Chapter Twenty-Seven

LARA

My phone rings just as I’m parking my car in the lot by my apartment, and when I see that it’s Dad, I hesitate. It’s been a week since Riley’s second birthday party, and Dad has been on his best behavior since I told him that if he didn’t keep his mouth shut about Ethan, I was going to cut him out of both my and Riley’s lives.

“Hey Dad,” I say, after finally deciding to pick it up. “I’m just getting home from work. What’s up?”

“I wanted to make sure that you knew before anyone else,” Dad says, and I feel my stomach twist inside of me with a kind of foreboding.

“What’s going on?” I know, somehow, that whatever is happening is not going to be something that I will want, or like, or appreciate.

“I just got out of a lawyer’s office, and I’ve filed paperwork with the family courts,” Dad says. The phone nearly slips out of my hand. I know I should have expected that just because he was acting polite and keeping things civil, Dad is still bitter and resentful to Ethan for, in his opinion, ruining everything and killing Alexis. But I had hoped that at least there wouldn’t be a lawyer foolish enough to enable him. It isn’t foolish to want to make money off an old fool, I think bitterly.

“Dad, God. What did you file paperwork for?” I cover my eyes with my free hand and shake my head.

“I’m requesting that full custody be transferred to you,” Dad says. I groan and let my head fall back against the headrest on the driver’s seat. In one fell swoop he’s managed to exceed my expectations for how badly he could possibly screw up things.

“How in the world do you think any court in this country is going to go along with you on that for even a second?” I want to point out to him that he’s practically spitting on Alexis’ grave doing this, but I know he won’t see it that way.

“I’m arguing that between the two of us, we can make a stable home for her, which your arrangement with Ethan won’t do,” Dad explains.

“What?” I can hear the pride in Dad’s voice and it just spurs a deeper anger in me.

“You can move back home, and work full time, without having to spend a couple of days a week working from the house, and I can take care of Riley during the day,” Dad says.

“Dad, do you really think that any court in his country is going to deny a father access to his daughter? His motherless daughter? Especially when he’s clearly a good father?”

“I think when the court hears about how much Ethan has screwed up this family, and how unstable he’s going to make his daughter’s life, they’ll find in our favor,” Dad replies.

“I can’t believe you,” I tell him. I shake my head, even though I know he can’t see me. “I really can’t believe you, Dad. How could you do something like this?” I take a breath.

“It’s what’s best for Riley, and Ethan doesn’t deserve to win!” Dad shouts through the phone.

I cringe at the fact that Dad still, somehow, thinks of Ethan’s situation as him “winning” anything. No matter how much I might be pissed off at Ethan still for what happened with my sister, or all the other baggage we have, I wouldn’t say at all that he’s “won” anything.

“Dad, I am furious that you’ve pulled this. I can’t even talk to you right now.”

I end the call and toss my phone in my purse, trying to think about what I should do to deal with this situation. Every nerve in my body seems to be firing off in spasms as I walk back to the building and head for my apartment.

The first thing I need to do is call Ethan. If Dad wanted me to know first, then I owe it to Ethan to let him know second. I manage to find my phone in my purse just after I get into my apartment. I toss my purse onto the kitchen counter, find Ethan’s number, kick off my shoes and throw myself down on the living room couch all in a matter of a few moments. As soon as I hear Ethan’s voice, I start talking.

“You will not believe what my crazy fucking father has done,” I say.

“What? Hold on, let me take you off speaker. I want to hear this, but I don’t want to risk Riley hearing it,” he says.

“My father has apparently found a lawyer who’s willing to take his money in exchange for filing paperwork to give me full custody of Riley,” I say once Ethan gives me the go-ahead.

“What?” I hear him catch himself and wonder just how close Riley is to him. I should have gotten better control over myself before I called him, but I didn’t have the time. I didn’t have the patience, either.

“Dad just called me and said that he and a lawyer filed paperwork to try to get me full custody of Riley, with some bullshit argument about how if I move in with him and Riley comes with me we can, him and I, give her a solid home life instead of ferrying her back and forth,” I explain.

“That’s f… that’s ridiculous,” Ethan says.

“Yeah, it is,” I agree. “Please believe me when I say that I don’t want to take Riley from you.”

“I know, Lara. Thank you for letting me know. What the hell are we going to do?”

That’s a good question, and one I don’t have an answer for. I’d only gotten as far as the need to tell Ethan in my thought process. Even now, I don’t really know what we do about this.

“The first thing is going to be for me to keep Riley away from him,” I say after thinking about it for a moment.

“Isn’t that going to make him angrier?”

I shrug. Some of the adrenaline is finally ebbing out of my system and I can, to some degree, think again.

“I told him that if he didn’t stop pushing things, I was going to remove myself and Riley both out of his life. I need to follow through on that,” I say.

“If you think that’s the way to handle him, then I can’t tell you not to,” Ethan says. But I can hear the hesitation in his voice.

“You should let your parents know, too, what Dad did,” I tell him. I don’t want to call my brother-in-law’s parents. While they are not quite as angry at me as Dad is concerning Ethan, it’s become obvious to me that they think that I’m far more likely to side with my father than with Ethan, and I can’t completely blame them for that. In theory, I don’t have any real reason to side with Ethan in this, not given our history. But it would be wrong of me not to, and I’m not the slightest bit tempted to try to screw him over, no matter what our history is.

“I’ll call them as soon as I get off the phone with you,” Ethan promises. “Christ, this is just… insane.”

“It is,” I agree. I take a deep breath, and realize that I’ve come to the end of what I might be able to do about the situation. “Let me know what they decide to do, and how I can help. I’m going to get dinner going and let you take care of the things on your end.”

I end the call feeling as unsettled as ever, but at least I’ve done something.