19. Jo
— ? —
Jo
The custody fight grinds into its second month, and sleep still refuses to come.
Every trick in the book has been tried, warm milk that went cold on the nightstand, meditation apps that droned on without effect, counting backward from a thousand until the numbers blurred into meaningless noise.
Nothing works. My mind keeps spinning through worst-case scenarios on a carousel that won’t stop: Matthias winning custody, Rory being taken away, losing everything that’s been fought for over seven long years.
At 11 p.m., giving up seems like the only option. The coffee maker hums to life in the dark kitchen, filling the apartment with the smell of something that won’t help but feels necessary anyway. Tomorrow will bring exhaustion regardless, what’s a few more hours of consciousness going to change?
The living room is dark except for the city lights filtering through the windows. Sitting on the couch, hands wrapped around a mug that’s too hot to drink, feels like holding vigil for something that hasn’t died yet.
The knock on the door stops my heart.
It’s late. Too late for visitors. Nick has a key, he wouldn’t knock. Grace would text first, probably with seventeen emojis and a heads-up about whatever crisis was brewing. Which means...
The phone is in my hand before conscious thought kicks in, thumb hovering over the emergency dial, feet carrying me silently to the door. The peephole reveals something worse than a stranger.
Eleanor Anderson.
Nick’s mother is standing in the hallway in a cashmere coat that probably cost more than my monthly rent, dressed for a charity luncheon rather than for threatening a single mother at midnight.
Her hair is perfect. Her makeup is flawless.
Every inch of her belongs in a magazine spread about women who lunch.
The door stays closed. “What do you want?”
“To talk. That’s all.” Her voice is calm, measured, the voice of someone accustomed to getting what she wants. “Please, Joanna. Just five minutes.”
“We have nothing to talk about.”
“I think we do.” A pause. “I think we both want what’s best for the boy. Don’t we?”
Against every instinct screaming to keep the door locked and call the police, the deadbolt slides back. But the door only opens enough to block the entrance with my body. She’s not coming in. She’s not getting anywhere near Rory’s room.
“Say what you came to say.”
Eleanor studies me with the calculating gaze of someone appraising an opponent. Whatever she sees makes something flicker in her expression, surprise, maybe, or grudging acknowledgment.
“You’re stronger than I expected. Matthias always did underestimate women.”
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“An observation.” Her hand goes into her purse and every muscle in me locks, but it’s only an envelope. Thick. Heavy. She holds it out. “Two hundred thousand dollars. Take it. Take your son and disappear somewhere no one knows your name.”
“You’re trying to buy me off.”
“I’m trying to spare you.” Her voice softens into the tone you’d use on a child who doesn’t understand the rules of the game. “This won’t go the way you hope. Our lawyers are very good. And judges can be influenced. Money opens doors and closes them. You of all people know how that works.”
“I know your son is a monster. I know you made him one.”
For just a second something that might be pain crosses her face, the ghost of a mother who once wanted something different for her child. Then it smooths away.
“Take the money, Joanna. It is more than you will ever see otherwise.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then this will get very unpleasant.” The envelope vanishes back into her purse. “I came as a courtesy. To let you keep your dignity. Refuse, and we will destroy you. Not because we want to. Because you will have left us no choice.”
“Get out.”
“Sleep on it. Decide whether your pride is worth your son’s future.”
“Get. Out.”
She turns for the elevator, heels measured and even on the hallway floor.
At the doors she looks back, and the expression is almost admiration, buried under all that condescension.
“It takes courage to stand against this family. Stupidity, too. But courage.” The button glows under her finger. “Goodnight, Joanna.”
The doors close on her perfect, poisonous smile.
Standing in the doorway takes longer than it should.
The shaking starts in my hands and spreads outward until my whole body is trembling with rage and fear and the overwhelming urge to scream.
Instead, the door closes. Every lock engages, deadbolt, chain, the extra slide lock that was installed after the threatening notes started.
Then the phone is in my hand, Nick’s number already dialing.
“Jo?” His voice is sleep-rough but immediately alert. “What’s wrong?”
“Your mother was just here.”
Silence. The kind of silence that speaks volumes about a lifetime of dealing with Eleanor Anderson’s particular brand of cruelty.
“I’m on my way.”
The call ends. Twenty minutes later, twenty minutes of pacing, of checking on Rory’s sleeping form, of replaying every word Eleanor said and finding new ways to be terrified, a knock sounds at the door. This time, the peephole reveals exactly what it should.
Nick is standing in the hallway with an overnight bag slung over his shoulder and murder in his eyes.
The door opens. He steps inside, cups my face in his hands, searches my expression for damage.
“Tell me everything.”
The whole story spills out. The envelope. The two hundred thousand dollars. The threat barely veiled in silk gloves and cashmere. The promise of destruction delivered in the flat tone of a weather forecast, unfortunate but inevitable.
Nick listens without interrupting. His jaw gets tighter with every word, the muscle ticking beneath his skin, his eyes going darker and harder until he’s someone I almost don’t recognize. When the story ends, he pulls me into his arms without speaking.
“I’m sorry,” he says finally, his voice rough against my hair. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think they’d...”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is. They’re my family. My responsibility.”
“Nick.” Pulling back to look at him, to make sure he sees the truth in my eyes. “They’re not your responsibility. You didn’t make them this way. You’ve spent your whole life trying to be different from them, and you are different. That’s why I love you.”
He kisses me. Hard. Desperate. The kind of kiss that’s a lifeline, an anchor in a storm.
“I love you too,” he says, mouth at my temple. “And nothing is falling apart tomorrow. We’re going to win, Jo. We’re going to win and they’re going to lose and then we’re going to build a life together. You, me, and Rory. That’s the plan.”
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“It’ll work.”
“But what if...”
“Jo.” His hands settle heavy on my shoulders. “Whatever happens tomorrow, I’m not going anywhere. If we lose the hearing, we appeal. If they try to take Rory, we fight. If we have to run, we run together. I’m not leaving you. Not ever. Do you understand?”
The words won’t come. A nod is the only answer possible, but it seems to be enough.
“Good. Now come to bed. You need sleep.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“Then I’ll hold you until you can.”
The bedroom is dark and quiet, Rory’s gentle breathing audible through the wall that separates his room from mine. Climbing into bed feels like surrender, to exhaustion, to fear, to the comfort of Nick’s body curling around mine.
Sleep seems impossible. Too much fear racing through every nerve, too much adrenaline making my heart pound. But his warmth seeps into my bones, steady and sure. His hand strokes my hair in a rhythm that slows my breathing. His heartbeat under my ear is the most grounding sound in the world.
Somewhere around 2 a.m. his breathing goes slow and even, his arm heavy and warm across my waist. Mine won’t follow.
I lie in the dark of my bedroom and listen to my son breathe through the wall, and I do the math I have been avoiding for weeks.
They won’t stop. Eleanor said it herself, in that calm luncheon voice.
They will destroy me. The lawyers, the money, the judges who can be influenced.
I have spent two months playing defense, flinching at every knock, waiting to find out which morning they decide to take everything I have.
I’m done waiting.
Somewhere under all the fear, the twenty-year-old who walked out of that apartment seven years ago and built a whole life out of nothing is still in here. And she didn’t survive Matthias Anderson by being polite.
If they want a war, fine.
I had thrown that line at Brittany myself, that day in the office.
Ask him about the junior associate. I hadn’t known a single thing.
It was a bluff, a stone tossed into the dark to hear what it hit, and the way her face tightened told me it had hit something.
I never chased it. I was too busy surviving, too busy keeping my head down and my heart protected.
But I’m not that scared girl anymore, and I’m tired, so tired, of being the one things happen to.
I press a kiss to Nick’s sleeping shoulder. A month ago I would have done this in the dark and told him once it was already done, the way he used to do to me, the way we tore each other apart on this very couch. No more deciding alone. No more handling each other. We promised.
So in the morning I’m going to wake him and tell him exactly what I mean to do.
And then I’m going to do it. Because the deciding is still mine to make. This is my war, and I’m finally going to stop waiting to lose it. He just gets to walk into it beside me now, eyes open, the same way I get to walk into his.