27. Lillian
“What do you mean you lost?”The frown on his face, the confusion, embodies what I’m feeling right now.
That can’t be it, right?
The judge can’t just decide in a twenty-minute hearing to unilaterally and completely ruin my life. And let’s be honest, Grace’s, too. No matter what Talia or her lawyer said or how long she’s been ‘clean,’ she isn’t Grace’s mom and does not know how to care for her the way I do.
She can’t even care for herself.
When I don’t answer him, when all I can do is stare blankly ahead and try not to drown in the devastation, he pulls me to him. Arms wrap tight around my shoulders, his hand holding my head to his chest. Numbly, slowly, my arms fold up around his waist. The touch is light and barely there. But the longer he holds me, the tighter my grip gets until my fists are bunched in his suit jacket, knuckles white.
I think he’s murmuring things to me or maybe even speaking at full volume, but the noise around me has started to filter in like sound underwater. Eyes open, I can see people moving around us. Men and women in suits, families dressed in more casual clothing, a few cops. All talking, laughing, crying. But it’s all far away.
Until I see Michael outside the courtroom, where my life just fell apart, talking to the opposing counsel. I can’t hear what is being said from here, but my lawyer shakes his head, turns, and starts walking toward us.
I unfold myself from around Lincoln, pulling away just enough to where we’re both facing Michael as he approaches. Lincoln still has me tucked into his body, left arm around my shoulders, so his right is free to shake the hand Michael extends as he reaches us.
“Linc,” my lawyer nods.
Their shake is firm but brief, and then Michael turns to me.
“I’m going to file an appeal in the morning. But frankly, the odds of the judge’s ruling getting overturned aren’t good. The mom followed the letter of the law on this one.” Lincoln is tense around me, but neither of us interrupt Michael as he continues. “Her lawyer wouldn’t confirm anything, but I suspect the mom is still using. You just have to be patient, Lillian. She’ll make a mistake, and then you’ll get custody back.”
“Maybe. But that mistake could cost me my daughter,” I respond, tone flat as images of Grace hurt or dead in some disgusting halfway house pop up in my head.
He nods, acknowledging the apparent truth in this situation. “I’ll do what I can.”
That’s all there is to say, really. With one last nod at Lincoln, Michael turns on his heel and walks away.
“It’s going to be okay,” Lincoln says as he pulls back to peer down at me. There’s a hardness, a finality, in his eyes. “We’re going to get her back. I promise you that.”
Every inch of me wants to believe him. Is searching for just a shred of hope. But I feel like an empty, endless pool of pessimism. Drowning in darkness.
When all I can do is nod halfheartedly, he kisses the top of my head. “Come home with me?” he asks.
To a place where Grace has a bedroom she loves but will never see again. Where all I’ll see is them making pancakes in the kitchen together, or the three of us cuddling on the couch watching Disney movies.
“I’m going to go back to Flagstaff and visit Grace in the hospital.” During visiting hours, I suppose. Since I’m no longer family. Not legally, at least. The ache in my chest tells me I’ll always feel like her mom in my heart. Where it counts.
“I’ll come with. We can stay at your house tonight. I just have to make sure Becca is okay staying alone,” he says the last part in a far off voice, biting his lip, worried about his sister already.
“No.” I shake my head. “Stay with your sister. I need some space anyways.” Space to process and get my mind right.
Change of circumstance, they had said about my relationship with Lincoln. Logically, I know he’s not the reason Talia got custody. But right now, it feels like I’m being ruled by emotions, and I need to take the time to separate the two. To not take out my grief and rage and bullshit on him.
His body goes still at my words. “Space from me?”
I’m silent at the shock in his voice, trying to think through my reply so I don’t say something hurtful or untrue.
He doesn’t wait for one. “Are you breaking up with me?”
My eyes jerk up to his, stunned that he made that jump so quickly. “No, of course not.”
The relief is palpable as his eyes shutter and shoulders loosen. “Promise?”
I nod and go in to wrap my arms around his waist again. With my forehead leaned against his chest, I’m brave enough to admit to him, “I just feel like I need to be alone. To think. To grieve.”
I feel his chest expand as he takes a big breath in, and I pull back to look at him again. “But I’ll call you, okay?”
He leans down, lips touching mine in a sweet and brief goodbye. “Okay. I love you.”
I’ll never get tired of hearing those three words.
“You too.”
A few hours later, I’m sitting in the chair beside Grace’s hospital bed. Kim was here when I showed up, Nicky and Jim having gone home after visiting all day so Jim could get their son in bed at a reasonable time.
On the drive back, Kim had called to ask how the hearing went, so she was already aware of the state I’d be in. That didn’t stop me from crying the whole drive to the hospital. My eyes are red and swollen from it. Kim took one look at me and dissolved into a fit of tears herself. Like she hadn’t believed me over the phone, but seeing the heartache all over my face made it real for her.
After a long, breath-stealing hug and promises to be there if I need anything, she left, too.
The doctors and nurses don’t seem to have been made aware of the custodial change yet, thank God. That’s the only reason I’m still here after visiting hours, I think.
As if my thoughts have summoned her though, Talia strolls into the hospital room, and it kills me that she can now. Dressed in a comfortable pair of leggings and an ill-fitting sweatshirt. She went home and changed—did who knows what else before coming to visit the daughter she just got custody of.
Resentment burns bright in me.
There’s a part of me, a pessimistic, hateful part, that believes she doesn’t even want kids. Let alone Grace.
What she wants is to appear as if she’s a good mother. Someone who has her life together. Who isn’t a drug-addicted narcissist.
Just as she sees me sitting by the bed, holding Grace’s hand as she sleeps, she stops dead in her tracks. “What are you doing here?” she huffs out, glaring daggers at me.
“Visiting my daughter,” I reply absently, not even looking at her as I say it. My eyes don’t leave Grace’s. Something tells me I’m about to say goodbye, and this will be the last time I get to see her. A weight settles heavily in my gut, rooting me to the spot.
“My daughter. Or did you forget already?” Nasty, awful woman.
“As if I’ll ever forget,” I mutter under my breath as I observe the peacefulness in Grace’s face. So unaware of what happened today. Of what is happening right now.
To be a kid again. To have the worst part of your day be losing your favorite stuffy.
I don’t hear Talia leave, but I do hear her come back, and based on the multiple sets of footsteps, someone has joined her.
“Visiting hours don’t apply to parents of children, ma’am.” The words finally pull my focus from my daughter to see a very young nurse glancing nervously between me and Talia as she says it. Probably because Talia looks like she is ready to throw a temper tantrum.
“She isn’t her parent. I am her mom. She has to leave now!” Grace starts to stir at Talia’s raised voice. Not wanting to wake her and not having the emotional or physical capacity for a fight right now, I stand slowly.
I lean over and plant a gentle kiss on Grace’s forehead before grabbing my things from the small table in the corner and walking toward the door. Relief is plastered all over the nurse’s face when she sees me leaving voluntarily and without any kind of commotion.
She hurries out of the room as I get closer, but then I stop a foot from Talia, who hasn’t moved out of the way of the door.
With a blank face, I give her a slow once-over.
She’s a mess. Even in the long sleeves and leggings, I can see the small tremors or chills wracking her body. There’s a small sheen of sweat on her upper lip, and her eyes are glassy. Her leg is bouncing slightly as she taps her foot against the floor. Not out of impatience for me to leave. But restlessness.
Withdrawal symptoms.
“Six months sober now, right?” My voice is sardonic as I raise a brow. “Quite the accomplishment.”
Her foot stops tapping, and she glowers at me. I huff out an ironic laugh, nothing about this at all funny.
My footsteps down the hospital hallways as I leave feel too loud, and it may just be my imagination, but I swear I feel every eye on me as I choke back tears.
The drive home is a short ten minutes. I sit in my car for another ten, dreading going into an empty, dark house. I won’t hear Grace’s infectious laugh or trip over the mess of toys she makes on the living room floor again.
No more crawling into my bed in the middle of the night because she’s had a bad dream or her room is too dark.
The thought alone makes me want to get a hotel for the night. Somewhere there aren’t any memories. The thought makes me feel weak, though. Instead, I go inside, walk right to my bed, grab the comforter, and drag it out to the couch where I fall asleep fast.
All alone.
Hey, babe. Just calling to say I miss you. Becca is almost completely moved in now. We painted her room. Black, go figure. But she says she wants it as the base so she can paint colorful murals on top. I don’t know anything about art, so I’m just going with it. She seems to be doing good, though. She asked about you. We would love it if you came over for dinner sometime soon. No pressure, though. Whenever you’re ready… Okay, well that’s all. Call when you can. I love you.
Three days later, I listen to Lincoln’s third voicemail. He’s called every day, and I let each one go to voicemail. Mostly because my phone was always out of reach. Somewhere in the kitchen or on the coffee table, and I couldn’t make myself move to grab it.
I didn’t leave my spot on the couch for the first forty-eight hours. I wasn’t eating, and I barely drank anything, so the only time I did get up was to go to the bathroom. Then I went right back to my emotional support blanket cocoon.
I do feel bad that I’m ignoring his calls and a lot of his texts. He sends frequent texts throughout the day. Mostly checking in on me. Asking me if I’ve eaten or how I slept. There were a few more Becca updates.
A lot goes unanswered, some don’t require an answer, and I send a few short texts back to let him know I’m okay. Or at least alive.
But on day three, I decided it was time to stop feeling sorry for myself. Which is why I took a shower, ate an apple with some peanut butter, and am currently sitting on Kim’s recliner. Kim is sitting on the couch with her swollen feet propped up in Jim’s lap.
She’s got to be close to popping now. Everything has started to swell, and she’s just this side of miserable. Physically and emotionally. I think she’s cried just as much, if not more, than I have the past few days.
Pregnancy hormones and all.
She went and saw Grace at the hospital yesterday. To check in during visiting hours and see how she’s doing. I called the hospital to ask how she was on the first day, but I was told I was put on a ‘no visit’ list. Which means no medical updates either. It made me want to drive up there anyway and slash Talia’s tires or key her car or something.
Instead, I sent Kim to check on her. Grace is doing much better and was even set to be discharged yesterday. They said most of the fluid is out of her lungs now, and she’s on the way to a full and speedy recovery.
We’re sitting in silence at the moment, each of us lost in our thoughts.
Then my phone chimes from wherever I left it. I ignore it.
Another chime.
And another.
Jim grunts as he pushes himself off the couch to follow the sound that I think is coming from the kitchen. I almost tell him not to bother, but he’s already grabbed it by then.
“It’s yours,” he tells me as he walks it over. But as he does, Jim glances at the screen. “It’s Lincoln.” The ire from breakfast a few weeks ago is gone, as I knew it would be. Jim doesn’t hold grudges, but he is fiercely protective. “How are things going with him?”
I shrug. “Good.”
“Just good?” His brow raises, expecting a little more.
“Things are great,” I shoot back.
“So where is he? How is he doing with everything? I thought he might be here with you.”
I hadn’t told Kim that I asked Lincoln for some space. I heard her voice in my head saying I was crazy, and I wasn’t ready to deal with that yet.
“He’s in Phoenix. His younger sister just moved in with him, so he’s making sure she’s settled.”
“That’s sweet,” Kim says slowly, but she’s eyeing me suspiciously. “He didn’t at least ask you to stay with them?”
Another shrug. “He did. But I needed some space.”
“He was okay with that?” It’s Jim’s turn to look suspicious.
“Yes. He’s been great about it,” I say honestly, and a pang of longing hits me.
“Hmmm,” Jim hums at me. He’s itching to say something else. The look in his eyes is indecision.
“What?” I roll my eyes. “Spit it out.”
“I just had him pegged wrong is all. He seems like a decent enough guy.” Jim gives me a look as if to say, am I wrong?
“He is. And?”
“I think what my husband is trying to say is, what the fuck are you doing here moping all by yourself when you’ve got a man that loves you two and a half hours away?”
“Well, minus the cursing. But you basically got it, baby. Thank you.” Jim winks at my sister, love shining in his eyes. Just like that, I miss Lincoln. It’s the first emotion I’ve felt besides crushing grief since Thursday. At least I can do something about this one.
I glance at my sister, who is grinning at me. “Go,” she smirks. “Pack a bag for the week, and go take your mind off things.”
She doesn’t say it, but the ‘nobody is keeping you here anymore’ is implied.
So I do.
Just under four hours later, I grab my suitcase from the back of my car as I park in Lincoln’s building garage. I grunt under the weight of it. I packed enough for two weeks, including all my work things, so I could get caught up on the backlog of orders this week.
I wheel the suitcase into the elevator and hit the button for the penthouse. Suddenly, I’m a little nervous because I wanted this to be a surprise, so I didn’t tell Lincoln I was coming.
It’s not that I think he’ll mind. He’s been asking me to come over in his texts. But what if he and Becca went to dinner tonight, or they’re out for dessert?
As I raise my hand to knock on the door, I wonder if I’ll have to go back down and sit in my car while I wait for them to come back.
But then the door swings open, and there Lincoln is. Standing in front of me with more stubble than the last time I saw him. There are small bags under his eyes that must match the ones under mine.
He looks exhausted. It’s then I realize how selfish I’ve been. While I’ve needed my space to grieve, he’s given it to me, no matter how it affected him.
When he sees me, his eyes light up, and he pulls me into a fierce hug. My arms automatically wrap around his waist, and I inhale his woodsy scent.
We stand there for a long time, just holding each other.
It feels like home.