Chapter Twenty-Two

Bailey

“Where's Arthur?” Reggie asked, as the cab which dropped us back home, sped away.

“Arthur is at his home, bud,” I replied, pinching the bridge of my nose and trying not to show my annoyance in him asking me that question about a dozen times since waking up this morning.

“I thought you said we would see him today,” he persisted. “He didn't even say goodbye."

Tears pricked my eyes at his words. No, Arthur hadn't stuck around to say goodbye. I hadn't seen him since our row last night although I had slept fitfully, hopeful, that he would have figured it out. I couldn't have done what he wanted me to do. Pretending my past didn't exist was no way for us to conduct a relationship. It was better for what we had to end now than to slowly watch us burn to remnants of ourselves. I had no idea how he managed to live with the lies from former partners that he knew was true, but I wouldn't be like his exes.

The hardest part was talking to the kids about this. I didn't know how to break it to them that Arthur would no longer be a part of their lives. They had become so attached to him in such a short time. At least I had learned a lesson in not having any future boyfriend's being introduced to the kids until I was sure about them. Although I had known Arthur for almost a year, we had gotten personal less than a month ago.

“Doesn't Arthur love us anymore?" Gina asked, her thumb in her mouth. She only sucked on her thumb when she was upset.

“Of course he still loves you,” I replied, brushing her hair from her face. “But he has to go home for a while.”

“Will we see him again?”

Seeing their hopeful faces, I could not let them down. At that moment, I hated Arthur, not because he couldn't accept me and my past, but because he hadn't even made an effort to say goodbye to the kids. We didn't need to have a relationship for him to have done that. They were just two innocent kids caught up in my stupidity of thinking and dreaming of love. I should have stuck with the original plan of focusing on the kids and forgetting everything else.

“Yes, you'll see him again,” I answered, determined to make it the truth if it meant confronting Arthur about how shabbily he treated the kids.

That worked to quiet them as we waved goodbye to Emily and continued up to the house. It was good to be back in a familiar place. The kids felt it too despite being sad about leaving the cruise earlier. They ran through the halls, Gina to her room with her new doll and Reggie to the living room. He had the television on before I could blink.

“So nobody's gonna help me with the bags?” I asked aloud. “Most of these things are yours, you know.”

No response. I shook my head and brought everything in, dumping their bag of gifts they had received from Arthur in the hall. I checked on Reggie to find out what he was watching and caught the light on the answering machine flashing. I groaned, already anticipating that there were going to be some messages from Mother since she would have stopped by the house only to find us gone. I would have ignored the messages, but I anticipated there might be a few from Ollie and college buddies with warm greetings for the holidays. While I didn’t have any other friend as close as Ollie, I still talked to a couple of the guys from campus.

I set the answering machine to play and skipped the messages that were really salespeople trying to sell me stuff for the Christmas holidays. I made a mental note of the three guys who had called me so I could call them back to return their holiday greetings. There was one message from Ollie asking me to call him back and threatening to call the local police if I didn’t return his call soon. The date played on the message suggested it was the same day I had called him on the ship.

I was completely relaxed listening to the messages when Mother's shrill voice came over the voicemail.

“That’s it, Bailey. It’s the final straw. You skipped out of town with the kids without telling me, and I’ve had enough of your selfish attitude. The kids belong with me. I’m a more suitable parent, and for that reason, I want you out of the house immediately. Consider this your eviction notice. I’m calling off our arrangement for January thirty-first. Do you hear me, Bailey? Call me when you get back, and I’ll come to collect the kids. If you don’t get out of that house willingly, I’ll have the police escort you off my premises.”

Shocked, I rewound the message and listened to it again. There was no way she could be serious. We had an informal agreement. I had until the thirty-first. I glanced up to ensure Reggie was still watching the television and hadn’t heard the voicemail. He was happily watching Tarzan and Jane on Netflix and wasn’t paying me any attention.

I dialed Mother’s number and headed for the kitchen where I would have some privacy to talk to her. I never called her from my cell phone before because I didn’t want her having the number and bothering me all the time. She was the reason I had changed my last phone number. She already had access to the landline so she didn’t need my cell too.

“Hello,” she snapped into the phone when she answered it. “Who is this?”

“It’s Bailey,” I replied. “I just—”

“Bailey!” she screeched in the phone. “You ungrateful good-for-nothing! Where the hell are you with the kids? You know you can’t move the children without the social worker being aware of the change. Where the hell have you been?”

“We’re back home,” I answered. “In fact, we just got back from our holiday cruise to the Bahamas, and the kids enjoyed themselves.”

“Then you’ll have enough memories to last you a lifetime. You have the kids all packed tomorrow! I’m coming to get them.”

“You-I-I’m not giving you the kids, Mother!” I cried in the phone. “Please, don’t do this. You know David wanted me to raise them.”

“You have until noon tomorrow to drop them off at my house, and I’ll allow you to stay in the house,” she replied, her tone icy. “If they are not here by noon, I will kick you out and when I do, the kids will automatically come with me anyway. So, make this easier for everyone and bring them to me.”

She hung up the phone in my ear. I started to panic and considered grabbing the kids and running, but where could we go? The one person I had thought could be of help wanted nothing to do with us.

                               ***

“Uncle Bailey!”

“Huh?” I tore my eyes away from the clock in the hall to focus on Gina who was standing before me with her doll in hand. She was pointing the doll at me, but I had been so engrossed in the time that I had no idea what she had said. Today was the day I had called my mother’s bluff and hoped she had even an ounce of decency left in her not to carry out her plan. I was the only constant in the kids’ life. Couldn’t she see that? Nothing good could come of her ripping them away from the only home they had known and bringing them to live with strangers because that’s what my mother was. She might have dropped in on them every now and then, but she knew nothing about them.

“You weren’t paying attention,” she complained, her lower lip protruded in a pout.

I pulled her to me for a hug, trying to take deep breaths to stave off the tension I felt. It was now noon, and if mother was true to her word, she would be on her way since I didn’t drop the kids off. “Sorry, pumpkin. I promise to pay better attention. What were you saying?”

“I asked if you could help me braid my doll’s hair,” she replied. “I tried, but it doesn’t come out nice like you do it.”

A lump formed in my throat, and I smiled at her. Her braids looked good now, but it had taken me several attempts to get it right. Months, in fact. “Come on. Why don’t I show you how to do it instead?” That way if Mother did insist in going through with her madness and I wasn’t around to do her doll’s braids, she could do it herself.

Reggie was ahead of us sitting on the floor with his back to the sofa, munching on his favorite cheesy snack and juice, a treat for having eaten his fruits this morning. He was the harder of the two to convince to eat healthily, but I was getting the hang of it. I was just getting the hang of this, dammit! I wouldn’t let Mother take this away from me.

“Oh, look! I did it!” Gina threw her arms around my neck. “Thanks, Uncle Bailey. I love you!”

She kissed me on the cheek, and I smiled at her. “Love you too, puppet.”

No sooner had she skipped to the playroom than the doorbell rang. My heart skipped a beat as I surged to my feet. I swallowed hard, terrified as I walked toward the door. I hadn’t even heard a vehicle pull up in the yard, but that could be as a result of the television being on.

In the hall, I paused and took a deep breath, reaching for the doorknob. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I opened the door and found Mother on the porch. She didn’t come alone. A police car was parked next to hers and another vehicle I marked as that of the social worker. I tore my eyes away from them and fixed them on Mother.

“How could you?” I rasped at her, so hurt by her betrayal. “Have you no respect for your own son who’s dead? You really want to go against his wishes, Mom?” I hadn’t called her mom in years, but it slipped out in my desperation.

“David was being stubborn,” she replied. “The truth is that David’s gone. Now we have to think about what’s best for the kids, and clearly that’s not you.”

“Only because you’re taking our home from us! Just don’t do this. You can have them any time you want them over. Just don’t take them away. They’re all I have.”

“Mr. Haughton,” the social worker, Jennifer Sears stated, joining us. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing we can do if you don’t have a place to stay with the kids.”

“We do have a place to stay,” I answered, eying the two cops as they approached the house. “Really Mother?” I snapped at her. “You’d do this with cops?”

“This is my house,” she replied. “It’s up to you if you want to leave it peacefully or not. But make no mistake, Bailey. One way or another, you’re moving out today.”

“You can’t let her do this,” I said to the social worker. “Can’t you see she’s not a fit parent? I’m her son for crying out loud, and she’s willing to do this to me. She kicked me out when I was a minor. How can she be the better parent?”

“The children would stay with you, Mr. Haughton, if you have the means to take care of them,” Ms. Sears replied. “Your brother’s wish in making you guardian comes first, but we have to step in where the kids are not being cared for. Now if you continue to make accusations on your mother being unfit, I’ll have to take them and place them in temporary custody until we find a more permanent solution for them or until you’re in a position to reclaim them. Now, are you sure you’d like to make official statements on the ability of your mother to take care of the kids?”

I knew at that moment what it meant to be caught between a rock and a hard place. What was I supposed to do? There was no way I could allow the kids to go into state custody and have them being looked after by strangers. I wished I had a lawyer to find out my options, but I couldn’t afford one. I had no idea if these people were bullshitting me. Mother had to have paid off the social worker for her to get there so quickly. Did these people work during the holidays?

“Let me talk to the kids first,” I said, shoulders slumped. “Please. I don’t want them to be terrified of what’s happening.”

“You have ten minutes,” Mother said. “We can’t keep the police waiting all day. They have better things to do with their time.”

“Then you should not have brought them here,” I pointed out, then turned my back to them as I walked back inside the house, tears streaming down my face. I came face to face with Gina standing in the hall, her eyes terrified.

“Uncle Bailey, what’s wrong?”

I swept her up in my arms and carried her in the living room where Reggie was still sitting. I sat beside him on the floor, took the remote control from him and paused the cartoon.

“I was watching that!” he protested.

“I need to talk to you a bit,” I told him, pulling him closer to my side despite his look of discomfort. I might have been holding him too tightly to me, but I felt like my grip was slipping, and I was losing them too fast. Over the past year, they had ceased being just my niece and nephew. They were my kids. Mine. And I was about to lose them. But damn if it was going to be forever.

“I want you to listen carefully to what I’m saying, okay?”

They nodded, sensing the somberness in my tone. Gina’s hands tightened about my shoulders.

“I love you guys so much,” I told them. “More than anything else in the world. You know that, right?”

“You’re going away!” Gina cried, startling me at her intuition. She tried to push herself from my arms. “You’re going to leave us too!”

I blinked furiously at my tears. “No, no, puppet, it’s not like that.” I tried my best to calm her down. “I’ll just be gone for a while. You’re going to stay with Grandma, but it’s just for a little while. I’m still going to see you. I’ll try to get us a new house, and we’ll all live together again.”

“You’re lying!” Gina howled, hitting me with her fists. “That’s what D-d-daddy said. He d-didn’t come ba-back. And Arthur d-didn’t come back. N-now you’re-you’re going a-away too.”

“Gina, that’s not true.”

I had to let her go because she was inconsolable. She scrambled to her feet and ran across the room. “Grandma!” My head snapped up to watch Mother pull Gina to her side and pat her head.

“There, there, Regina. Don’t cry. You’ll have a fun time living with Grandma.”

I knuckled the tears from my eyes, trying not to feel too bad that Gina was finding comfort from the woman who was ripping our family apart. God, it hurt something awful. My chest tightened from the pain.

“You don’t love us anymore, Uncle Bailey?” Reggie asked. Unlike his sister, he wasn’t crying, just staring at me with the biggest wounded eyes I ever saw.

“Of course I love you, Reg. I’ll never stop loving you.”

“Then why are you giving us away?” he sniffled. “I don’t want to live with Grandma. I want to live with you.”

I crushed Reggie in a hug, unable to answer him because I was consumed by tears. He clung to me, crying just as hard. I had let them down. I had let everybody down. I hadn’t been enough for Arthur, and I wasn’t enough for these kids either. I couldn’t keep my promise to my brother who had given me way more than I deserved.

“Oh God, David, I’m sorry,” I sobbed, clutching his son to me, and hoping he would forgive me. “I’m so sorry I failed you. All of you.”