Chapter 16
Moore
"Uh-huh. Yeah, Mom. Yes. Sure."
Moore overheard Jordy talking to Cammie, tension building between his shoulder blades as he hand washed dishes that didn't need the level of attention he lavished on them. The tour of the new high school had gone incredibly well, exceeding Moore's highest expectations.
When he had picked Jordy up, he'd been asked to come inside and talk to the principal, with Jordy.
To be acknowledged by his son as an actual human being was shock enough, but to watch him gush with unabashed pleasure about the new school was a whole other level of happiness.
"It's a lottery system," the principal explained.
"So Jordy's name would need to be entered, and we would let you know, as soon as next month, whether you're accepted.
Our first class here had an easier time getting in.
Next year's class will be a little tighter.
However, Jordy, there is one advantage you have. "
"What's that?"
"Technically, while you'll be coming from Luview, you are an out-of-state transfer. That's unique, and in the interest of diversity, the school is favoring some people with your profile."
"Awesome," Jordy said, giving his dad an excited look. Moore beamed back at him.
"It sounds like all things are a go here," he said to the principal, who nodded.
"Just take care of the paperwork on the parenting end, and we'll let the system do the rest."
"Thank you so much," Moore said, before Jordy dragged him down the hall to take a look at the stage design and props section.
"Dad, they have this huge space for everything, and all of this equipment.
At my school, we just have to wing it. There's no real budget.
We're lucky if our director gives us twenty bucks.
And this place helps us get into special camps and summer repertory theater.
This could launch everything I want in life. "
"You've really been giving this a lot of thought, haven't you?"
"Yeah."
But as Moore washed the dinner dishes, he listened to his son go from enthusiastic to increasingly quiet while talking about the new school with his mother.
"Uh, sure," he heard Jordy say, fear creeping into his child's voice. "I can put him on."
Moore braced himself, closing his eyes as he dried his hands on the kitchen towel. Here it came.
The big confrontation.
Jordy's eyes were wide with fear as he handed the phone off. A hand on his son's shoulder, designed to connect them and calm his child down, seemed to help.
It's okay, he mouthed.
"You go play." He pointed to Jordy's new gaming system, knowing that a few rounds of whatever game he chose would help him to relax.
"Hey," Moore said into the phone.
"What do you think you're doing?" Cammie snapped at him.
"What do you mean?" Fighting to stay calm, Moore drew on years of experience with her.
"You think you're going to convince Jordy to come live with you? You?" It wasn't so much her words, but the voice. Cammie wielded an acidic tone like a weapon.
"He came here to look at the new high school, Cammie. Everything went incredibly well. He's excited. If he wants to come live with me so he can have a phenomenal opportunity, in a career path that–"
She cut him off. "Career path? Listen to you. He's fifteen. Last year, he wanted to be a video game designer. Now he wants to be a theater tech. Next week, he's going to want to fly a dragon. You're going to take what a fifteen-year-old says about his career path seriously?"
"Yes."
"You're stupider than I remember."
Moore's tongue rolled in his cheek, working hard to loosen the tension in his jaw and failing.
"Cammie," he said softly, knowing that sometimes going the appeasement route could work. "I know you have a lot on your plate. The baby, getting married, a move."
"Jordy told you?"
"He did."
"He wasn't supposed to."
Damn. Moore knew that he should have compartmentalized better. Now Jordy might incur her wrath for having told him.
"It's my fault,” Moore said, throwing himself under the bus to save his kid. "I pried it out of him."
"You can't keep yourself out of my affairs, can you? We haven't been together for ten years, and you just can't let me go."
"That's right," he said dully. "You hit the nail on the head."
"And you think you can just waltz in and take Jordy away from me, at a time when his new little sister is about to be born? This is a time when I need help, Moore. I don't need you taking things away from me."
Aha. What she really meant was that she didn't want to lose the child support.
"Listen, Cammie. For the first year he's here, I'll continue to pay you his full child support."
The phone went quiet.
"Why would you do that?" she asked, her voice a monotone, no emotion attached to it.
"Because I don't want you to worry," he said.
"That's weird."
"How is it weird?"
"Why would you be so nice to me, Moore?"
"I'm being nice to Jordy," he said, unable to stop the words from coming out of his mouth. "This way, you get what you need and Jordy gets a year here, to see how it feels to live in Maine for his freshman year."
"And then what?"
"I don't know, Cammie. Give the kid a year here. You can have him as often as you want. I’ll fly him out there. He can spend the summer, you can have him at Christmas and Thanksgiving, all the major holidays."
"If you think I'm going to settle for having Jordy only fifty days a year, like you did..." The gut punches kept coming.
"We can negotiate an acceptable deal."
She snorted. "You mean our lawyers can."
"We don't have to take this to lawyers, Cammie."
"We sure as hell will have to, because you're trying to steal my child."
"No," he said, unable to control his voice, getting louder, "I'm trying to give him something he's never had before: a parent who treats him like an autonomous human being with wants, needs, and his own ideas about how to live his life!"
Jordy looked up from his game, startled, and ripped off his headphones.
"Don't you dare talk to me like that!" she shrieked.
"Don't you dare treat my son the way you've treated him all these years," he thundered, hands shaking. As a decade's worth of frustration poured out of him.
Some piece of him felt safe with Jordy here, with Jordy being fifteen, with Jordy wanting to live in Maine. The knot inside him was a little less tight.
The part of him that had walked a line with Cammie for so long was finally ready to let his foot cross it.
"You are such a–"
He cut her off. "You have no power, Cammie."
Jordy's jaw dropped comically at Moore's words. Thankfully, he could only hear half of the conversation.
"What did you just say to me?"
"You heard me. You have no power." His voice settled, going into a calm register, almost hypnotic. "If you want to lawyer up, we'll lawyer up, and this time I'll win."
"I can't believe you're upsetting a pregnant woman like this. Do you know what stress does to a developing fetus?"
Her pivot didn't shake him at all.
"If you're so concerned about your developing fetus, then maybe you shouldn't be provoking stressful situations like this."
Jordy shut his mouth with a snap, eyes laser focused on Moore. He swallowed hard, his teenage Adam’s apple bobbing.
"While he's there, he may be saying that he wants to stay with you, but he's going to come home and change his mind. Soria’s so attached to him, he has a baby sister coming, and his stepfather is a baseball player, Moore.
You're just a jeweler. You live a boring life in our podunk little hometown, and you don't–"
"Is there anything else you want to talk about, Cammie? Because otherwise, this is just boring. You're boring." Her gasp was satisfying. "And if you continue to heap verbal abuse on me–"
Cammie hung up on him.
He gave Jordy his phone back, hands shaking, then turned and splayed them on the counter. Leaning down, he rolled his shoulders until his neck cracked, then took in a long, deep breath.
"Holy shit, Dad."
"Language," Moore said softly.
"That was a lot. If there’s ever a time I’m allowed to curse, this would be it.”
“Maybe.”
“You stood up to her! I’ve never heard that before.”
“I stand up to her all the time.”
“You do?”
“You don’t see it, kiddo, but I do.”
“When? Where?”
“Mostly in court. Or through our lawyers.”
“Oh.”
“Look, Jordy, your mom and I have a… complicated relationship.”
“I know. You hate her.”
Moore jolted.
“What did you just say?”
“You hate her,” Jordy repeated, this time with less confidence. “That’s what she tells me all the time. You hate her, and because I remind you of her, you…” His voice trailed off.
“She says that to you?” Moore’s ribs began vibrating with outrage, though he hid it, knowing that the last thing Jordy needed was to deal with Moore’s emotions.
“Sometimes. Yeah.”
“She’s wrong.”
“You don’t hate her?”
What the kid meant was, You don’t hate me?
Moore wanted to address that head on, but he also knew this was very fragile ground. If he could get this just right, it would build the foundation of trust that Moore had craved for years.
But first, he had to get it right.
“I have never hated Cammie. Remember that we were married for six years.”
“She says you left her alone with me every waking moment that you possibly could because you couldn’t stand being a husband and father.”
None of this was new information. What was novel was hearing it out of his son’s mouth.
Cammie had claimed all of this, and so much more, when she tried to justify taking Jordy away without any warning, forcing Moore to spend a year tracking them down and fighting for custody in the courts.
While Moore had been working and going to college to support his family and make life better, Cammie had been swallowed by the internet.
Where she found Mike, the baseball player.
Then Dave, the accountant.