Chapter 4 – Emmett
Chapter Four
EMMETT
“I need your address.” I get up on my feet. “Once I have your address, I can give you an ETA of when I’m going to be there.”
“I just texted you the address,” he replies, and I look down at the text message and put it in my Maps. My hands shake as I put the address in and wait for it to sync. It takes maybe ten seconds, but every single second feels like an eternity.
“It says it’s a seven-hour drive,” I tell him. “I should be there in about seven and a half hours.” I turn and rush to my closet. “How long has she been in foster care?”
“Since early afternoon,” he says softly. “She’s with a good family.”
“I’ll be at your office in seven hours.” I disconnect, look at the time, and wonder what the fuck to do, but I know I have to call him. I pull up his number as I rush around my closet, grabbing a bag.
He answers after three rings, “Yeah?” His voice is filled with sleep.
“Charlie.” The way I say his name is with sheer panic in my voice. “Something happened.”
I can hear him moving on his side of the phone. “Where are you?”
“My house,” I tell him, and then my legs give out on me, and I’m on my knees.
“I’ll be there in two.” He disconnects, and the phone drops from my hands as my head hangs, then spins. I swear I feel like I’m going to be sick. I barely make it to the bathroom, just in time for the whiskey to make its way back up. The front door opens and slams shut at the same time I’m at my sink rinsing out my mouth.
“Emmett!” he shouts my name, tearing through the house to get to me. “Emmett,” he calls one more time before he finds me.
“Jesus, what the fuck?” he swears. I look at him, seeing him wearing jeans and that’s it. No shoes, no shirt.
“I have to go to Barrowhaven,” I tell him, cupping my hands under the cold water and splashing my face. “I have to go now. But I can’t drive.”
“Okay,” he replies, “I can take you.” He agrees without a second thought even though he has no idea what the reason is. “Can I ask why?”
I turn the water off, take a deep inhale, and look at him. “I have to go and get my daughter.” Words I never envisioned myself saying. Words that sound unreal, even to my ears.
“I’m sorry, what?” he says, his tone as shocked as his face.
“Remember Paige?” I ask, and he shakes his head. “She worked at the diner.”
“Oh, yeah,” he replies. “Ginger girl.”
“Yeah, well, apparently, she had my kid,” I state, feeling like I’m going to throw up again, “and she died.”
“Jesus,” he swears, running his hands through his hair. “I have to go home and get shoes and shit. Meet me there. You need to shower.” I nod, and he runs out. It takes me a good five minutes to brush my teeth and shower, then grab a change of clothes in case I have to stay there.
I get in my truck, and when I pull up to Charlie’s house, the lights are on inside as well as outside. I get out of the truck at the same time Autumn and Charlie step outside. She has two travel mugs of coffee in her hands and a bag, probably with snacks and shit. “Ready?” I ask, and he nods before turning to kiss Autumn.
“Are you okay?” Autumn asks after she gives Charlie a kiss, and I shake my head. She hands Charlie the travel mugs and the bag. “It’s a big shock, for sure. But?—”
I hold up my hand, not needing to hear Autumn and her supportive words right now. “I’ll see you when I get back.”
“We’ll hold down the fort for you,” she assures me, and I follow Charlie to the SUV. “Text me when you get there.”
He gets in, handing me a mug and then putting one in the cupholder. “You should drink that to stop the smell of booze that reeks from you.”
“I’m fine,” I say, but I’m not fine. Nothing about this is fine to me. Not one fucking thing.
“How can you be fine?” he asks as we make our way toward the highway, the night quiet with just the stars out. Silence fills the cab until he breaks it. “Listen, I’m going to say something that is probably going to piss you off”—I look over at him—“but are you sure this is your daughter?”
“I mean, it lines up. She was fine with us hooking up, but then her story suddenly changed. She wanted to settle down. I…” I leave out I practically ghosted her right before she left town.
“You hit the road and never looked back. Because you think you’re a lone wolf,” Charlie prods sarcastically.
“No, I know I don’t want kids,” I refute and then correct myself. “I didn’t want kids. I mean, I don’t want them, but what am I going to do, turn my back on her?”
“She never reached out before?” he asks, and I shake my head.
“She left town, and I never thought of her until now,” I admit, looking back out into the night. “She’s eight and in foster care.”
“We’ll get her,” he declares. “When it’s later, I’m going to call my pops,” he adds, and I nod, looking back out the window. My mind goes back to when I was eight myself.
“You go to sleep, my boy,” my father said, kissing my head. “Love you more than life.”
“Love you, Dad,” I said as I turned on my side and went to bed, not knowing that night would change the course of my life.
I woke up to the screaming. “You are worthless!” my mother shouted, and I looked at the door, seeing their shadows on the wall. “Completely worthless.”
“Keep your voice down. Emmett is sleeping,” he hissed at her, “and the last thing he needs is to hear you slurring your words.”
“You son of a bitch!” she yelled at him, and I saw her raise her hand and slap him across the face. “I drink because of you. You make me drink. You and the sorry excuse of a life you promised me.”
“Keep your voice down.”
“You made me keep the kid. I didn’t even want him.” I listened as she continued her tirade. Something she did daily. She was never there when I got home from school, and it was always just Dad and me on the weekends while she went away with “friends.” She was either drunk or passed out, and now it looked like she was drunk and pissed.
I got out of bed and started to walk toward the door. “Don’t you tell me what to do in my house.” She hit him again. I saw my father hold up his hand to block her. “I fucking hate you.” Words that she repeated nightly also.
I watched her walk over to her purse and pull out a gun. I didn’t know who gasped louder, me or my father. But then she tilted her head to the side. “My life would be better without you in it.” That was the last thing she said before she pulled the trigger. I yelled out at the same time that my father grabbed his stomach, and I saw the blood pouring out of him.
“Daddy!” I screamed for him as he fell back, crashing onto the flimsy table in the middle of the living room.
His eyes went from my mother to turn to me, and his last word was, “Hide.” Then his eyes shut forever.
That night changed everything and made me an orphan. I never replay those memories except for once a year when it’s his birthday. It’s my thing to sit out and look up at the sky and tell him what has happened to me in the year. I also got totally trashed each and every single time to block out the memories that came along with it. There weren’t many, but the ones there were equally good and bad. “You good to call Pops?” Charlie asks. I look over at him, then look at the clock on the dashboard and see that it’s just a little after seven. We still have a couple of hours to go.
I nod, pulling up his number, not surprised he answers me after one and a half rings. “This is early, even for you.” He laughs into the phone.
“Hey,” I say, looking out the window at the trees passing us. “Yeah, I think you need to know about a situation.”
“I’m listening,” he replies, and I tell him about the phone call I got.
“Okay, hear me out,” he starts, “and don’t go all apeshit on me. You sure this kid is even yours?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” I retort, “but I don’t think this is something that Paige would lie about. She wasn’t like that.”
“You said you haven’t seen or heard from her in nine years,” he counters. “Regardless, I’m going to call our lawyer and make sure he’s aware of the situation. I’ll call you back in twenty.”
“Got it,” I say and hang up the phone, looking back over at Charlie. “He’s going to call the lawyer.”
“Good idea. Know your rights. He might just be calling Ryleigh since she’s a family lawyer now.” I have no idea who he’s talking about, and my head is so all over the place, I don’t even want to know.
True to his word, Casey calls back in ten minutes. “Hey,” I say, putting it on speakerphone for Charlie to hear. I don’t know how much I’m going to actually absorb. “So you are probably going to have to do a DNA test since you didn’t know you were the father and didn’t have any contact with the child before now.”
“How long will that take?” I ask.
“I have contacts at a lab we can work with. I’m going to give them a call when they open. We can pay extra to have it expedited. But it might be twenty-four hours by the time it gets picked up and delivered to the lab.” I close my eyes.
“Lawyer said she’s in foster care,” I tell him. “I don’t want her in there longer than she needs to be.”
“I get you, Emmett. We’ll get you your girl, and you’ll bring her home.” Even when he says the words, it feels like a sucker punch to the stomach. What the hell am I going to do with her? I don’t know the first thing about being a father.
“We’ll call you once we meet with the lawyer,” I assure him.
“Can you send over the lawyer’s contact? In case he needs anything,” Charlie asks, and I nod because I should have asked him that.
“Will do,” he agrees, “and send me the address of where you’re going. If you need me, I’ll be on standby.”
“Doing it now,” I state, and then he disconnects. I get the lawyer's information as soon as I send the address to the lawyer’s office.
We pull up to the small house, and I look around to see if it’s the wrong address. But the front door opens, and an older gentleman comes out of the house. He’s wearing slacks and a button-down, short-sleeved white shirt. I get out of the truck and look around the little street, seeing all the houses are practically the same. “You must be Mr. Clarkson,” he says, walking down the five steps to his sidewalk, holding out his hand for me. “You must be.” He smiles as I reach out my hand to him.
“I am,” I say, “and that is my friend, Charlie Barnes.” I gesture to Charlie, who also extends his hand.
“I’m Mr. Graham,” he says softly. “Please come in.” He motions with his head toward the front door.
I look over at Charlie as we follow him up the steps. He slaps my shoulder and then squeezes it, giving me the support I didn’t know I needed. I let out my breath and walk into the house after him.
I look around and see the house is very welcoming and warm. A woman in the kitchen looks over at us and smiles. “This is my wife, Jenny,” he introduces the woman wiping her hands on a rag before coming over to me. Her face is filled with a soft smile. “It’s nice to meet you.” She nods at me. “Would you like some coffee?”
“I’m good,” I say, “but thank you.” I look over at Charlie, who replies the same.
“Shall we?” Mr. Graham says, pointing at the room off the front door. “I figured we can do this here at my home office.” He walks into the room.
The big brown desk with a matching brown chair is in the middle of the room, with a loveseat against the wall facing it and two chairs right in front of the desk. “Please, have a seat and make yourself at home.”
I sit down and feel the back of my neck start to get hot and my hands start to tingle. Looking over at Charlie, he sits and doesn’t say a word. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this,” he apologizes softly. “Let’s start.” He opens the file on his desk. “I knew Paige for the past eight years.” He looks at both of us. “My wife got her number off one of those papers you leave in the supermarket. She was cleaning houses. She’s been cleaning our house once a week for the past eight years. We don’t have any children, and it’s just my wife and me.” I try to fight the bile forcing its way up my throat. “So that should tell you how much we cared about her.” His eyes get watery as he blinks the tears away. “She had a full calendar and even had a contract with the construction company.” He smiles sadly. “Paige was a lovely girl.” I close my eyes and feel the burn start.
“She was,” I agree. “If you don’t mind, can we skip to the child?”
“Lucy,” he says my daughter’s name. “Her name is Lucy, and she’s eight and a half.
“When she turned two, Paige sat me down and told me she needed to get her ducks in order just on the off chance that something happened.”
“How did she pass?” Charlie asks.
“We think it was a brain aneurysm,” he shares sadly, and this time, he sniffles. “Lucy found her unresponsive in the afternoon when she got home from school and called me right away.” I put my hands on the top of my head, and if there was ever a moment I wanted history to never repeat itself, it was at this moment. Not the same way, but losing the parent and finding them, I can’t even imagine.
“Oh my God,” Charlie gasps, “is she okay?”
“She’s doing as expected,” he admits. “Luckily, for all of us, everything was in place for this reason. I have all the paperwork ready; we just need a DNA sample to make sure you are the father. Although, I have no doubt now that I’ve seen you.”
I don’t know if I should be proud or scared at this moment. “I have someone who is going to have the DNA test rushed,” I start babbling my words.
He nods. “I had the lab on the line as of yesterday, waiting for you.”
Charlie nods and pulls up his phone, for sure texting Casey. “Where is she?” I ask, waiting with bated breath. My heart speeds up so fast, it feels like it's going to explode from my chest.
He crosses his hands on the desk, and it feels like a lifetime before he says the words so softly, I think I misheard him. “She’s upstairs, sleeping.”