Chapter 16
Holland
My lawyer’s call catches me in the high school parking lot.
We’ve been waiting several weeks. The judge said she’d rule in writing and that it would take as long as it took, so every day, almost every hour, turns into an eternity.
I lean against the car before I answer, my heart pounding so hard I’m scared something’s going to happen to me.
“Holland. I have the judge’s ruling,” he says. “She leaves your primary custody intact. Megan’s visits are expanded, supervised at first, with a schedule, but we already expected that. Room for review in two years. We won,” he adds, and my breath catches.
It takes me a couple of seconds to react, but I guess he’s used to it, because he doesn’t press or ask if I’m still there. I hear the traffic on the avenue, a siren in the distance, the seniors arguing about a test by the door, and finally I come around.
“Primary custody?” I repeat. “Really intact?”
“Really intact. You won. The judge thought very highly of the letters from the parents and the teachers. In the end, what they’re after is a happy life for the kids, not a house with a yard and a pool.
I’ll quote exactly: ‘A documented life of happiness prevails over an intention.’ Sometimes boring works, Holland, I told you so. ”
I sit down on the curb, mostly because my whole body is shaking.
My lawyer explains the timelines and something about a paper I have to sign next week.
I barely hold on to any of what he says, I’m too shaky.
The only thing that lodges in my head is that we don’t need to appeal anything, because we won.
The rest, after weeks of not sleeping, is too much to process sitting on a curb.
The first person I call is Natalia.
I don’t even think about it, I dial the number before I decide who I want to call. Only when I hear the rings do I realize that just a few months ago, the first person would have been my sister.
“We won!” I shriek the second she picks up. “Lina stays with us.”
“Thank God,” she sighs. “I’m proud of you, Holland.”
We talk a little more; in the background I hear her teammates’ voices and the sound of the showers, so I guess I caught her in the locker room.
The second call is to Annie.
My sister picks up with the TV in the background and a kid yelling. For some reason, at her place there’s always a kid yelling.
“Tell me it’s good or don’t tell me at all,” she says, by way of hello.
“It’s good. Lina stays, I get primary custody.”
Annie makes a weird sound, half laugh, half something else, and yells at someone to be quiet a second, that she’s talking to her sister.
“Good,” she huffs. Annie isn’t one for speeches. “Now I have to hang up before your little nephew sets the house on fire. We’ll talk later,” she says.
***
That afternoon, at the training fields, I coach the way I haven’t coached in a long time, with a different energy.
Natalia runs to hug me the second she gets out of the car, lifts me off the ground, and kisses my forehead while a group of girls stares at us.
Iris comes by “on her way,” which is a regular thing with her; she shows up places without warning on her way to another place where she’ll also show up without warning.
“Man, you look like a different person today, boss lady,” she tells me when she comes over. “That means something good happened to you. Don’t tell me, it’s none of my business, but I’m glad.”
“Yeah, something good happened,” I admit.
She nods, like she’s confirming she guessed right. Then she looks over to where Natalia is teaching three kids to trap the ball with the sole of their foot, and narrows her eyes.
“The club takes care of its own,” she mutters through her teeth, half to herself.
“More than it seems. I know a couple things about that.” And before I can ask what she means, she gets on her motorcycle and leaves me hanging.
“Nothing, my own stuff, boss lady. Anyway, give my best to the little one.”
She takes off without waiting for an answer, which is also usually the way Iris leaves.
***
What I didn’t expect is Megan’s call at nine thirty at night.
Lina’s already in her pajamas, arguing with Natalia about whether Brazil’s national team can beat the United States. I go out to the porch with the phone because the number on the screen changes my expression and I don’t want the kid to see that.
“I’m not going to appeal,” my ex announces, barely a hello. Her voice is tired, without the rehearsed tone of that first day. “I’d rather you hear it from me and not from the lawyers.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“But we have to work out a visitation schedule. I want to see her,” she says at last. “However you want, I don’t want to fight.
Just…” she gets stuck, hunts for words, but doesn’t find the clean sentence she wanted to deliver.
“I don’t know. There are things that don’t…
that I see differently now. Well, whatever, I’d like to see her, that part I’m sure of. ”
I grip the phone hard and feel a tightness in my chest. Four years are four years, and the whole time I was the one who took care of her while the mother who carried her built a new life in Virginia.
But at the end of the day, Megan is her mother too, and not only is it her right, I guess in the long run it can be good for Lina.
When I go back in, Lina’s asleep in our bed and Natalia shrugs.
“Everything okay?” she asks over the kid’s head, quiet so she won’t wake her.
“Everything’s okay,” I confirm.