46. Misely
forty-six
Misely
C ollapsing into my bed at the end of the week had never felt so good. As much as I hadn’t wanted to, I’d had no other choice but to take Benji from Joan the day we found him. That was easier said than done, but promising him that I’d make things right had gotten him out the door.
It had broken my heart when he admitted that the Fredrick’s hadn’t actually hurt him—he was just so overwhelmed he couldn’t stand it. With his mom in jail, Joan across town, and me ‘ wherever the hell I was, ’ as he’d so delicately put it, he was desperate for some familiarity. So he did what so many other kids in his position did. He ran away to the safest place he knew—his great aunt Joan.
Who was very much not an ancient disabled woman incapable of caring for the boy as the court documentation had suggested. It was easy enough to figure out what had gone wrong there—the first time child protective services got involved, Benji was still a toddler and the state maintained its efforts to keep a child with their mother. When his mother told their caseworker at the time that Joan was not fit due to her age and abilities, they blindly believed her.
Even after Joan filed for custody three separate times, her petitions were ignored. When I tracked down the filings to back up her claims, I was furious , immediately filing for gross negligence from the caseworker involved. To blindly dismiss a relative with only the testimony of the one accused of neglecting their child? I was furious.
It was transparent that Joan was the perfect guardian for Benji. She was obviously determined to care for him, and he trusted her. No matter how much he loved his mother, it would never come close to the way he trusted his aunt to be there. With both of their consent, I filed paperwork immediately, petitioning the presiding judge to grant emergency and permanent custody. To further back my belief that Joan would be fit and expedite the process, I sent in Patti and Barbara individually to investigate Joan’s home and submit their written opinions to the judge.
It took less than forty-eight hours for the judge’s decision to come back—permanent custody granted to one Miss Joan Wright, with supervised visitation with his mother at my office twice monthly. None of us were confident she would show up for the scheduled visits, but we all hoped. And now I could drop down in my bed and breathe a sigh of relief that I had not failed that child. That he was safe, warm, and cared for in a home with someone who loved him.
But without the busy-ness and panic of Benji’s urgent case, my mind was free to wander. And my heart free to splinter at memories of a week spent on the road with an infuriating man.
My gaze settled on two blue rubber ducks I'd shoved into my carry-on when I frantically left Birdie's. It felt as if they were staring at me from where I'd placed them on my dresser. Talon’s sharp eyes in my memory cut through my chest and pierced my heart, a strangled sob catching in my throat. The last thing I wanted to do was cry over him, trying fruitlessly to convince myself that he was not worth my tears. So what if behind the growled insults and rough hands he was actually very generous? What did it matter if deep in my heart I knew that the vitriol he’d spewed at me in Birdie’s kitchen was only spoken in fear?
He’d hurt me, and I was tired of people hurting me. I could accept that nobody was going to love me unconditionally or even authentically. Hell, even James, who had called while I was holed up in Birdie’s bedroom, had made it plain that I was not forever material. Apparently, he had saw my comment under his engagement photo, and just as I had hoped— it had struck a chord. What had he said?
“ I wanted to tell you how sorry I am. I know you held out hope that there was a future for us and I am so sorry. I never lied…I loved you. But it was the kind of love someone has for someone they’ve always known. It was familiar. When I met her everything was different. She’s my future. ”
Of course, I told him it was fine and I understood and I was over him. And at least some of it was true—I was well and truly over the man that had shattered my heart last year. How could I not be? When I knew exactly what he meant when he said everything was different the moment you saw that other person? When I had gone and let myself fall head over heels for someone that was absolutely the last person I should want?
It didn’t matter though, because Talon did not reciprocate. If he did, he would be here, wouldn’t he? Or he would’ve actually said something when I was leaving. Maybe he would’ve reached out in the week since I’d left Oregon. I’d spoken to Birdie almost every day, who’d confirmed that he was still there, sorting things out with Milo. But she never mentioned him wanting to speak to me, and he made no move to call himself.
Still, I suppose it gave me hope, that he was making an effort to do the right thing and not give into Kyle’s demands. But I didn’t ask her anymore questions about him or what they were planning. It was enough to know he wasn’t with his deranged uncle. Not that any of that helped with the constant burning in my chest, my hand now pressed to it trying to rub the hurt away. Nothing worked.
When my phone rang and Birdie’s fake name lit up the screen, I accepted the call gratefully, thrilled to have anything else but my heartache to think about.
Birdie had replaced one heartache with another. She’d been sitting on her questions all week, she said, waiting until she couldn’t possibly wait anymore. She wanted to know about the ‘dead friend’ that Talon had thrown at me so carelessly, and why she had never heard about her before.
So, I told her about Cara and let the grief swallow me the entire time. Maybe it was time to talk about her. To stop hiding her away in my memories and only letting it out when it had bubbled so close to the surface it was suffocating me. She deserved better than that.
Birdie was devastated that I hadn’t told her, but she understood. She’d lost her brother, grief not a new concept to her. I should’ve confided in her sooner, trusted that she would understand. It felt good to share Cara with her, the only other person I’d ever trusted nearly as much.
“It was wrong of Talon to use her against you.” I heard the fury in my friend’s voice, even thousands of miles away like we were. “How dare he?”
I shrugged, not that she could see it. “He was just trying to hurt me.”
“After all the hubbub he made over the way I spoke to you? The hypocrisy.”
“He was only trying to push me away. It worked.”
Birdie was still muttering curses toward Talon when the buzzer to my apartment sounded through the small space and I jumped. Saying our goodbyes, I made my way to the intercom and pressed the mic.
“How can I help you?”
A short moment later a man spoke. “Misely, it’s me.”