Chapter 29 Seen From A Distance
SEEN FROM A DISTANCE
“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at the firehouse,” his grandmother asked when he walked into the bar at ten on Tuesday. They wouldn’t open for another hour and he had to talk to her before anyone else came in.
Jocelyn was shopping right now for him. It was divide and conquer.
“I switched with someone. We need to talk.”
“I don’t like the look on your face. It’s the same as when you got in trouble at school.”
He snorted. “Much worse than that.”
“Are you sick?” his grandmother asked, almost rushing him.
He let her run her hands over his arms as if she was looking for invisible wounds.
He had plenty of them.
“No. There is no easy way to say this so I’m going to just blurt it out. I’ve got a son.”
“What?”
“Sit down. Everything is happening so fast. I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure. I got the call last night with the results and have been scrambling.”
He immediately ordered a twin bed for delivery this afternoon.
“I need more than a seat. I need a drink. If you told me Jocelyn was pregnant I’d laugh, but saying you’ve got a son is a child that already exists.”
“Yeah. He’s two. His name is Maverick.”
“And you’re just telling me now,” she said, reaching her hand over to whack his arm.
“I just found out Sunday night,” he said. “Do you think I’d keep this from you? I didn’t want to believe it, but I could tell by looking at him. I got a DNA test and paid for it to be rushed.”
“And now what? You’re going to be paying a ton of back child support?”
“It’s the least of my worries. I only found out because his mother, who I only dated for a month and never told me she was pregnant, is in jail.
She was arrested on Saturday night and looks like she’ll be there for a while.
Baylee, that is her name, finally told her mother, Nettie, who the father was.
Nettie showed up at my place for me to take him.
She said she couldn’t do it anymore. She’s not well and it’s too much. ”
“Whoa. So finding out you’ve got a kid and raising him?”
“Yeah. I’ve got an attorney in place. I’m going there next and we’ll get temporary custody filed with the courts.
Social services has to be notified. Nettie hadn’t done it yet, she was avoiding it, but I have to play by the rules.
I want to take him home right away, but if the case manager says no, Nettie will keep him until we get there. ”
“I know you, you’re going to do what you want anyway.”
They’d play by the rules on paper, but he was still taking his kid home tonight. That wasn’t up for debate. After talking to Nettie last night, he understood she wanted to still see Maverick for visitations and be in his life, but she couldn’t care for him or watch him nonstop.
He had to learn what he could on the fly and hoped Maverick adapted.
“I’m going to need help,” he said. “I have to find childcare, but until then, if it’s not too much, if you can watch him days I’m at the firehouse.
Or nights and Jocelyn can take days. I know things have to be done here too.
We can work it out together, but hire more help here too to ease things some.
Maybe I’ll get lucky with childcare fast.”
“Whatever you need, I’m there, Chance. You don’t have to ask.”
“I know.”
“I’m glad Jocelyn is stepping up. I bet she’s more organized than you.”
“I’m lost, but I’d be more lost without her. This is a lot and I told her I’d understand if she wanted to bolt.”
“Don’t insult her or yourself, or I’ll cuff you upside the head like I did when you were a kid.”
He laughed. “I might need it. Jocelyn bought a doll and showed me how to change a diaper last night.”
His grandmother laughed. “I bet you start potty training him fast. Maverick, you say? Kind of funny.”
“Top Gun. Your favorite movie,” he said. “Baylee called me that. The whole need for speed and being a rebel in her eyes. I found it stupid.”
“You did when I told you I had a crush on Tom Cruise,” her grandmother said.
“Nettie said I could call him whatever I wanted. I think she meant shortening the name. She was calling him Mav, said Baylee called him Ricky.”
“Poor kid probably has no clue what his name is at that age.”
“I know. I’ll probably stick with Mav or Maverick. Sounds as if his life was like mine.”
“And that digs at you, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. But my son is going to know what it’s like to have a man in his life.”
“What about his mother?”
“For now, no way. I’m going for full custody, but that will take time. I’ll most likely get temporary custody granted right away. My place isn’t going to work for long. Not sure if it’s time to look for a house or not.”
A yard for a kid to run in. Something he’d never had.
He didn’t want his son playing in a parking lot or running on the streets.
There’d be a swing set and a basketball hoop, a sandbox for sure.
Everything he’d seen from a distance at friends’ houses when he got to visit.
Things he’d never had and wouldn’t even consider asking for.
His kid would have them all.
“You want your son to have a better life than you. It’s okay to say that and do those things, Chance. I’m not going to be hurt or upset.”
“I don’t want you to feel that way. You did a great job with me.”
“I did what I could. Not like other kids got, but I put you first.”
“Which was more than my mother did. More than Baylee is doing for Maverick.”
“Are you going to talk to this woman?”
“At some point. There is too much going on now, but once I can, I will.”
He’d want her to sign over custody to him. It’d make everything move faster, but he didn’t know if that would happen.
As long as Maverick was in his care for now, he’d deal with the rest as it came.
“Your head is spinning, isn’t it?”
“It’s hard for it not to be,” he said. “I’m not someone who makes lists.
I guess it’s a good thing Jocelyn is. She’s out buying what she thinks I need right away.
She talked to Nettie. We won’t take anything from there because Maverick will go back there to visit or stay when I’m working, if I need it or she wants him. ”
That was going to be hard for him to do, but he told himself he couldn’t take the only person who cared for his son out of his life. Not completely.
And he didn’t want to do anything to make Nettie fight him for custody. The nicer he played, the better it would be for everyone.
They were just possessions and he knew what he could provide his son would be better.
“I expect to get first dibs on my great-grandson. I need to buy things too. I’ve got an extra bed, but nothing else.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
Which was another reason it might be easier if he got a house. He could have a guest room for his grandmother to stay in and not worry about all those things cluttering her small apartment.
“This isn’t one of those fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants deals, Chance.”
“I know. You’ve got a lot of questions too, but I need to get to my attorney’s office and then Jocelyn and I are going to get Maverick. He was somewhat taken with her, not so much with me.”
“Did you even try?”
“No. I didn’t want to without knowing.”
“I’m not surprised by that. Open yourself up, Chance. This little boy needs you.”
“And I’m going to be there for him.”