Page 11 of Lillian

It’s not funny, but her laughter makes a small chuckle fall from my own lips.

“What?” I demand again.

It takes a minute for her laughter to subside before she looks back up at me, wipes her eyes, and answers after a big breath. “Oh my gosh. You should haveseenyour face when you were going through that form. I’ve never seen you express so many emotions within a five-minute period of time.” She takes another breath, finally in control of herself. “Wow. When you marry whoever the hell you get paired with next week, I’m showing this video at your wedding.”

Whoever the hell you get paired with.

What did I get myself into? I don’t even like going on blind dates. Now I’ve just signed up for a literal porno with a complete stranger. Maybe it’s not too late to back out.

“Oh no you don’t. I see that look on your face. I’m way ahead of you. You aren’t backing out. Grace is spending the night with us. You’re going to go get fucked ten ways to Tuesday and then come back feeling like a new woman,” she demands, pointing a finger at me.

Maybe I can say that Grace got sick and then cancel at the last minute.

Just then, Grace and Nicky come barreling through the back door, all sweaty and with big smiles on their faces.

“Mom, guess what,” Grace says excitedly. Her face is red as can be, and she’s huffing and puffing but keeps talking in between breaths. “Nicky says I get to have a sleepover with them next weet-end.”

I look at my sister who has a shit-eating,gotchagrin on her face, and I mouth:

Bitch.

A few hours later,I’m sitting in front of one of the DCS offices in Phoenix with Grace snoozing in the backseat. She always falls asleep during the trip up here. The clock on the dash says it’s five til, so I don’t turn off the car, opting to let her sleep a little longer.

A little to keep her to myself for a few more minutes, too. I hate these days. Dread every time I see Grace’s mom show up clean and wonder if this’ll be the last supervised visit before the judge gives her unsupervised visits. And then overnight stays. And then full-custody back.

Tears start to well up at the thought, and I choke back the lump in my throat. A knock on my window startles me enough that a tear manages to fall. I brush it away quickly with the back of my hand before peering to my left.

Yasmine smiles back, waving, until she sees my red-rimmed eyes. Then, a look of understanding sadness smiles back at me. With a great amount of effort, I smile back at her, turn off the car, and step out.

Yasmine has been the assigned caseworker for Grace’s supervised visits from the start. They bring in a third party for these visits, and I liked her immediately. She’s been friendly, gracious, and understanding. But also impartial. Damn her.

I don’t bother shutting the door softly when I get out because it’s time to wake Grace up anyway. “Hey, Yasmine. How are you?”

“Oh, you know. Same old.” I nod, and she doesn’t ask how I am, bless her. Instead, she waits for me to open the back door and shake Grace awake.

“Gracie. Hey, baby girl. Time to wake up,” I whisper softly. That’s all it takes. Her eyes open immediately, darting around and trying to figure out where we are.

“Yazzy!” she yells, going from comatose to completely alert in point two seconds. But she loves Yasmine, too. Says she’s her best friend. Outside of Nicky, that is.

“Hey, miss thing! I missed you.” Yasmine grins from behind me. “You ready to have some fun?”

“Yeah!” Grace yells. They’ve got a ton of toys inside. Blocks, puzzles, legos, barbies. Those weird game blocks that are usually at dentists’ or doctors’ offices. The ones with multi-colored wire things that you pull beads from one end to the other. Anything for kids to play with, so the mandatory meeting they have with almost strangers is a little more enjoyable.

Of course, Grace knows who it is she’s meeting. I’ve explained the situation as best as I could to a four-year old. Told her that I would always be her mom, but she didn’t come out of my tummy. It didn’t matter to her though. I’m still ‘mom,’ and her birth mom is just a friend she sees every few weeks. If she shows.

The three of us walk toward the front doors. I’m not allowed to sit in on the visits with them, but I do walk inside and hang out until I know for sure that her mom has shown up.

Once we’re inside, Gracie knows the drill because she turns to me as I bend down and gives me a big hug. “Okay, sweetie. I’ll see you in a bit. Have fun, okay?” My throat is tight again, but she doesn’t notice. Just squeezes me back for a second, and then lets go, breaking my heart.

“Okay. Bye, Mommy!” she shouts, already running down the hallway to the toy room, Yasmine on her heels.

I take my seat in the waiting room. My appointment for the health check is in forty-five minutes, and it’s just a few blocks away. Gotta love Kim for making it so conveniently close to here. So if her mom shows up, I’ll head out right away. But if she doesn’t show up in the first half an hour, we’re free to leave.

The next twenty-eight minutes are excruciatingly slow. Halfway through, I catch myself biting my nails, cursing at myself and then opting to sit on my hands instead. Two minutes later, nobody has walked through the front, so I hop up and walk to the backroom.

There are windows at each of the rooms, so I just peek my head out, catch Yasmine’s eye, and point to my watch in question. She huffs a small laugh but nods when she looks at the clock on the wall. Grace looks up at Yasmine’s voice and catches sight of me through the windows.

I push open the door but don’t walk in. We’re kind of on a time crunch now that Grace is walking with me to the appointment.

---