13. Lincoln
As we pullup in Kim’s driveway, I do my best to discreetly wipe my sweaty palms on my sweatpants. The irony is not lost on me with the action.
Lillian has had an evil sort of grin on her face since she seemed to realize how this would go for us, or me, rather. Based on the frosty response I got from her sister, it’s safe to say the whole family knows how things ended four years ago and absolutely blame me.
And I can’t even argue with them. Defend myself.
So, I’ll walk into this house with my tail tucked between my legs and take whatever verbal abuse they want to spew at me. Even if it takes four more years, I’ll earn their trust. Show them I’m here for the long haul and how much I love their sister.
Lillian throws the car in park, reaches into the back seat to grab a pink baby doll sized blanket, gives me a wink that is like a punch to the gut, and hops out of the car. Fuck, she’s beautiful.
One big breath in, one slow breath out.
I amble out of the car next and move around to follow her inside. The house looks nice on the outside. A quaint, one-story home with a gray exterior. If my parents ever saw it, they’d turn up their noses at the people who were clearly beneath them. But, despite the penthouse in the city I’m currently living in, I’ve never had their penchant for flaunting extravagance.
We don’t even get halfway up the porch steps before I hear the noise. It sounds like at least a handful of kids are running around inside, screaming and playing.
Lillian opens the front door, the noise intensifies, and I follow her in. The front door opens up immediately into the living room, with the kitchen straight ahead blocked off by a wall with a waist-high cut-out so you can see straight through, giving the space an open layout feel. Through it, two couples are leaning around the counters and walls in a circle with their heads bent together.
One is Kim, standing next to a man with a rugged, outdoorsy look, who I imagine is her husband. The other couple is older. A man and a woman who share similar traits to both Kim and Lil. Their parents then.
The TV is turned up loud with a kid show I’m not familiar with on the screen in the living room. Which means they didn’t hear us come in yet.
“Morning!” Lil calls out, and the four of them jump apart like they’ve been caught doing something they aren’t supposed to be doing.
“Aunt Lillian!” a young boy calls out at her appearance and runs toward her, wrapping his arms around her waist.
“Hey, Nicky,” she smiles, and the love on her face makes an ache start up in my chest. Grace comes running up next, and she bends down to pick up her daughter. She wraps her up in a big bear hug, kisses her blonde head, and sets her back down.
As she’s squatted down in front of Grace, she gives her daughter all her attention. “Did you have a good night?” she asks and smooths down a few stray curls.
“Yeah! It was so much fun, Mommy. We had ice cream and watch wizards and stayed up past my bedtime!” Little Grace’s eyes are lit up in delight, but Kim shouts from the kitchen.
“Hey, stinker! What did we say about telling Mommy that?” Kim says with faux outrage in her voice, and Lillian rolls her eyes good-naturedly at her sister.
Grace looks sheepish but rattles off what Kim must have told her word for word. “What Mommy doesn’t know, won’t hurt her.” She nods, proud of herself for remembering. I have to smother my grin.
“Kimberly!” Lillian and the older lady both shout at the same time, but her sister shoots a mischievous, completely unrepentant smile to Lillian.
Lillian rolls her eyes but holds up the pink blanket for Grace. “Here you go, sweetie.”
“Yay!” She screeches loud enough that I have the urge to cover my ears despite all the noise that is still coming from down the hall. There must be other kids here. Kim’s, maybe? She’s got Nicky plus the baby she’s carrying right now. Which, guessing by how big she is, I’d say she’s close to popping. But she doesn’t look old enough to have many more kids running around.
Grace and Nicky both take off down the hallway on the left, and Lillian peers down it and asks what I was just wondering. “The neighbor’s kids here, too?”
“Yeah. It’s not a true slumber party if the whole gang isn’t here,” Kim tells her sister as we join the group in the kitchen.
When Lillian and I get within spitting distance, it’s like the whole house quiets. The four of them stare at me with varying looks on their faces while Lillian sits back and observes. Her dad gives me a once over with an expression I can’t read, her mom’s eyes are bugged wide but with an unpleasant twist to her mouth, Kim’s husband is outright glaring, and Kim’s face is anticipatory.
I don’t know whether to introduce myself or crack some joke about them clearly already knowing who I am. The former seems too formal, stuffy, for a group lounging around in pajamas, clearly at ease with one another, and the latter seems too risky.
Luckily, I’m off the hook when her dad speaks up. “So, you’re the ex? Lincoln?” His voice is deep and gruff. Sort of intimidating, too, if I’m being honest. Just one of those voices, mixed with the build of the man and the way he holds himself, that you know he’s ex-military. Likely has a gun collection he wants to show me just in case I’m thinking of hurting his daughter again.
“Yes, sir,” I agree.
He grunts, then shoves off the counter where he’s been leaning. “Any good on the grill?”
“I’m not too bad,” I respond and follow him automatically toward the sliding glass doors in the kitchen that lead out into a small fenced-in backyard.
“Good, because you’re manning the Blackstone.” In the backyard, on a patch of dead grass because there is no back porch or patio area, is the Blackstone grill with a whole host of ingredients off to the side. There are breakfast sausages, patties, cartons of eggs, and various seasonings.
“The girls’ll bring out the pancake mix in a minute,” he tells me as he takes the lid off and turns the burners on different heat settings before turning to me and handing me the spatula.
“Got it,” I say, taking the spatula from him. “So you guys do this every Sunday?”
“We try to. As often as we can,” he replies as he opens up a cooler near the grill and pulls out a Coors Light. He lifts it up for me in question.
“Oh, no. I’m okay, thanks, though.” Not at nine in the morning on a Sunday.
He tosses it at me anyway, and I catch it with the hand not holding the spatula. “It’s God’s day, son. Nobody is going to judge you. Jesus himself was the ultimate lush. With the water to wine stunt.”
Well, okay then. There’s an echoing crack as we both pop the tops of our drinks and lift them up to each other before taking a sip.
I set my drink down on the tray with the food, hover my hand over the grill to see if it’s heated up enough, then start to work, throwing on the sausages and bacon. Her dad sits there in silence, watching me.
“Sorry, I never got your name,” I say after realizing I don’t know what to call him.
“James,” he says, and we shake hands. “My wife inside is Natalie. You met Kim already, and her husband is Jim.”
“Got it,” I say, remembering the hostile look I got from Jim. He and Kim have that in common, I suppose. Though now she seems more akin to stirring the pot and watching the fire grow. “Don’t mind my son-in-law. He’s just real protective of Lillian after she lived with them for a stint. Loves her like his own sister.”
“She lived with them?” I ask, fascinated to learn everything that happened in the past four years.
James nods. “For a few months while she got her own foster license years back.” Right when we split. “They all got close during that time.”
I nod, understanding the death stare now. Lillian stayed with them right after we broke up. Who knows what she told them happened or how many times he saw her cry over it. I’d hate any guy who broke Becca’s heart, too. Just on principle alone.
“I get it,” I tell Jim.
He stares at me some more as I flip the meat and add the eggs onto the grill. The back door slides open, and we both turn to see Lil come out with a big bowl of pancake mix. Her eyes dart between me and her dad with a hint of concern. Even a little suspicion.
“Everything okay out here?” she asks, but the question seems more pointed to her dad.
He rolls his eyes and takes a drink. “Yeah, sweetie. We’re just talkin’.”
I take the bowl from her and nod as she gives me a questioning look before muttering under her breath and heading back inside. “Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.”
I grin at her, but it falls from my face as I see her dad narrowing his eyes at me. “Look,” he starts. “I don’t know what happened between y”all. Frankly, I don’t wanna. But she’s got enough shit goin on in her life with Grace and that good for nothin mom ‘o hers. She don’t need a man makin’ a mess ‘o things and then leavin’ again.”
Yeah, I’m going to have to ask Lillian what’s going on with Grace’s mom later. Then see if I can get Vince to look into this mom and find anything that’ll help us. “I understand,” I say, looking him right in the eye and speaking with as much conviction as I can. “I’m not going anywhere. I love your daughter.”
Another searching stare, but I don’t break eye contact. Not until he gives one curt nod. “Okay then.” He jerks his chin at the Blackstone. “Eggs are burning.”
I turn back around and finish cooking breakfast. He doesn’t ask any more questions about my intentions or give me any kind of lecture. After that, we finish our drinks, talk about mundane shit, and plate the food as it’s done.
The two of us carry the food inside where there are already small, multi-colored plates with food dividers lined up. The women get to work pulling some pancakes apart into pieces and placing them on the five kids plates, then some scrambled eggs, and some fruit they cut up while we were outside.
Jim comes ambling down the hallway with Grace in one arm, another little girl in the other, and three boys walking behind him.
“Hands are washed,” he announces and gets the kids settled around the table. They all mutter little ‘thank you’s’ as Lillian, Kim, and Natalie place the plates in front of them, and I can’t help but smile.
The way they live, the way they raise their kids, it’s so different from how me and Becca were brought up. This house is lived in: toys litter the ground, laughter rings out often, artwork hangs on the fridge. The kids are all happy and chattering away while they eat.
Becca and I were raised in a mansion. Sure, from the outside, it was nice. No material need was ever denied us. But the place was a museum. Nothing could be out of place, no mess was ever tolerated, the dinner table was for eating and nothing else. Mom and Dad were around, but they didn’t give us the attention Grace and these kids get. That came from our nannies and housekeepers.
This is how it should be, I think as I look around the room. This is how I want to raise my own kids.
“Help yourself,” Lillian murmurs, breaking me out of my reverie and handing me a plate. I smile at her in thanks.
Since the kitchen table is occupied, we take our seats in the living room. Kim takes the recliner, her husband sits on the floor by her. Me, Lil, and her parents sit around the sectional.
“So, Lincoln. What is it you do?” Natalie asks me.
“I’m a lawyer, ma’am.”
Her brows raise, and she glances at Lillian for a second before addressing me again. “What kind of lawyer?”
I glance between them quickly, too, trying to decipher what that look was. “Corporate lawyer.”
Disappointment clouds her features. “Oh. Well, that’s unfortunate. We could use a better family lawyer.”
Lillian lets out an exasperated sigh, like they’ve had this conversation a dozen times before. “Peter is fine, mom.”
“Peter is incompetent. There shouldn’t even be any debate about custody. He’s not effective.”
Lillian glares at her mom.
I don’t want to step in the lion’s mouth, but I’m curious. “What’s the situation, exactly? If you don’t mind me asking. How did Grace get placed with you?”
My question is for Lil, but it’s her mom that answers. “That crackhead left little Gracie for dead in a box on the side of the road. Lillian found her and moved back home so she could foster her. But she didn’t have her license yet, so Kim fostered her until she could get it. Mom came back around though and has made several attempts to get custody back. In between spouts of rehab that is. It never sticks. Just makes adopting Grace that much harder because the court’s goal is reunification.”
That last line sounds like it came from a judge’s mouth, and Natalie is sick of hearing it.
“Mom. Enough,” Lillian grounds out. Kim, their dad, and Jim are pointedly looking at their plates. But right away, I can tell Jim agrees with Natalie.
I make a mental note to ask around at work for a good adoption attorney tomorrow.
A phone starts to ring, breaking up the tension. The kids all come running through the living room screaming and head back down the hallway again right as Lillian pulls her phone out of her back pocket.
All eyes are on her as she frowns at the screen. “It’s Yasmine,” she tells everyone and then gets up, places her plate of food on the couch, and walks out the front door to take the call.
Worried glances are exchanged between everyone, and I ask, “Who is Yasmine?”
Jim stops scowling at me long enough to tell me, “Grace’s social worker.”
“Oh,” I say, not understanding the significance. Wouldn’t a call from the social worker be a normal occurrence?
“She never calls on Sunday’s unless it’s absolutely necessary,” Kim adds on.
“Which means bad news,” Jim says on a weary sigh.
Oh.
Well, fuck.