Chapter 24 Bailee Ann
Bailee Ann
J HAD TOLD ME FROM THE START OF OUR RELATIONSHIP that he was trying to get custody of his daughter, Bailee. I’d dated men with kids before but this was a whole different animal. I was signing up to be some kind of parental figure to this kid.
After J and I got married, the first conversation Bailee and I had was in a Burger King in the middle of bumfuck Tennessee.
Bailee is a take-charge, tell-it-like-it-is, bossy, rebel soul.
Even as a young kid, she would fearlessly say how she felt.
I always look back fondly on our first meeting because it was like I was staring Baby Lis right in the face—even if she didn’t look like me.
So there we were, in the middle of nowhere at some random Burger King, and this child was staring through me into my soul.
In dead silence. By ourselves. J was outside explaining to her mom’s parents that he’d run off and gotten married in Vegas.
It felt like sitting across from a mini Godfather—she even had her hands folded on the table in front of her as she inspected me.
Her big blue eyes focused on mine.
“What are your intentions with my dad?” she asked straight-faced. This kid didn’t come to play.
“I love him,” I said. The last thing I wanted to do was get defensive. All I could think about was when I’d found out my dad was marrying Mindy. How trapped and abandoned I’d felt. How invisible.
“I want to be with him. That’s all—nothing else.”
“Okay,” she said, seemingly satisfied with that answer.
* * *
SHE SEEMED SO MUCH LIKE me—she’d already been through so much trauma.
She’d never felt heard or cared for. If I was going to give this child a chance to thrive, I would have to do everything differently than how it was done with me.
I wasn’t going to say “I’m your new mom,” like Mindy had to a confused and scared five-year-old.
I wasn’t going to make her feel like she didn’t have a place in the family J and I were making together.
If anything, I was the intruder. This was her family I was joining.
I wasn’t going to give her the heartache I lived with my whole damn life.
I knew I needed to make her feel comfortable.
If I was going to be in her life, I’d tread lightly and let our relationship develop organically.
With this little girl, I was going to be honest and gentle.
And I was going to do my best to pass whatever tests she threw at me.
I’d answer whatever questions she asked.
The second test was her Burger King order.
“What should I get?” she asked, looking over at the menu on the wall. I didn’t know what a picky eater she was—still is.
“You gotta get the Oreo shake,” I said.
“Ew,” she said, scrunching up her nose. “I’ve never had an Oreo shake and I’m never going to ever have one. Ever.”
“Well, if you don’t like it, you can throw it on the floor,” I said as we both giggled. Score! I got the Godfather to crack a smile. “But I promise you’ll love it.”
Her eyes got wide. She pondered and finally gave me a nod. I ordered her an Oreo shake and put it in front of her, nervously awaiting her first slurp. If this goes badly, she’ll never trust me again.
She took a sip and grinned. She absolutely loved it. Whew.
It wouldn’t be the last test with Bailee. She didn’t trust women—and as matter of fact, she still tests me to this day. But I can’t blame her: Her mother and stepmom were both addicts, using heavy drugs that made it impossible for them to parent her.
After that day at Burger King, J and I started talking over what would be best for Bailee.
No one ever wants to take a child away from their mother.
Neither of us at that time wanted to be full-time parents, and we were messed up ourselves.
We doubted we were stable enough to run a household that included a child.
My entire life was still in Vegas. But I hopped in the car with J and we drove the forty-eight hours together from Vegas to Nashville so I could see if it was somewhere I could live full time.
Being a Vegas girl through and through, the thought of moving to the country terrified me.
I lived a very fast life in bars and casinos every night.
But I loved J so much, I was willing to try whatever I needed to be with him. I didn’t want to leave his side.
We were about to make the hardest decision ever as a couple.
* * *
WE DECIDED TO GO FOR full custody when we went to visit Bailee at her grandparents’ house, where her own mom was in and out. We’d heard terrible things about their life—and when we saw it for ourselves, we had to act. There was no other choice.
I remember pulling up to the house and thinking how different the houses in Vegas looked from the ones in Nashville.
We showed up unannounced, wanting to see what Bailee’s life was really like.
We pulled the screen door back and walked into the living room.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It looked like a Vegas trap house—dirty and cluttered, like it hadn’t been cleaned in years.
There were piles of trash and clothes everywhere.
You couldn’t sit on any of the furniture because it was all covered in shit.
J and I glanced at each other in concern and kept walking.
When we entered the kitchen, Bailee was standing in front of the stove on a little stool, making dinner for her two cousins and herself.
She was making toast with peanut butter, stirring noodles boiling on the stove.
She was seven years old, taking care of two other children.
My heart sank as I watched her serving the food, telling her cousins to come eat.
“Do you cook a lot, baby?” I asked in disbelief.
“Oh yeah. Every day,” she said as she slapped some noodles on a plate with a heaping pile of butter.
My heart broke. I suddenly understood why she was so grown for her age. She wasn’t allowed to be a kid. She was the adult of the house.
“Where’s your room?” I asked, trying to sift my way through all the trash on the floor.
“I don’t have one,” she said. “Mom took it over so I sleep in that chair.” She pointed to a torn-down La-Z-Boy with a pile of clothes next to it.
The chair had a perfect indent from where her little body slept.
Her mom wasn’t there. Apparently, she would leave for days on end.
Some days Bailee didn’t even make it to school.
Choking back tears, I looked at J and whispered, “Baby we can’t leave her here like this.” He nodded, but he couldn’t speak. He was in total shock at how his daughter had been living. He couldn’t process how bad it had gotten without him knowing.
We kept looking around that house of horrors.
There was a registered sex offender living in a basement with three baby girls living upstairs.
Out back, the grass was so high it towered over Bailee’s head.
They had a sad dog, chained to a post outside, that looked like he hadn’t been groomed in years.
So much anger welled up inside of me. I could see it in J too.
It was damn near impossible to leave her, and we sat in the car in silence. I know our minds were sharing the same thought: How had it gotten this bad for Bailee’s mom? What had all those girls been through? I desperately wish we could have saved them all.
We stayed silent as we pulled away. We both knew in our hearts what was going to come next. We’d been married just a few weeks, and real life had settled in on us fast and furious.
When we finally got back to the hotel, we both agreed it was time to lawyer up. I had a small amount of money to my name and I put it in J’s hand.
“This should be enough for a retainer. I’ll make more in the next few days. Let’s just lock down a lawyer now.”
And he did. Within an hour, he found one of the best family lawyers in Nashville and hired her.
* * *
WE WERE STAKED OUT IN a hotel, but we knew the next thing that needed to happen was getting a stable home.
The only problem was both of us had zero credit.
I made money easily, so that wasn’t a problem, but this was about being able to get a place in a neighborhood nice enough to raise this baby.
So, while I worked out of another room in that hotel, J hustled playing shows.
In a few weeks, we put enough money together to lock down an apartment in West Nashville.
We needed someone to cosign for us, but we got that money together ourselves.
I was so excited. Not only was this going to be a home for J’s daughter, but it was our first place together. We were really going to do this. Unsurprisingly, I kept my penthouse in Vegas. I didn’t want to put all my eggs in one basket just yet.
We started collecting furniture for our new little condo and decorating a room for Bailee. We filled it with all the things for little girls that we could afford and hoped she’d like it.
Bailee would sometimes come over and visit, but she would never stay for long.
She was very attached to her life at her house—even if it was piled high with trash and neglect, it was all she ever knew.
Sometimes when she was supposed to stay the night, she would end up calling one of her grandparents to come get her.
I didn’t realize it then: That baby girl wasn’t used to sleeping in a bed.
She wanted to sleep in the chair in the clutter. It had become her comfort.
During the next few months, we dealt with lawyers to present our case as to why we were filing for full custody.
Taking her away from her mother was not something we wanted to do, but for the sake of Bailee having a real chance at life, it was absolutely necessary.
Things were getting worse and worse at home.
But getting a court date was impossible.
Until the day we got the phone call. Bailee’s mom and stepmom had been arrested for robbing their own next-door neighbor.
* * *