Chapter 5 #2
We were actually running on time for once—and yeah, okay, maybe Grace wasn’t the only one who’d had visions of Avery Smith standing on his front porch and tapping his wristwatch, although I had a feeling that my mental version of Mr. Smith smiled a lot less and judged a lot harder than Gracie’s.
Despite Gracie forgetting to put her shoes on, we made it to school in good time.
Better than good time—we were at least ten minutes early and arrived at the same time as a bunch of other kids.
As we walked to the building, I was nervous, and I wondered if there would ever come a time when the prospect of seeing Mr. Smith—Avery—wouldn’t tie my stomach up in knots.
It was a combination of being ashamed of being called out for turning up late too many times, the awkwardness of remembering that embarrassing lap dance every time I saw him, and now, just to add a whole bunch of confusion on top of that, the fact that I couldn’t decide if Avery was subjectively cute or objectively cute—and why the hell it even mattered.
“Hey,” I said, giving him a nod when we reached the doorway.
“Hi.” He looked at his watch, but instead of making a show out of being surprised I’d dragged my ass here on time, he gave me a little pleased smile that I barely had time to register, let alone translate, before he turned his attention to Gracie.
“Good morning, Gracie. Are you ready for another fun week?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed and bounced right past him into the classroom.
There was another kid lined up right behind her to bask in Avery’s attention, so I gave an awkward wave and peeled back to the parking lot.
Why had I waved?
It was weird. Better than shaking my ass in his face, but still weird.
Hopefully he hadn’t noticed.
I was on the highway when I got the call from Steve.
“Hey.” He sounded pissed.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“You left the house yet?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because this asshole has just pulled the pin on today’s job.” The way he emphasized the word made me think the asshole in question was in earshot.
“What? We’re meant to be starting! You’re keeping the deposit, right?”
“Of course I’m keeping the fucking deposit!” Steve lowered his voice. “I’m just telling you there’s no point coming in today, or the rest of the week.”
“Shit. Why’d he cancel?”
“Fucking Morris,” Steve said.
Morris was a guy over in Hopewell who was trying to grow his business by fucking over Steve’s. And the prick happened to have enough money that he could afford to underquote by thousands. Maybe even more if today’s customer was willing to lose the deposit he’d already paid to Steve.
“Well, fuck.”
“I know,” Steve said with a sigh. “Sorry, kid.”
“Not your fault,” I said, even though the news had landed like a punch to the gut.
“I’ll call you when we’ve got work again,” Steve said.
“Okay, yeah. Thanks.”
Steve ended the call, and I turned my truck around and headed back toward Goose Run.
So much for the grocery run I’d been planning.
That extra cash I’d made from Louise’s birthday party would be going to rent now.
It was lucky Gracie loved Danny’s beans and rice because I figured we’d be eating quite a bit of it in the next few weeks.
This whole situation sucked, but there was no point getting angry with Steve about it because it sucked for him too.
More than me, probably, since I wasn’t the only guy on the crew he had to break the news to.
Also, it wasn’t my business that some asshole was trying to undermine.
I just hated working so hard all the time and still feeling like I wasn’t getting ahead.
Kids were expensive. Life was expensive.
Costs went up and up and up, but my wages never did, and it felt like every month I had to figure out new ways to make less money stretch even further, and I was running out of things I could cut back on.
When I pulled into the driveway at home, Danny’s truck and Cash’s bike were gone. I figured everyone was at work, but when I got inside, Cash was sitting at the table spooning cereal into his mouth. He raised his eyebrows at me.
“Job got canceled,” I said. “You not working today either?”
He shook his head. Chase must have borrowed his bike then.
“I’m gonna put some laundry on,” I said.
I was bundling clothes into the washer when Cash’s shoulder bumped against mine. He shoved some clothes in alongside mine and Gracie’s but didn’t step back when he was done. Just leaned his head against my shoulder.
I turned and slung an arm around him, my eyes suddenly hot as the stress of everything hit me—Gracie, work, my lack of sleep, no fucking money. “Thanks, man.”
My voice came out tighter than I wanted it to.
Cash hugged me back, then shuffled off to his bedroom, probably still trying to catch up on sleep after yesterday’s double shift.
I started the washer, then went and collected Cash’s cereal bowl and tipped the leftover milk down the kitchen sink.
Then I washed the bowl and left it to dry.
Cash had left his bedroom door open, and I could hear the faint snuffling sounds he made that were like baby snores.
Maybe I’d take a nap too. Hell, there wasn’t much else I could do today, so I might as well catch up on all the sleep I’d been missing lately.
Except the second I thought of it, my phone rang. I took a look at the name of the caller and went out onto the front porch to take it.
“Hi, Mrs. Moore,” I said. My tone was polite, but I was glad she couldn’t see my face.
“John,” she said, and because she never wasted time on pleasantries with me, she cut straight to the chase. “We’d like Grace for the weekend.”
“This weekend?”
“I think a week’s notice is quite enough.”
That wasn’t my point, but Mrs. Moore always thought the worst about me. “Uh, okay. I don’t think we have anything going on.”
“We want to take her to church,” Mrs. Moore said, her tone somehow attacking and defensive at the same time. “It’s not right that—”
“No,” I said, sudden steel in my voice. “Absolutely not. You know that Cassidy and I agree on this. We don’t want Gracie going to church. If I ever find out that you’ve taken her to church, or Sunday School, or any church-related activity, even a potluck, you won’t see her again.”
“We are her grandparents! We have rights! We’ve been talking to a lawyer.”
I felt sick. I clenched my phone so hard I could have cracked the screen. “I have a lawyer too.” Well, I had Google, and Danny’s boyfriend, Miller, was a lawyer, so close enough. “And he says your grandparents’ rights are bullshit.”
There was stunned silence from Mrs. Moore, and I didn’t know if it was because of my anger or my bad language. I hated that I’d let either of them out of me because all it would do was convince her even more that I was an unfit parent.
“We’ll talk later in the week about the weekend,” I said, forcing my anger down.
“But I am never going to change my mind about church, so you need to decide if that’s a fight worth losing Gracie over for good.
Have a great day, Mrs. Moore.” I ended the call with a shaking finger and slumped down on the old couch on the porch that smelled faintly of damp. “Fuck.”
I sent a text to Cassidy.
Call me when you can? Your mom is stirring up shit over church again.
Because yeah, we’d had this argument plenty of times before.
But, John, don’t you think that Grace deserves a relationship with the Lord?
She could have a relationship with the Flying Spaghetti Monster for all I cared, but no way in hell was my kid ever stepping foot inside the Goose Run First Baptist Church.
Because it wasn’t Jesus I was trying to stop her from getting to know—it was my dad, the pastor, who’d told me when I was seventeen and terrified that he had no son.
Well, guess what? That meant he had no granddaughter either, as far as both Cassidy and I were concerned.
My hands were still shaking when I called Miller’s number.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”
I stared at the sapling that Miller had bought and then he and Danny had planted to replace the tree our old neighbor had cut down. Miller was a decent guy. A lawyer too, so he was probably swimming against the tide in that respect, right? “Do you have a minute to talk?”
“Yeah. Is everything okay?”
“We’re all good,” I said. “Except I got a call from Gracie’s grandmother. She said she’s been talking to a lawyer about grandparents’ rights. Because I won’t let her take Gracie to church.”
“She has no grounds,” Miller said. He’d told me this before, but it felt good to hear him say it again. “You and Cassidy are on the same page, and Gracie’s not being neglected or abused or anything like that, so it would be very hard to prove that not taking her to church is harmful to her.”
I rubbed my forehead. “You said very hard, not impossible.”
“Lawyers don’t make promises, Wilder,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “Listen, I highly doubt she’s retained an attorney, but if you hear anything else, anything official, I’ll send her a letter that makes her scuttle back under her rock, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, my voice hitching on that simple word. “Uh, I can’t really afford—”
“Pro bono,” he said.
“Thanks, Miller,” I said, guilty and relieved at the same time.
“Hey, I gotta go. I have a meeting,” he said. “But we’ll catch up tonight, okay? I’m bringing pizzas. What’s Gracie’s favorite?”
“Hawaiian.”
“Seriously?”
“She’s five, man! She gets a pass!” But it made me laugh, which was probably the point. I even relaxed my death grip on my phone. “See you tonight.”
I felt like I’d done nothing all day except mope around doing housework—my thoughts spiraling into panic over the idea of losing custody of Gracie, whatever Miller said—and waiting for Cassidy to call, so how the fuck was I running late to collect Gracie?
I could see the same question in Avery’s eyes when I finally raced up to the classroom door.
“You’re late!” Gracie said, her voice wavering. She was upset and close to tears. “I thought you forgot me!”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, scooping her into a hug as my heart broke. I said it again, except this time I was looking at Avery. He stared back at me, his mouth a thin, disapproving line. “It won’t happen again.”
I was getting as sick of saying that as he was of hearing it, I was sure.
And the worst part was, I was so late that by the time I got Gracie calmed down and clipped into her car seat, Avery was in the parking lot heading for his car.
And I got to feel that disapproving stare of his as he drove behind me all the way home.