come in!” says Julianne. “We’ve got dinner ready. I hope you don’t mind, but I made Sophie’s favorite. She’s always begging to have salmon patties with macaroni and cheese, so we just had to give in.”

“Right,” I say, wondering how much begging Sophie could have possibly done in the three or four hours she has been here today.

I scan the house as we head toward the kitchen. Signs of neglect and misuse are everywhere I look. Cracked and dirty walls, empty boxes shredded and left where they were opened, plates with remnants of food scattered on most surfaces, and clothes kicked off and left to stink. I wonder if she even thought it would be a good idea to clean up before we came.

I find Sophie at the table, sitting in front of a plate of clearly cold salmon patties and macaroni and cheese.

She gives me a longing look, and I nod my head to her, signaling silently that I’m working on everything.

“Well,” says Julianne, taking her seat beside Sophie and Pierre. “Please, have a seat,” she says.

Aubrey and I move to take our seats and I’m struck by how odd the scene is. The lavish house that looks almost like it has been abandoned for years and the huge table with gold gilded plates and sterling silver forks and knives. She’s really out of money. This is why she’s so desperate. Her attempts at business are probably losing what little she had left, and she’s probably taking on debt using the house as collateral.

As sick as it makes me to think of seeing my daughter living here, it gives me hope that proving she’s not the right person to take care of Sophie will be easier than I thought.

“I just need to use the restroom before I eat,” I say, standing up quickly and heading off in a random direction.

“It’s just near the foyer,” she says, “at least the closest one, that is. There are so many bathrooms in this place that I’ve lost track,” she adds, laughing.

I ignore her, turning the corner and looking for her computer. I think my best hope would be to log into her computer and check her email. Julianne was always leaving tabs open on her computer and she never shut it down when we were together. I just have to hope she still has the same bad habits.

I don’t find her computer after checking the first few rooms, but I do find a desk with a pile of mail. Some of it is torn open and left where it was read, some is still unopened. I pull up the phone on my camera and start sorting through the papers, looking for anything incriminating.

“Liam!” calls Julianne. “Did you get lost?” Her voice is distant, and I think she’s still sitting at the table as best I can tell.

I double my pace, flipping through the seemingly endless mail on the table. I find a stack held together with a rubber band. They are letters from banks and credit card companies and collection agencies. I start snapping pictures without having time to read everything, but I glance numbers and figures indicating how much debt she’s in.

“Liam?” asks Julianne. Her voice is closer now, almost right outside the room.

I quickly put away my phone and step out into the hallway. “Found it,” I say smoothly. “You’re right. It’s easy to get lost in this big house of yours.”

She smiles, looking around the house appreciatively, as if there isn’t clutter and dirt everywhere the eye can see. “Yes. It certainly is.”

When I get back to the table, Aubrey is gone. I frown. “Where’s Aubrey?”

“She went looking for you,” says Julianne.

Good. That was smart. Maybe she’ll have luck finding the computers where I didn’t. I nod, sitting down. “Well, don’t wait on us everyone, dig in,” I say with forced cheer.

Sophie eyes me suspiciously from across the table, as if she knows I’m up to something, but can’t put her finger on it.

“Great. I’m starving,” says Pierre, who digs into his cold food and pauses after chewing a mouthful of the salmon patty. He discreetly wipes his mouth and removes the mouthful of food, taking several long drinks of his wine. “It’s lovely, dear,” he says to Julianne.

Sophie prods her food with the end of her fork and tries a single noodle of the macaroni and makes a face. She swallows it down and then folds her arms on the table, looking miserable.

Julianne was always an awful cook, and it seems like nothing has changed.

“So,” I say, hoping to distract her as long as I can to buy Aubrey more time. “I was hoping we could work something out. Maybe I could help out and take Sophie on the weekends? Because I know you two are going to be dying to go out. It’ll be an adjustment, since you can’t leave her home by herself. Then again, I guess you could always pay for a sitter, right?” I ask.

Julianne looks like she swallowed something distasteful--which she probably did if she tried her food. “I don’t think your help will be needed, Liam. It’s sweet of you to offer though. I have a lot of catching up to do with Sophie.” She frowns, looking around. “Where is Aubrey?”

“You might also consider that my mother will want to visit often. She loves Sophie. Maybe you can make up a room for her. It’s not easy for her to travel these days so she’d probably need to stay a few days at a time.”

Julianne forces a smile. “Oh I don’t know. We’ll be so busy getting settled I don’t think guests will be prudent for a while. A few months at least. She’ll understand.”

I smile back. “No,” I say. “She won’t. She’ll show up at your doorstep if you try to keep her from seeing her granddaughter.”

Aubrey comes back into the dining room and nods discreetly at me, patting her handbag. Did she get something from Julianne’s computer? I try not to look triumphant, but I’m fairly certain we have what we need now.

“Good of you to join us,” says Julianne with a tone of bitterness that tells me dinner isn’t going as she had hoped. We’re probably not groveling enough and letting her gloat in her victory.

“Mhm,” says Aubrey, who leans over and surprises me with a passionate kiss.

When she pulls away, I see Sophie grinning, Julianne glaring, and Pierre looking to Julianne, probably to see how he’s supposed to react.

Julianne throws down her napkin and flashes a nasty smile. “Well, since neither of you seem interested in the main course, why don’t we skip straight to dessert?”

She storms off to the kitchen, where I hear a freezer door open, the crinkle of plastic, and then the door slams shut. She emerges with five plates, each of which has a single frozen ice cream cone topped with chocolate and pecans sitting on their sides and rolling around on the plates.

Julianne moves around the table, nearly slamming the plate down in front of everyone but Pierre.

Aubrey smiles. “Oh! Drumsticks!” she says with genuine excitement. “My mom used to buy these for me when I got good grades.”

“No,” says Julianne. “These are an old family recipe. I made them from scratch, cones and chocolate and everything. Even ground up the nuts myself.”

“Oh,” says Aubrey, even though her cone still has a bit of the plastic wrapper stuck to it, which she plucks off and sets on the table. “Well, thanks.”

We suffer through the rest of the dinner while Julianne makes regular jabs at Aubrey and I, trying to get us to lower ourselves to her level, but we just wait it out, and when we do finally leave, it’s with bitterness to have to leave my daughter with Julianne, but with hope that we have what we need to get Sophie back, once and for all.