34. Lee #2
As soon as I was healed enough to deal with it, I was getting a lawyer too. I knew being pissed at JB didn’t mean I could just decide I had full custody. That wasn’t how it worked. I wanted everything done right and put on paper. Custody, visitation, child support, all of it.
JB had played with me long enough. He wasn’t getting to play about my son.
By the next morning, my hospital room looked like a baby boutique had exploded in it.
Apparently, Anika had gone home, slept for all of seventeen minutes, then woke up and decided her nephew needed a whole new wardrobe before breakfast. She stood beside his bassinet fixing his little outfit while I watched from the bed.
“He don’t need shoes,” I told her.
Anika didn’t even look at me. “They’re not shoes. They’re booties.”
“They look like shoes.”
“He got pictures today.”
“He twelve hours old. Where the hell he going?”
She finally looked at me. “To take pictures, Lee. That’s why he has on the outfit.”
Mama sat by the window drinking coffee and minding everybody’s business without technically participating.
I looked at her for backup. “Mama.”
She took another sip. “Leave that girl alone.”
I should’ve known better than to ask that traitor for backup.
The newborn photographer came by later, and I had to admit Anika had been right. Not to her face. I wasn’t doing all that.
But Myles looked so damn cute wrapped up in his little blankets that I almost couldn’t stand it. They took pictures of his hands, his feet, his little face, then got some of me holding him.
Of course I cried again. Apparently crying was just part of my personality now.
By that afternoon, everybody had cleared out for a while and it was just me and Myles. Then Van walked through the door carrying a Jersey Mike’s bag in one hand and a Red Bull in the other.
I damn near sat straight up. “No, you did not.”
Van grinned. “Sure did.”
“Give it here.”
“Can I get in the room first?”
“No.”
Laughing, he handed over the Red Bull before setting the food on my tray. I stared at the can like he had brought me a diamond. “You don’t understand how long I been wanting one of these.”
“I do understand. You complained about it for months.”
I ignored that. “What sandwich you get?”
“Your regular.”
I opened the bag and immediately smelled it. “This might be better than when you told me you loved me.”
Van pulled the chair closer to my bed. “That’s fucked up.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Clearly.”
While I ate, Van leaned over the bassinet and looked at Myles. “He been good?”
“So far. He already got his days and nights mixed up, though.”
“He just got here.” Van reached down and touched one of Myles’s tiny fists. “Give my boy a minute.”
I stopped chewing long enough to look at him. “Your boy?”
“My godson.”
“Mhm.”
He stayed there looking at Myles for another few seconds before sitting back down. I had already made it halfway through my sandwich when I noticed he’d gotten quiet.
“What?”
Van rubbed his hands together once. “My lease up next month.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not renewing it.”
I lowered my sandwich. “Where you moving?”
“My grandparents’ house.”
That got my full attention. “The Dog River house?”
“Yeah. I been thinking about it for a while. Ain’t no point in letting it sit empty, and I know I don’t wanna sell it.”
I remembered that house from the estate sale, the water out back and all the old furniture, pictures, and memories everywhere you looked. Even back then, before I really knew Van, I could tell that place meant something to him.
“That makes sense.”
He nodded, then looked directly at me. “I want you and Myles to come with me.”
My sandwich stopped halfway back to my mouth. “Come with you where?”
“To live.”
I slowly lowered my food. “Van.”
“I’m serious.”
“You just asked me to be your girlfriend.”
“And?”
“And now you asking me to move in with you, and I ain’t even been your girlfriend a whole month.”
“It ain’t like I met you a month ago.”
“That ain’t the point.”
“I know.” He leaned back in the chair instead of arguing. “So tell me the point.”
I looked over at Myles. The answer was easy. “I’m scared.”
Van stopped playing around. “Of me?”
“No.” I picked at the edge of my sandwich wrapper.
“Of not having my own.” He stayed quiet and let me talk.
“I did that already. Me and JB was together forever, and everything was us. I thought what was his was mine and what was mine was his. Then I went to prison and came home to find out I didn’t know half the shit going on in my own life.
” I shook my head. “I don’t ever wanna be in a position where I gotta depend completely on a man again.
I love you. That ain’t got nothing to do with it.
I just need to know if shit ever goes left, I still got me. ”
Van nodded. “I’m not asking you to give up having your own.”
“If I give up my place and move into your house, that’s kinda what I’m doing.”
“Then don’t give it up.”
I frowned. “What?”
“Keep your place until the lease up. After that, if you still feel like you need something of your own, we’ll figure it out.”
I stared at him. “You done thought about this.”