11. Caleb
Chapter 11
Caleb
F rance is eight hours ahead of Prairie Springs, so I texted my sister yesterday evening, while she was fast asleep, that I’d be FaceTiming her around 4:00 pm Paris time to get her up to speed on something important.
“Hey,” Miranda says, answering my call. She’s got a full face of makeup and the top of whatever she’s wearing is sparkly. Clearly, she’s dressed to paint Paris red with the group of girlfriends she flew there with the other day. “Is this about selling the cabin?”
“No. I haven’t decided about that yet.”
Concern flickers across Miranda’s face. “What, then?”
I flap my lips together. “I’m just gonna cut to the chase, because there’s no easy way to say this.” I inhale deeply. “I’ve got a two-year-old daughter named Raine. I came to Prairie Springs yesterday to meet her for the first time, and I found out she’s incredible, Miranda. An angel on Earth.”
I’ve done the impossible: rendered my chatty, vivacious sister speechless. After a moment, however, Miranda gathers herself enough to express confusion and shock about my revelation. She demands details, which I provide in a long ramble. And by the time I’m finished talking, my sister is no longer shocked and confused. She’s flat-out enraged by my secrecy before now.
“You’re telling me Mom died without knowing she had a granddaughter?” Miranda shouts at top volume. “Caleb Baumgarten, how could be so heartless and selfish?”
I try to explain myself, as best I can, but even as I try to defend myself, my sorry excuses sound hollow and insufficient, even to me. “If it matters,” I say, “I reached out to Raine’s mother, Claudia, about six months after Raine’s birth, asking to fly both of them down to my house to meet you and Mom, but Claudia told me to fuck off. When I reached out again a few months later, it turned out she’d blocked me.”
“And that stopped you?” Miranda bellows, tears streaming down her cheeks. “If you really wanted to meet your child—Mom’s grandchild— you could have flown to Seattle to try to convince Claudia in person.”
“You’re right. I should have done that. In my defense, Mom was really sick by then, and I didn’t feel like I had the emotional bandwidth to try and possibly fail. I didn’t want to give Mom false hope, if things didn’t work out.” When my sister glares at me, I rough a hand down my face. “I’m sorry, Miranda. I fucked up. When I found out she’d blocked me, I decided to leave it alone till Mom got better and try again later.” I swallow hard. “But, of course, Mom never got better, so . . .”
Miranda bursts into sobs, and the already jagged pieces of my heart scraping inside my chest cavity shatter a bit more. “All those times I visited you in rehab,” she says, “you never once thought to mention?—”
“I’m sorry, Miranda. I was selfish and stupid.”
“No, you were beyond selfish and stupid. You were cruel and heartless. An asshole-douchebag!”
“I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to forgive me, but I promise I’ll never lie to you again.”
Miranda wipes a tear. “If you do, you’re fucking dead to me, Caleb.”
“I understand.” She’s said that before, but she’s never once followed through with it. For reasons I’ll never understand, my sister always defends me. Always supports me. No matter what bullshit I put her through.
Miranda inhales deeply and wipes her eyes. “How’d the meeting with Raine go yesterday? Did she like you?”
I can’t help smiling at the memory. “Like is too strong a word. But she warmed up to me by the end of our first meeting.” I tell my sister the whole story about Raine teaching me to color, and how brilliantly Aubrey drew Raine out of her shell, and Miranda cries throughout my entire telling.
“Goddammit, you prick,” she murmurs. “You’ve ruined my makeup. Now, I’m gonna make all my friends wait for me, as I redo it.”
“Where are you going tonight?”
“Some fancy night club. I don’t know.” She wipes her eyes again. “Should I cut my trip short and come to Prairie Springs?”
“No, stay there. Have fun. Once I’ve made some progress with Raine on my own, you can come meet her.”
“Can I at least see a photo of my niece?” Miranda asks.
“Of course. I’m sure Aubrey has one. Hang on. She’s walking twenty paces behind me.”
“ Huh ?”
Without explaining, I turn around and discover Aubrey’s kept her distance on the dirt trail, as promised. But she’s not walking calmly behind me, as expected. She’s performing some kind of dance routine back there to the beat of whatever song is blaring in her earbuds. In fact, she’s going all out back there: throwing up her hands, shaking her ass, performing choreography as enthusiastically as any dancer in a music video.
I wave my arm above my head to get Aubrey’s attention, and when our eyes meet, she abruptly stops dancing, bursts out laughing at herself, and pulls out an earbud.
“Come say hi to my sister, Miranda!” I call out.
I don’t need to ask her twice. With a huge grin on her face, Aubrey bounds happily toward me. When she comes to a stop next to me, I pull out my own earbuds, in order to put the call on speaker mode. I make all necessary introductions, and both women quickly launch into an enthusiastic conversation about how great it is to meet the other.
“Caleb said you might have a photo of Raine?” Miranda asks hopefully.
“Oh, I’ve got a million of them.” Aubrey swipes on her phone and holds it up to display a heart-melting photo of Raine in fairy wings, and Miranda gushes and coos at the beautiful sight. Rinse and repeat. Clearly, Aubrey wasn’t exaggerating when she said she’s got a million photos.
“Oh!” Aubrey says, selecting another shot. “This one was taken at a pond we always went to in Seattle. Rainey loves feeding ducks.” She displays the photo, eliciting predictable coos from my sister, before returning to her phone again.
Suddenly, Aubrey’s vibrant smile turns wistful and sad. She looks up, her dark eyes pained. “Would it be okay if I show you a shot of Raine with her mother?”
“Please do.”
Aubrey holds up the shot, and I’m met with the smiling, pretty face of Claudia Beaumont, pressing her cheek happily against her daughter’s tiny cheek.
“Claudia was my best friend since grade school,” Aubrey says softly. “We grew up together in Prairie Springs.”
“She was beautiful,” Miranda says. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Aubrey.”
“Thank you. No matter what, I want Raine to grow up knowing she had the best mommy in the world.”
“She will,” Miranda says. “Right, Caleb?”
“Of course. Absolutely.” I’ve been angry with Claudia for about a year and a half now, thanks to her curt, dismissive response to my heartfelt email. But now, thanks to that smiling photo of her with her beloved toddler, my anger has given way to grief for Aubrey and Raine. Can I really blame Claudia for telling me to fuck off, after the way I’d basically told her unborn child to fuck off from day one?
I look at my sister, and the tears in her eyes reflect my own feelings back to me. I blew it. Epically. And I’ll never fucking forgive myself for it.
Aubrey clears her throat. “Here’s a brand-new shot. The first photo ever taken of father and daughter.”
My breathing halts as I behold the stunning image of me coloring on the floor with Raine, totally unaware Aubrey was snapping a photograph. “I had no idea you took that.”
“I figured you’d want to memorialize the once-in-a-lifetime moment.”
I can barely breathe. “Thank you for thinking to do that, Aubrey.”
Aubrey blushes and shrugs.
“Will you text that photo to me?” I choke out, feeling like my throat is closing up.
“Of course. If you don’t piss me off too much before then, I might even put it on a coffee mug for you for Father’s Day.”
Miranda chuckles. “I already adore you, Aubrey.”
As the ladies continue talking, I stare, transfixed, at the sacred photo. But a moment later, my sister interrupts my trance by telling me she’s got to go to fix her makeup, so she and her friends won’t be late for their big night out.
We say our goodbyes to Miranda, and through it all, it’s clear my sister’s not yet ready to forgive me for keeping her niece a secret. But at least, she tells me she loves me in parting, as always, before hanging up.
After Miranda disappears from my screen, Aubrey says, “Your sister is amazing.”
“Yeah, she’s awesome.”
My phone buzzes with a text. When I look down, it’s from my sister:
Hey asshole, don’t forget you’re there to get to know your daughter, not to fuck her nanny. If you fuck Aubrey and then break her heart, where will that leave poor Raine? Without the one person she’s got left in this world. So, please, think with your head and your heart, and not with your dick, you horny-ass motherfucker!
Jesus.
I have no idea what compelled Miranda to shoot off such an unhinged text within seconds of hanging up. Yes, I’m a horny-ass motherfucker, and my sister knows that about me. But I’m positive I didn’t make my intense physical attraction to Aubrey obvious during the call. Did I ?
“Oh! The timer just went off,” Aubrey announces. “Time to turn around.”
“Perfect timing.”
Aubrey motions to the dirt path we’ve just traversed. “After you. And yes, I’ll hang back again and listen to music.”
“Actually, walk with me at first. When I texted my attorney about our arrangement yesterday, she said she wanted to meet you.”
I make the call on speaker phone, and right out of the gate, Paula and Aubrey connect in a way that kind of irks me. My attorney is never warm and sweet like this to me. What the fuck?
After a bit, when the Paula-Aubrey portion of the phone call has run its course, Aubrey drops back to walk—or dance—about twenty yards behind me again, and I resume talking to my attorney in private.
“She’s fucking adorable,” Paula says. “Also, completely credible. At the hearing, I’m sure the judge will believe every word she says, which means you’d better make sure Aubrey likes you and believes you’ve got nothing but Raine’s best interests at heart.”
“I do.”
“Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
At my prompting, Paula gives me an update on the lawsuit, letting me know it’s going to be filed in Los Angeles before the end of the day. “As we discussed,” Paula continues, “we’ll ask for sole legal and physical custody for you, with full visitation rights for Aubrey. That’s what you still want, now that you’ve met Raine?”
“Now more than ever.”
“If you’re not positive about that, tell me now, so I can amend the suit to support Aubrey having physical custody, while you get legal custody and visitation rights.”
“I want my daughter, Paula, and I want Aubrey and her family to be a part of her life, forever. I don’t have any doubts about that now.”
Paula smiles broadly. She rarely does that, when we’re talking business. But this time, my trusty attorney can’t keep her excitement from lighting up her face. “Okay, I’ll get the paperwork filed. In the meantime, your job is to bond with Raine before the hearing in a month. You’ll need to convince the judge you’re a fit father, Caleb. Your sperm fertilizing an egg isn’t nearly enough to establish that.”
“I know that better than anyone, thanks to my own fucking father.” I glance back at Aubrey. Once again, she’s in her own little world back there. “Luckily, I’ve got Aubrey helping me learn the ropes. She’s incredible with Raine and patient with me. She really understands how to?—”
“Fucking hell, Caleb. No . You can’t have sex with Aubrey.”
I’m floored. “What are you talking about? What made you say that?”
“When you said her name, you looked like a goddamned wolf in heat. Don’t even try to deny it. I’m an expert at reading body language, and yours screamed, ‘I want to fuck my kid’s nanny!’”
I roll my eyes.
“You deny it?”
“Completely. One question, though.” I smirk. “Would it fuck things up, from a legal standpoint, if I did fuck Aubrey?”
“I knew it!”
I chuckle. “Just answer the question, counselor. That’s what I pay you to do. ”
Now it’s Paula’s turn to roll her eyes. “A custody hearing is like a mini-trial, Caleb, except the judge is the one who makes the decision, rather than a jury. The last thing we need is for the judge to think Aubrey’s testimony has been compromised by you giving her orgasms and/or whispering sweet nothings into her ear for the past month, in order to manipulate her testimony. She’s quite a bit younger than you, remember? We don’t need the judge wondering if?—”
“So, are you saying it’d be a bad idea because the optics wouldn’t be good, or are you saying it’d be illegal?”
“It wouldn’t be illegal, no. But it’d be a bad idea.”
I glance back again. “Well, you’ll be happy to know the odds of it happening are low, anyway. Aubrey hates my guts, so I don’t think she’d say yes to me, even if I tried.”
“If that changes, if Aubrey decides she can overlook her hatred of you for some meaningless fun in the sack, then, please, resist the temptation and keep your dick in your pants. This hearing is going to be contentious, and we both know you’ve got a horrible track record with women.”
I’ve reached the patch of shoreline that’s directly in front of my house, so I stop walking and turn to look at Aubrey on the path behind me. She’s not dancing like she’s in a music video any longer. She’s now gazing out at the lake as she moves, looking contemplative and hot as hell.
“I’ve got a counseling session to attend,” I say to Paula. “Keep me posted on the lawsuit.”
“You and Aubrey will need to sign declarations in support of our pleadings, by the way. I’ll email them to you to look over and sign today.”
“I’ll let Aubrey know.”
“She really should have her own attorney to help her understand her rights and the process. If I find someone to represent her, will you foot the bill?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do. Because helping Aubrey will ultimately help Raine, and you’re a fit father who’ll do anything to help your child and the people she loves. But also because, if Aubrey has her own legal counsel, she’ll be even more credible in court, which will ultimately help your cause.”
I exhale. “Fine. Do it.”
“Thank you, sir. Enjoy your Zoom call.”
“Can’t wait.”
We say our goodbyes and hang up, at which point, I beckon to Aubrey to come close. With each step she takes toward me, the more my body starts buzzing with my intense, undeniable attraction to her.
I know what Paula said about fucking Aubrey, but I can’t imagine the threat of potentially “bad optics” keeping me from shooting my shot with her, should the opportunity arise. Last night, Aubrey brazenly stared at my hard-on, when we crashed into each other in the cramped hallway, supposedly by accident. And this morning, Aubrey rushed to my room the minute she heard me groaning out her name, exactly like I was hoping she’d do.
Sorry, Paula. If my next ploy to get Aubrey’s attention, whatever it turns out to be, works out even better than the first two, I can’t imagine not at least trying to ride that wave as far as Aubrey will let me take it.