19. Haley
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Haley
I had been pacing between the kitchen and the living room for the better part of an hour, waiting for the doorbell to ring.
James had texted me that morning, casual as ever.
James: Sent some supplies for Lily and you, let me know once you get them.
I had typed back a quick thank you and spent the rest of the day wondering what supplies meant. Knowing James, it could be anything from a practical first aid kit to an absurdly expensive stuffed animal that Lily would love for exactly three days before abandoning it for her old rabbit.
The man had no sense of restraint when it came to my daughter. It was endearing and infuriating in equal measure.
When the bell finally rang, I was already halfway to the door, a smile forming on my face.
The smile died the second I opened it.
Caleb was standing in my hallway.
For a moment I thought I was hallucinating. Sleep deprivation from the hospital, maybe. Some kind of stress-induced psychotic break. Because there was no way, absolutely no way, that my ex-husband was standing outside my apartment holding a gift bag with cheerful tissue paper sticking out the top.
But he didn’t disappear when I blinked. He just stood there, looking at me with an expression I couldn’t read.
What the fuck.
Did I wake up in the Twilight Zone?
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I hissed the words and stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind me.
Lily was sleeping in her room, finally recovered from the fever, and there was no way in hell I was going to let her witness this.
No way I was going to let her see the man who had abandoned her before she was even born.
The last time I had seen this bastard was in that courtroom three years ago. I had been eight months pregnant, exhausted, and watching him sign away his parental rights without so much as a glance in my direction. He hadn’t asked about her since.
The only contact I had received from the Sinclair family was Diane and her threats. Her lawyers. Her attempts to make my life hell because I had dared to leave her precious son.
And now here he was. Standing in my hallway like he had any right to be here.
“Hi.” He shifted his weight, the gift bag rustling. “Hi, Haley. You look-”
“What are you doing here, Caleb.”
I didn’t phrase it as a question. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking I cared about his answer.
“Can I come in?” He gestured toward the door behind me. “I think it would be better if we talked inside. More private.”
“No.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Absolutely not. How do you even-”
I stopped. Looked at the bag in his hand. At the tissue paper, bright pink and yellow, the kind they used at children’s boutiques.
“Why are you at my door?”
He shifted the bag to his other hand, buying himself time. I watched him do it and didn’t help him fill the silence.
“I’ve been in therapy.” He said it like he expected applause. “A while now. Almost two years. And a lot of it, most of it actually, has been about you. About what I did. About the kind of man I was back then.” He paused, took a breath.
“I’m not that man anymore, Haley. I’ve done the work. I’ve faced the things I did wrong, and I needed to come here and say that to your face. I needed to make it right. I just didn’t know how to start. I’ve driven out here a dozen times and turned around before I got to your building.”
I almost laughed. Almost. The only thing that stopped me was the knowledge that if I started laughing, I might not be able to stop.
“So this is for you.” I kept my voice flat, expressionless.
“What?”
“This.” I gestured at him, at the bag, at the whole pathetic scene. “Showing up here. It’s not for me. It’s not for Lily. It’s for you. So you can feel like you closed the loop.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Don’t talk to me about fairness.”
I kept my voice level. The anger was there, burning in my chest, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me lose control. I wasn’t going to give him anything.
The bag was the worst part. The cheerful stupid tissue paper, pink and yellow like a child’s birthday party. Like he thought he could buy his way back into her life with whatever generic toy a store clerk had recommended.
“What’s in the bag?”
He looked down at it, then back at me. “I didn’t know what she likes. I got, the woman at the store helped me pick things out, it’s a few things, a doll and some books and-”
“You don’t know what she likes. Why am I not surprised?”
“No.” He had the decency to look ashamed. “I know I don’t. That’s the whole point. That’s why I’m here, Haley. I want to know. I want the chance to learn.”
“How did you find me?” I watched his face carefully. “This address isn’t anywhere. I made sure of that. I moved two hours away specifically so you and your mother couldn’t show up at my door whenever you felt like it.”
He smiled. That smug, self-satisfied smile I remembered from our marriage.
What the fuck was going on.
“It wasn’t hard, honestly.” He shrugged like it was nothing. Like stalking me to my home was a casual inconvenience. “James is still around you. Has been for years, from what I can tell. You follow one, you find the other.”
My blood went cold.
He had followed James. He had tracked his own brother to find me. To find Lily.
I gave him nothing.
“Okay.”
“Look,” he said, recovering, straightening his shoulders like he was about to deliver a business pitch.
“I’m not trying to upend anything. I know I have no right to ask for your trust. I know I destroyed that years ago.
But I just want a chance. I want to be in her life.
I’ve changed, Haley, and I think if you let me show you-”
“Get out.”
“Haley-”
He spread his hands, the picture of wounded innocence. “I’m trying here. I’m making an effort. That has to count for something.”
“Fuck off, Caleb.” I said it calmly, clearly, so there would be no misunderstanding.
“I don’t care what your intentions are. I don’t care if you’ve found Jesus or Buddha or a really good life coach.
I don’t care if you’re on some sorry train heading toward redemption. I don’t give a fuck. Leave me alone.”
His expression shifted. The wounded innocence faded, replaced by a harder edge I recognized from the worst days of our marriage. The edge that came out when he didn’t get what he wanted.
“You can’t keep me from her.”
“Like hell I can’t.” I felt my hands curl into fists at my sides. “You signed your rights away. In a courtroom. In front of a judge. You didn’t even ask what gender she was before you gave her up. Or did I dream that?”
“I know what I did.” His voice was colder now, the therapy talk evaporating. “And I already have my lawyers looking into it. These things can be revisited. Rights can be restored under certain circumstances. We can figure out an arrangement that works for everyone.”
The nerve of this man.
The absolute fucking nerve.
I was furious now.
He was standing here threatening to take my daughter away from me, the daughter he had abandoned, the daughter he had never once tried to see or speak to or acknowledge.
“Your lawyers?” I stepped closer, getting in his face. “So even before you tried to see your daughter, before you knocked on my door with your pathetic gift bag, you already had lawyers involved? You were already preparing to fight me in court?”
“It’s not like that, Haley.” He took a step back, his composure cracking. “I knew you’d be difficult about this. I wanted to have my options ready.”
“Me?” I laughed, and it came out sharp and bitter. “I am the one being difficult? Seriously? That’s your excuse? You abandon your child before she’s born, you don’t contact her for three years, you stalk your own brother to find us, and I’m the one being difficult?”
“Mom warned me you wouldn’t make this easy-”
“God, Diane and you really need the therapy.” I shook my head. “Of course your mother is involved. Of course she is. Three years of nothing, and suddenly you show up at my door with lawyers on retainer because Mommy told you it was time to play father.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Get out, Caleb.” I pointed toward the elevator. “You’re not welcome here. You never will be.”
“Haley, please-” He reached for my arm and I yanked it back before he could touch me.
“Don’t.” My voice went hard as steel. “Don’t you dare put your hands on me. I will scream this building down if you take one more step toward me.”
“You’re being unreasonable.”
I stepped back toward my door. “Get out before I call security and have them drag you out.”
“This isn’t over.” His voice followed me as I reached for the door handle. “I have rights, Haley. I’ll see you in court if I have to.”
“You have nothing.” I turned to face him one last time. “You gave up everything. And no amount of therapy or lawyers or surprise visits is going to change that.”
I opened my door and slipped inside, slamming it behind me. My hands were shaking as I locked the deadbolt, the chain, everything I had. Through the door, I could hear him still standing there, could hear him take a breath like he was going to say more.
“Sir?” A new voice in the hallway. Building security. Thank God. “Sir, is there a problem here?”
“I was just leaving.” Caleb’s voice was smooth again, controlled. “No problem at all.”
“Ma’am?” The security guard’s voice came through the door. “Are you all right in there?”
“I’m fine.” I pressed my forehead against the wood, trying to slow my breathing. “He was just leaving. Please make sure he actually does.”
I listened to the sounds of them walking away. The elevator dinging. The doors sliding closed.
Then silence.
I stood there for a long moment, my back against the door. Lily was still asleep. She hadn’t heard any of it. Thank God for small mercies.
My hands were still shaking when I pulled out my phone and dialed Rebecca’s number. She answered on the second ring.
“Haley. What’s wrong?”
“Caleb was just here.” I walked to the window and looked out at the parking lot below, half expecting to see his car still there. “He found me.”
“How?”
“Doesn’t matter. He wants to be part of Lily’s life, he has lawyers looking into getting his rights restored.”
Rebecca was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was calm but serious.
“He can’t do that. He signed a voluntary termination of parental rights. It was filed with the court. That’s not a document you can just undo because you’ve had some personal growth.”
“He has money, Rebecca.” I sat down on the couch, my legs suddenly too weak to hold me. “The Sinclairs have more money than God. Can’t they just buy a judge or something?”
“Not for this. The law is very clear on terminated rights.” She paused. “But he can try. And trying means motions and hearings and legal fees. He can make this exhausting for you, even if he can’t win.”
“So what do I do?”
“You stay calm. You document everything. Write down exactly what he said tonight, word for word as best you can remember. Time, date, location, everything.” Her voice was steady, reassuring. “And if he contacts you again, you don’t engage. You call me immediately.”
“And if he actually files something?”
“Then we go on the offense. We have years of documentation showing he made no attempt to contact his daughter. We have his signed termination. We have Diane’s previous threats.” I could hear her tapping on a keyboard. “He has money, yes. But we have facts. Facts win.”
She said it with absolute confidence. “Try to get some sleep, Haley. I know that’s easier said than done, but you need to be rested if this turns into a fight. I’ll start pulling files first thing tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Rebecca.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Thank me when we bury him.”
I hung up and sat in the dark living room, staring at nothing.
My phone buzzed.
James: Did the delivery arrive? Everything okay?
I stared at the message for a long moment. I should tell him. He deserved to know that his brother had followed him, had used him to find us. He would want to know.
But not tonight. Tonight I was too tired, too scared, too raw to have that conversation.
Haley: Got it. Thank you. Talk tomorrow?
His response came immediately.
James: Of course. Get some rest.
I set the phone down and looked toward the hallway where my daughter was sleeping. Completely unaware that the father who had abandoned her was now trying to claw his way back into her life.
I would burn the world down before I let him anywhere near her.