Chapter 21
Natalia
“Are you and Hunter, like, serious?” Izzy asked.
We were about a half hour from the federal prison when she asked the question out of the blue. She’d been her normal, brooding self this morning and had popped her earbuds in before we’d even entered the car, then proceeded to sleep for three hours of the three-and-a-half-hour drive I’d already done.
“No. Not at all.” We were the exact opposite of serious. But telling Izzy that Hunter and I had agreed to become fuck buddies wasn’t really appropriate.
She shrugged and put her feet up on the dashboard. “I like him.”
“He’s too old for you,” I teased.
“Marcus was a dweeb.”
“Marcus was very nice.”
Another shrug.
“How about your love life?” I glanced at my stepdaughter. “How are things with Yakshit?”
“Okay, I guess. He asked me if I was going to the dance, and I said no. Then he asked why not. So I said the person I wanted to go with already had a date.”
“You did?” I was surprised. Old Izzy would have just given him an attitude and not talked it out. She was really maturing. “What did he say to that?”
“He asked me who I wanted to go with.”
My eyes flashed to her. “What did you say?”
Izzy buried her head in her hands. “I blurted out, ‘You, you dope. I wanted to go with you.’ We were in Science Research class, and everyone had been talking because the teacher hadn’t come in yet. My back was to the door, and I didn’t see her come in right before I yelled it. I swear, the entire class shut up when I said it. Everyone heard.”
“Wow. Oh my. How did that go over?”
“A couple of people snickered. But Yakshit just stared at me. I thought I’d freaked him out. So after class, I bolted and ignored him when he tried to talk to me. I managed to keep away from him all day until after practice. He waited outside the locker room for me to come out.”
“Did you two talk?”
“He talked. I was so embarrassed that I didn’t say much.”
“And…”
“He said he would’ve rather gone to the dance with me, but he didn’t think I liked him. He thought I liked Chad Siegler.”
“Who’s that?”
“Some boring guy who plays on the basketball team. He’s basically Marcus. He’s cute, I guess. But boring as shit.”
I laughed, even though I probably should’ve corrected her language. But Izzy and I were talking about boys. Who would’ve ever thought we’d get here?
“Why did he think you liked Chad?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, is Yakshit still going to the dance with Brittany?”
“He told me he was going to tell her he couldn’t go so we could go together. But I told him not to. I said to go with her. The dance is next week, and it’s not fair to Brittany if he dumps her to take me. It’s my own fault he’s going with her because I didn’t have the nerve to ask him.”
“That’s very considerate of you.”
She shrugged. “He said he wants to take me to the movies.”
“Did you say yes?”
“I told him to have a good time at the dance and ask me after if he still wants to.”
“Wow.”
She stared out the window in silence for a while before speaking again. “Do I have to tell Dad about him if I go to the movies?”
I knew my ex-husband. He’d be adamant that she couldn’t date until she was twenty-one. While I didn’t love the idea of her dating, she would be sixteen in two weeks, and it was going to happen whether we allowed it or not. I was basically a single mom and the only mother figure she had—except for her grandmother who treated her like she was still three years old. We were going to have to trust each other.
“That’s up to you, Izzy. But he won’t hear it from me if you decide to not share it with him. However, you and I need to talk about these things. Okay?”
When I glanced over at her, I saw she was relieved. “Okay.”
Our visit with Garrett was typical. He tried to talk to me, and I retreated to a table alone, keeping a watchful eye on the two of them while reading a book. When the visit was almost over, I went over to their table to walk out with Izzy. Neither of them looked happy. But it wasn’t the same type of upset that sometimes hits Izzy when it was time to go—that was usually sadness. Instead today, my stepdaughter had her arms crossed and looked pissed. And my ex-husband was scowling.
“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” She squinted at her father.
Shit. This was about me.
He gave her a stern look and a matching tone. “Give us a few minutes alone, Isabella.”
Izzy looked up to her father. I’d never seen her defiant toward him before. “No,” she spat. “I’m not going to leave you alone so you can give Nat the third degree. It’s none of your business what she does or who she spends time with.”
My eyes widened.
Garrett spoke between clenched teeth. “Go wait by the door, Isabella.”
Izzy stood, and for a second, I thought she was caving. Until she turned to face me. “You ready, Nat?”
I glanced back and forth between my ex-husband and stepdaughter, trying to figure out the right thing to do. I hated for her to leave him angry. If she regretted whatever had been said, she didn’t have tomorrow to make it all good again. It would be another month before we were back for our next visit.
Hoping I made the right decision, I looked at Garrett. “Izzy is growing up to be a pretty amazing person. She’s really matured and has come into her own lately.” My eyes caught with hers. “So while I hate you two fighting, I support her, and if she’s ready to leave, we’re going to be going now. Goodbye, Garrett. See you next month.”
Izzy gave her father one last look. “Bye, Dad.” And we walked out together.
I expected her to break down after we made our way out of the prison. But she didn’t. Izzy was quiet as we collected our things from the locker and walked to the car.
Once we were inside, I turned to face her before starting the car. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“He’s such a jerk. I was telling him about how my jump shot has improved, and you know what his response was?”
“What?”
“He asked who the man was that was in our apartment.”
Marcus had only been inside our apartment once, and my gut told me this was not about Marcus. “How did he know there was a man in our apartment?”
“Damon told him you were dating a plumber or something.”
Ugh. Damon.
“I’m sorry he tried to get you in the middle of things and it ruined your visit.”
“Dad ruined my visit. He wasn’t even listening about my game. Then he got pissed when I told him it was none of his business who was in our house.”
Oh shit.
“What did he say to that?”
“He said you were his wife, and it was his business. That I was his eyes and ears while he couldn’t be home right now. So I told him you were his ex-wife, and it was his own fault he couldn’t be home right now. That I wasn’t his eyes and ears, I was his daughter.”
God, I was so proud of her. But my heart also broke that Garrett was trying to use her during the one shitty hour he got to see her each month.
“You’re a hundred percent right, Izzy. But that couldn’t have been easy to say.”
“It’s the truth.”
When had she become such a grown up? “Izzy…thank you. Thank you for defending me. But I just want to put it out there—I’ll never be upset if you want to tell your father our business. While I don’t think I’m his business, you are, and I suppose he has every right to know if a man is hanging around while you’re home.”
She again stared out the window, so I started the car to give her some time. We were going to be physically next to each other for the next few hours, yet I thought she might need some privacy to replay things in her head.
But she didn’t put in her earbuds and fall asleep this time. Instead, she looked deep in thought.
After about an hour, I pointed to a bunch of fast food signs on the side of the highway and asked if she wanted to stop and get some lunch. She nodded. Rather than go through the drive-thru as we normally would on the way home, I parked in a spot at Wendy’s. If she was ready to talk some more, it would be easier sitting across from each other.
I grabbed my purse from the back and opened my car door to get out. Izzy’s voice stopped me.
“Nat?”
I turned back to find that Izzy hadn’t made any attempt to get out of the car. She faced forward, but when I looked closely at her, I saw tears welling in her eyes. I pulled my car door shut.
“Talk to me, sweetheart. It’s normal that you’re upset after what happened today.”
A fat tear streaked down her cheek, and her bottom lip quivered. Seeing her pain when she turned to face me choked my throat with my own tears.
“What rights does Dad have?” she croaked with a shaky voice.
At first I didn’t understand the question, but then I remembered the last thing I’d said was that he had every right to know if a man was hanging around her. I thought that’s what she was referring to.
“Well, he’s your father, so I guess I feel like he has a right to know you’re safe and well protected. No matter what happened between me and him, or what he’s done wrong, I would feel wrong letting him worry about your safety.”
She shook her head vigorously. “No. What right does he have to me?”
“You mean legally?”
She nodded.
We’d never discussed the legal aspect of how things were decided by the court. All she knew was she lived with me and visited her grandmother and father. “Well, right now I have full physical custody of you. So no one else has the right to have you live with them. You go to visit your grandmother once a month because that’s what I arranged with her. I think it’s important to keep in touch with her, and she loves you very much. She wanted to have physical custody of you, but she’s seventy-two, and you’d never lived with her before, so the court agreed that you should live with me.”
I waited until she looked up at me and made sure she heard the next part loud and clear. “And I wanted you to live with me because I love you.”
She smiled through her tears and nodded, so I continued.
“But there are two types of rights people have over minors—physical custody and legal custody. Your dad and I share legal custody of you.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that your dad and I both get a say in the important decisions about you—like schooling, medical care, and that type of stuff.”
“Even though he’s in jail?”
“Yes. I didn’t try to fight him for full legal custody. He’s always made good decisions for your well-being, and he does love you. I didn’t want him to feel like I was trying to steal you from him. He made mistakes. Big ones. But he’s still your father.”
I thought I’d done a good job explaining it, but when I finished, she looked even more devastated than when I started. Tears streamed down her face.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Was that too much information?” I leaned over and pulled her into my arms. “Come here. Talk to me. What part upset you?”
She sobbed on my shoulder for a few minutes, and I couldn’t hold back my own tears. It hurt so damn much to see her in pain. Kids shouldn’t have to hurt because of the actions of adults who were supposed to protect them. Yet it happened every day.
I never thought I’d long for angry, pissed-off Izzy to appear. After a while, the sobbing slowed, and she sniffled before lifting her head from my shoulder. Her eyes were puffy and red.
“You’re going to send me back to live with him, aren’t you?”
The question caught me off guard. It had never occurred to me that Izzy might not want to live with her dad when he got out in a few months. It was only in the last few months that she’d started to open up to me, and I’d started to see that she really didn’t hate me—she just hated the circumstances surrounding why she had to live with me, and I was the only person around to blame.
I searched her face. “You don’t want to live with your dad?”
She shook her head.
“You’re upset with him now. I don’t think you’re in the right frame of mind to think about things like this.”
“He’s not a girl. He wouldn’t get stuff. Can’t I just stay with you and visit him on the weekends or something?”
Jesus, I was not ready to answer that question. Even more so, I wasn’t sure I could answer that question. Garrett would certainly want custody of his daughter when he got out, wouldn’t he?
“Izzy, I...I don’t think that decision is up to me, or you, alone.”
Her hopeful face fell. “It’s up to Dad?”
“I guess if you and I decided it would be in your best interest to stay with me, and your dad disagreed, a judge would have to decide.”
She looked down, seeming to think that answer over for a minute. Then she hit me point blank, staring straight into my eyes. “Would you want me to live with you, if that’s what I wanted?”
The answer fell from my lips before I could even contemplate it. “Yes.”
But I did not have a good feeling that things would go smoothly if it turned out this was what Izzy wanted.