“What the fuck is this?” Chelsea’s dad threw the papers the lawyer had given him, back down on the dining room table. Chelsea’s mother had pried Reed from her arms and taken him out to visit with the horses while she and her dad “handled” the lawyer. Her father insisted he come inside and explain himself. So far, Mr. Roberts was not enjoying the explanation Geoffrey St. Martin was offering.

“It’s a simple form that gives permission for us to do a DNA test on Reed that will prove Wayne is not his father,” St. Martin simplified his explanation down from the last three times he’d explained it. So far, Chelsea had sat quietly. This was surreal, and she had no idea what to even say.

“Why?” she finally managed. Her dad looked at her out of the corner of his eye as if he would have preferred that she stayed out of it. But that was what was so wrong with her life up to this point. She’d been staying out of it way too often.

“Mr. Borba…Wayne…has been working in the kitchen at the correctional facility for about six months now. When he received his first paycheck, he discovered that the state of Massachusetts was withholding child support for Reed Roberts. Wayne retained me, and he asserts that he is not this child’s father despite his name being listed on the birth certificate.” Chelsea got another sideways look from her dad. Her parents had urged her not to put Wayne’s name on the birth certificate, but at the time she’d been thinking about her child getting enrolled in school or whatever else he needed the birth certificate for. If she didn’t list someone under father it would have said “Unknown.” She hated the idea of how embarrassing that might be for a child. So, she’d told the nurse that Wayne Borba was his father that day and that was what his birth certificate said. Of course, Chelsea hadn’t foreseen any of this. She’d never even considered asking Wayne for child support, but of course her parents had been raising Reed since he was born, so if anyone got support it would be…

“Dad, did you and Mom file for child support?”

Her father looked uncomfortable. He was the most honest man she’d ever known. He hated lies. He hated to lie. He looked her in the eyes and said, “No, but I might know what this is about.”

“Okay, will you explain it to me?”

“Your mother and I met with DCF last week…” Her dad seemed to remember that the attorney was in the room then and he said, “I’d like to speak to my daughter alone. You can leave the papers and we’ll call you.”

“I don’t mind if you step into the other room and…”

“You know what? I’m not in a mood to care what you mind or not,” Chelsea’s dad said. “So, if you don’t want to see me in an even worse mood, I’d take off right now if I were you.”

Geoffrey St. Martin took out his handkerchief and dabbed a bead of sweat off his forehead before picking up his briefcase and standing up. “My number is on the paperwork.”

“Thanks,” Chelsea’s dad said. “I’ll show you out.”

“Oh, I can find my way.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you can,” Mr. Roberts said, walking out of the dining room and toward the front door as he spoke. St. Martin followed him, and Chelsea’s dad waited for him to start his van and begin backing out of the driveway before he locked the front door and went back out into the dining room. He sat down and said, “Chelsea, have a seat, okay?”

Chelsea pulled out a chair and sat down. She was shaking inside. There was something going on. She’d known it when her mother called to tell her they wouldn’t be home for the visit she had been looking forward to all week. Now, her father was saying he might know why Wayne was all of a sudden worried about child support when Reed was almost three years old. She waited, impatiently until her father finally said, “You know everything your mother and I have done has been in the best interest of you and that little boy, right?”

“Of course.” Chelsea had spit virtual nails at them the day they took her baby from her at the hospital and sent her off to rehab. She had tried to stay clean while she was pregnant. It had been so important to her that the baby not be harmed by anything she put in her system. The doctor at the abortion clinic that day had talked to her about substance abuse and what it did to babies. Of course at first it was because she was so hesitant to have the abortion. He could tell she was strung out, and more than likely he’d been trying to talk her into it and not out of it. But even out of her mind on drugs, she just couldn’t bring herself to go through with it. She was three months pregnant by that time and she sat there looking at the pictures on the walls of how big her fetus was, and she just couldn’t do it. The doctor finally seemed to understand that, and he spent a great deal of time then explaining what she would need to do in order to have a healthy baby.

Chelsea had called her father to pick her up that day. She knew he would come. He always did. Her mother had put her foot down about money and allowing her to stay at the house when she and Wayne were fighting. It was “tough love,” she thought. But her dad still came, any time she called him. That day he’d shown up, looking like it was killing him there, and looking more relieved than she’d ever seen him when she told him she hadn’t gone through with terminating the pregnancy. She told him she was finished with Wayne, and she wanted to get clean.

He’d driven her back to the ranch in Needham that day, and her mother had taken her to the family doctor the next day. That doctor put her on Suboxone, an injectable medication that would control the opiate cravings and withdrawals. For the next four months, she did fantastic. Her belly was growing, all her checkups with the OB/GYN had been great, she looked and felt healthy, and Wayne was in jail. On top of that, she was rebuilding her relationship with her parents at last, and it felt so good to be home.

Then, when Chelsea was seven months along, she’d gone into the city for her twenty-eight-week checkup. All was well again, and she’d left the doctor’s office with her ultrasound pictures and a smile on her face. When she got to the car she realized she had a message on her phone from the tattoo artist she sometimes sold her pictures to. He needed her to come by ASAP and draw a custom order for him, and he was going to pay her three hundred dollars to do it. So instead of going straight home, Chelsea had driven to the tattoo parlor. That was her first mistake, but the second one was a doozy, and it permanently altered the course of her life.

The tattoo artist knew about Chelsea’s struggle to get and stay clean, so when one of his clients was walking out at the same time Chelsea was, he’d whispered in her ear to “steer clear of him.” Chelsea laughed. She was seven months pregnant, who would want her anyway? The big, tattooed guy held the door open for her and walked with her to her car. By the time they got there, he’d told her how pretty she was and how incredible he thought her designs were. He told her he’d always wanted to meet her and he’d love it if she could have a cup of coffee with him…or something. Chelsea had no excuses when she looked back. The facts were that she was lonely and desperately in need of some kind of boost to her self-esteem. The guy…Brad…could smell that. She followed him to his apartment because he told her he had a state of the art espresso machine and they could have coffee on the patio. Chelsea knew that was stupid, but being pregnant and already down on herself, she thought that would be more comfortable than being seen in public with this big, hot guy.

So, Brad made coffee and, Chelsea would find out much later, put more than espresso and milk in the cup. She woke up almost two days later, in her car, confused and unsure exactly what happened. Some good Samaritan found her and called an ambulance, and once she was at the hospital chaos ensued. She had ecstasy and opiates in her system and by the time the day was over, the Department of Child Services would be a fixture in her life. Thank God her parents stepped up and took Reed, but her conditions were to stay away from men, since they believed she had a sex addiction. She was to pee in a cup once a month, keep a job, have her own place, and she could only visit Reed three times a month, on their schedule. She had no choice but to agree with it. By the end of the first year, she was given more visitation time and she could even take him out for the day.

Then Reed got sick. He had pneumonia, and he was in the hospital when he was only sixteen months old. He was put on a ventilator and they were told that he wasn’t going to make it. Chelsea once again turned to the only thing that took away the pain, and although Reed got better, her life got worse. Her mother threatened to file for permanent custody. Chelsea begged for another chance, and her dad was the peacemaker who wanted everyone to meet in the middle. Once again, she promised to abide by all the rules, but her solo visits were taken away and she was only allowed to see her baby boy twice a month, at the ranch. She called him every night and her dad let them Facetime so he wouldn’t forget her, and she’d been doing so good, so why the hell were her parents talking to Family Services again?