If Callie hadn’t been inside, I might’ve chased after Jax, but I decided against it. He’d thrown all this nonsense at me at the worst possible time, and I simply couldn’t focus on it. I had too much else to deal with.
Right after discovering that Callie had nearly been dropped from daycare and that my plans for the next semester of nursing school couldn’t happen at all, my mother had contacted me in a panic.
“They’re taking the house.”
“What?”
“They’re taking my house. They’re going to leave me destitute and homeless, and they don’t even care.”
“Mom, slow down. Who’s taking the house?”
“The bank,” she shrieked at me, as if I was a dunce. “They’re foreclosing.”
“Foreclosure only happens when you haven’t made several payments in a row.”
She lowered her voice. “So I got a little behind.” Shit. I felt a spasm of pain punch me right between the eyes. Like mother, like daughter. Even though she was the last woman I’d ever want to emulate. “I can’t lose this house. Calliope was born here.”
I had to stifle my scoff. The house she currently resided in had been my aunt Beverly’s in Baton Rouge, the same one I’d stayed in while pregnant with Callie. While I had gone into labor while there, and the labor had progressed so fast it’d frightened me, my daughter had not been born in that house.
Beverly had left to go traveling with her new beau – story of my life – and my mother had moved in, promising to take over the mortgage. Unable to tolerate living with my mother, I’d hightailed it back here to New Orleans as soon as I could. Beverly was my mother’s older sister, and while not as unreliable, she had a wicked temper.
“Beverly will kill me if I lose this house. It’s the only piece of property our family owns,” my mother continued.
Owned was a relative term. It implied that the house had been paid off, which it most certainly hadn’t. I considered telling her no. I knew I shouldn’t feel obligated to help a woman who’d left me high and dry more times than I could count, but she was my mother. I had to do something, but I wasn’t telling her what. Instead, I made up a story for her benefit. If she ever thought I had access to a lot of funds, she’d never stop having these crises.
“I’ll see what I can do, Mom. Maybe I can ask my boss at the bar for an advance.”
Since I didn’t feel comfortable going to Jax when things felt so up in the air between us, that left me with the Wish Maker. I’d agreed to go on ten consecutive dates, even though it meant calling in sick to my bartending job twice. I hated conducting myself like that, especially since again, it made me seem as unreliable as my mother, but I couldn’t let her get kicked out of her home, especially since it meant she’d wind up living with me.
Now, that would be a catastrophe.
So far, I’d completed five of the ten dates. After two more, I should have had enough to make her back payments. I’d already contacted her bank to beg for more time, but they’d only extended the deadline by two weeks. I had to hustle, and I had to do it now.
This week also concluded the fall semester, which meant I had an extremely important final. So between taking care of Callie, bartending, working as a hostess and going on extra dates with old men, I also needed to study. The only way I’d had enough time to do all this was to skip bedtime. I slept at night only when my eyes refused to stay open anymore, so by the end of those two weeks I felt worn out to the Nth degree.
I received zero sleep the night before my final. I’d studied straight through then dropped off Callie at daycare. I’d taken the exam, worked a full shift at the bar and had come home to change for my second to last date. I didn’t want to go. Not only because I was weary to the point of napping accidentally any time I stood still, but because this client was unknown to me. It made me apprehensive. I didn’t need some guy getting handsy with me on top of everything else.
I’d just gotten my formal attire on when someone pounded on my door. I knew Raina should be home within the next few minutes, but she hadn’t arrived yet. Flustered, I yanked open the door, the words, “I don’t want any,” already on my lips.
A woman stood on the other side, smiling innocuously in a nice-looking business suit. “Roxanne Miller?”
“Yes. Look, I’m on my way out and I really don’t have time…”
“Oh, no worries. This won’t take any time at all.” She handed over a large manila envelope which I hastily took. Then, she smiled. “You’ve been served.”
“Served?” I asked incredulously, but the woman had already crossed the grass of the yard on her way to the parking area.
Inside the envelope was a sheath of papers, the top one of which read: DECLARATION REGARDING CUSTODY AND VISITATION. My eyes sped down the document, taking in phrases like “formal request for shared physical and legal custody” and “mandated confirmation of paternity”. Even though I had on a form-fitting evening gown, I slid right down to the floor. I didn’t have a choice since my legs would no longer support me.
I scanned the document and read through the jumble of legalese, then identified the petitioner’s name. Jax. He was suing me for joint custody of Callie.
“M-mommy? W-wake up, Mommy!” I heard as if from the opposite end of a long, dark tunnel. I opened my eyes, not having been aware of closing them.
I must’ve passed out.
My daughter sat beside me, her little hands shoving my arm as loud hiccupping sobs shook her torso. I gathered her against me, bringing her to my chest to calm her down. “Baby, you okay?” Callie struggled to speak through her weeping, and I knew I had to repair the damage before it got worse. “Sorry if I scared you, sweetie. Mommy was just playing a new game.”
“G-game?”
“Uh huh,” I told her, doing my best to stave off my nervous breakdown. Normally, I didn’t lie to my daughter, but desperate times called for desperate measures. “The name of the game is playing possum. You lay down and stay very still. It’s like pretending to sleep. Animals like possums do this so other animals will leave them alone in the wild.”
Since we lived in Louisiana, Callie saw possums all the time. I’d always told her the ones on the side of the road were sleeping, not wanting to upset her. Okay, maybe I lied to her more than I thought. It was for her own protection, though.
“Can I play?”
“Yes, but do it on the carpet instead of the tile like Mommy did. That way it’ll be softer.” With a tentative grin, she slid out of my lap and plopped down on the living room carpet. Forcing a cheerful expression, I clapped for her. “Good job. Now, go try it in your room.”
As she ambled off, I braced myself on my hands to attempt to stand. I felt woozy halfway up, though, and as Raina came over the threshold from outside, she reached out to steady me.
“Did you fall?”
“Technically, no.”
Still, she scrambled to help me into one of our nearby dining room chairs. “You stay right there. I’m going to get you some water.”
I sat at our tiny round kitchen table with my head in my hands, the petition for custody a rectangular splotch of white against the scarred, pale wood. After rehydrating, I made myself look over it more closely. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what Jax thought he was doing.
I’d avoided thinking about him for the past week and a half because I’d had too much else to handle. We kept arguing, and I knew he was upset at me going back to escort work again, but I hadn’t believed him when he’d said things were over between us. I knew he was annoyed at my decision and well, hurt because I hadn’t declared my love for him, but I’d planned to contact him once finals and this situation with my mom’s mortgage was settled.
It had only been a few days. Did he think these minor delays were cause for legal action against me? I called him, but the call went directly to voicemail. I texted him next, only to receive this:
All contact between Jaxson Liddle and Roxanne Miller will hitherto be required to be conducted through Peter Carter, Attorney at Law and whichever legal counsel you choose. Please forward all correspondence through these channels only. Mr. Carter will be in contact shortly to establish a meeting time between you and Mr. Liddell to discuss terms and future proceedings.
Terms and future proceedings? Why was Jax doing this?
I attempted to bring to mind our most recent conversations. The weirdest one had been the last, the one where he’d bounded off in a huff and hadn’t returned. According to Raina, he’d been back twice to visit Callie here in the apartment, and both of those times had been during either my class or while I worked at the bar.
Active avoidance appeared to be his MO.
Had things really escalated to the point of him not being willing to discuss either our relationship or our daughter without having lawyers present?
Evidently so.
I’d been so certain that I could figure this out, that some time apart would allow me to gain some perspective on the situation. But instead, he wanted to push his wishes forward, to railroad me into giving him Callie.
That wasn’t why I’d told him about her. And if I’d had any idea that he would do something so merciless and insane, I might not have informed him about her existence at all.
I didn’t have a lawyer, but I knew what I had to do. I contacted my date and postponed it, then drove over to Fated. There was only one person who could help me now.