Chapter 20 #2
Dad is a few hundred feet away, catching up with old friends. Mom and I sit and watch the pair with their buckets and shovels.
“I like her,” Mom tells me, curling her arm under mine.
“I do, too.”
“I know. You’re good for each other,” she says.
“I thought you were worried about us taking it too fast.”
“Oh, I am. That’s my job, after all. The more I see, though,” she says, her hand brushing over mine in a soothing gesture, “the more I know.”
“What do you know?”
“That despite the fact you’re already sleeping with each other, you’ve built something outside of that. She trusts you, which can’t have been easy. And if you didn’t trust her, you wouldn’t encourage this relationship she has with Paige.”
“How do you know we’re sleeping together?”
“Oh please, I’m old, but I’m not stupid,” she says, and I laugh.
“You’re not even old,” I say, pulling my vibrating phone out. “Shit.”
“Go take it,” she says, seeing my attorney’s name on the screen.
“What happened?” I ask when I answer it, after taking a few more steps away from my family.
“She’ll give primary custody,” Tom says. “For a fee.”
“A fucking fee?”
“Basically. I got the impression she’s remarrying, wants a bigger house, the life that comes along with that.”
“The life that comes along with a new family,” I muse. The life that comes along with ditching your old family is what I mean. She wants to sell me my own daughter so she can live it up. With my fucking money. “Did she ask for anything else?”
“One weekend a month, two weeks in the summer, every other Christmas.”
“That’s it?” I ask, fucking appalled at how little time that is. No birthday, no spring break, only one damn weekend a month.
“That’s it.”
“How much?”
“Quarter of a million.”
The silence would be deafening, except for the blood pounding in my head. I don’t have that kind of money, which Brenda knows. If I sold the house, I could pay her off. But then, what? I’d have no place to bring Paige home to.
“The rest of the payments would end, though?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“Give me a couple of days,” I say. “I don’t know if I can come up with it but give me some time to exhaust all options.”
“If nothing else, Grady, this helps us if we take it back to court.”
“But going to court doesn’t give us the guarantee.”
“Correct.”
“Okay, I’ll get back with you soon.” I end the call and pace the beach for a few minutes. My mood sours with my fast-paced thoughts. Every day since catching Brenda cheating on me, I’ve tried my best not to hate her. Not for my sake, but for our daughter’s.
I forgave her for that. I forgave her for fighting for primary custody. I forgave her for doing her best to suck my savings account dry.
There’s no forgiving this. She’s selling me Paige. And fuck, I’ll take that deal every day of the week because it gives my daughter the most stable life. But fuck Brenda for this.
“What’s up?” Dad must have seen the steam shooting out of my ears.
“For the low price of a quarter million, I can buy primary custody from my ex-wife,” I say softly, not wanting my voice to carry. Paige doesn’t need to know about this, whatever the outcome. Her knowing doesn’t lead to anything good.
“Are you fucking with me?” My dad has always wanted to see the best in Brenda.
Paige is his favorite person on Earth. Brenda is a big part of Paige, so my parents have always made herculean efforts to be fair to my ex-wife.
I’ve let them; I’ve kept the worst parts to myself.
She was my choice, after all. My burden to bear.
“No,” I say, shaking my head and trying to relax the tension I feel creeping from my jaw to my skull. “I don’t know how to pull it off. Maybe a loan on my pension.”
“Do you have enough there?”
“Close.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he says, his own forehead tight with thoughts. “Your mom and I might be able to help.”
“No, Dad,” I say. They have debt of their own, now. Cancer isn’t one of the leading causes of bankruptcy for nothing. “I appreciate it, I do. But I’ll figure it out.”
“We’re not in bad shape, now,” he tries to argue.
“I know. Still, let me try on my own. I’ll ask if I need it.”
“That stubborn bullshit comes from me,” he mumbles, kicking his toe in the sand. “I don’t like it, but I understand.”
“Dad!” Paige comes running up to us, stopping in front of her grandfather, who swings her up into his arms. “I’m going to go home with Grandma.”
“You’re done already?” It’s been an active day, but that’s never stopped her before.
“I have sand in my crack,” she says, twisting her mouth up.
“Occupational hazard of being a beach bum,” Dad says. “We’ll get you home so you can shower.”
“Can we get ice cream on the way?” she whispers in his ear.
“Duh,” he says, giving her a tickle on her side.
“Thank you!”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“You got it,” he says. “Take Lou to dinner. The bar is doing crawfish boils.”
We didn’t leave the beach right away. Lou explained every inch of the design she and Paige came up with for the property she hopes to buy.
The house will have a wall of windows, to allow an unobstructed view of the ocean, save for the large garden that will be in a clearing off to one side.
Because, of course, you want to see your plants thriving, even from indoors.
Lou wants to leave much of the forest intact. No lawn, that’s a waste, she says, because there isn’t anything you can do on grass that you can’t do on seagrass. Plus, she likes the natural barrier and all the moss-covered trees.
“Imagine all the wooden pathways and cute little bridges I can build in the forest,” she said. “I’m a slut for a cute forest bridge.”
I’m a slut for wayward supermodels finding their way next door to me.
We only left when she decided she was too hungry to stay on the beach any longer, Paige and her having long since eaten all the snacks that were packed.
The bar is crowded with new and temporary faces, but we manage to find two stools at the end of the bar.
“Hiya,” January says, placing two cardboard coasters down in front of us. “You two doing the boil tonight?”
“Yes, please,” Lou answers with a smile that isn’t fully returned.
“And what will it be to drink?” January directs the question at me, and I eye her, confused.
Yeah, there’s been some harmless flirting between us, but it never went further than that. There’s no call for rudeness.
“Water is good for me,” I say. “I’m driving tonight.”
“Water works for me, too,” Lou says. January nods and walks away. “I get the feeling she doesn’t like me.”
“Don’t take it personally,” I say, though I’ve never seen her be dismissive of anyone before. “She’s probably just having a bad day.”
“If you say so,” she says, spinning on her stool to face me. “Today was fun. I haven’t checked my phone at all.”
“I’m happy you were able to get a break from it.” I cage her knees between mine, rubbing my palms along her thighs.
January sets our glasses of water down harder than necessary.
“Do you think she spit in them?” Lou looks at me with wide eyes and a smirk, making me laugh. “I saw you took a call. Was it Tom?”
“It was. There’s the promise of primary custody, if I can meet Brenda’s demands.” That impossible number flashes through my brain every second since Tom told me the amount.
Tomorrow, first thing, I’ll inquire about my pension. See how fucked I’ll be if I cash in on it this early.
“Grady, that’s great news. Right?”
“It might be.” I shrug. “If I can figure it all out.”
“Do you want to talk about it? Spitball ideas?”
“No,” I say, leaning forward to press a quick kiss on her lips. I love that she asked. That she’s giving me the option to work it out in my own brain, first. “Not yet.”
“Okay, I’m here when you need it.”
“Same to you,” I tell her, before we share a quiet moment of just staring at one another. A thousand unspoken words pass between us.
I imagine her entire life story passing by in quick flashes.
Louisa as a toddler in a grass-stained yellow checkered dress.
Her first day of school, hair in pigtails.
Graduating in a blue robe with a white tassel.
I picture her fingers shaking nervously on her eighteenth birthday when she signed her first contract.
Then, the same thing happening at the first photo shoot.
The images dry up when she meets Pierre. I googled the bastard; I know what he looks like. But he’s not part of my daydreams about Lou. I don’t know how close to the truth any of them are. I hope to find out, though.
“It’s weird, right?”
“What is?” I ask.
“How comfortable we are. Like we knew each other before or maybe have always known.” She blushes, her eyes darting away in embarrassment, as if she’s the only one who feels it.
“It’s weird as fuck.”
Her blush vanishes, replaced by that million-dollar smile of hers. When the food arrives, we eat messily. Neither of us care that our cheeks or fingers are covered in butter, herbs, and pieces of corn. Lou moans every time she bites into a cob, unable to remember the last time she ate that way.
A band starts playing as we finish up and clean our faces and hands with the cheap wet wipes the bar provides on boil nights.
It’s a cover band, playing hits from the eighties and nineties.
Some, even earlier. The lead singer has a gray beard that’s so long it nearly tangles in his guitar strings.
The bass player is a woman with bright purple hair and a stance that screams she’s a badass and not to mess with her. Lou mostly watches her.
When a ballad starts up, I ask if she’ll dance with me.
“Really?” She seems shocked, and I wonder why, but I don’t ask.
She’ll tell me what she wants me to know.
“Why not? There’s a song, a dance floor, and the most intriguing woman I’ve ever met. What else am I supposed to do with that?”
“Intriguing,” she repeats, taking my hand and leading me to the dance floor at the same time two other couples find space there. “Not beautiful?”
“You know you’re that,” I tease. “The whole world knows that. I’m interested in the parts everyone else doesn’t get.”