Page 33 of Stowaway Whirlwind
I only order water since I’ve started keeping count again of how much of Davis’s money I’ve spent so I can pay him back every last cent. I’m disappointed but not surprised when Dad orders a draft beer. After the server leaves us to look over our dinner menus, I struggle with what to say.
Dad scratches his temple. “So, that man who was with you…he’s not your girl’s daddy, yeah?”
“Lily. Her name is Lily. And he’s…” It doesn’t feel right to finish my sentence. Davis isn’t technically her father, but it feelswrongto say that out loud. Like it would be a shameful lie.
Thinking about Davis makes me think about the picture I took of Lily earlier, and my fingers twitch again with the urge to pull my phone out and send it to him now. The urge immediately evaporates when I imagine how he’d react if he knew I was out with my dad. He’d probably get pissed and try to tell me what to do—as if he gets a say—then threaten to spank me.
My belly flutters.
Stupid, stupid.
Dadtap, tap, tapshis fingers against the tabletop as he fidgets in his seat, which leaves me to fidget in mine. He glances nervously once at Lily, then at me, then around the busy restaurant, lit by yellow bulbs hanging above each booth and the large TVs hanging from the ceiling above the bar in the middle of the dining room.
Just as I open my mouth to ask him why he’s so nervous, a reed-thin older woman with unnaturally bright blonde, shoulder-length hair plops down on the booth seat next to Dad. Bile churns in my stomach, and I clutch Lily closer to my chest.
“What are you doing here?” All those warning bells I heard chiming earlier go off like fireworks in my head, and I momentarily feel dizzy.Fuck!Why didn’t I listen to my gut andcall this off? Panic-stricken, I look to Dad, who drops his eyes to the tabletop. I only ask him one question: “Why?”
“It’s amazing what people will do for money.” Colton’s mom pinches her thin lips together, anger coloring her normally cold, sunken cheeks. We’re both pale, but she’s the kind of woman who obsesses about staying out of the sun at all costs, and it’s ghoulish on her. “Like father, like daughter,” she spits with disdain.
“What…what are you talking about?” I ask Mrs. Fitzroy. I flick my eyes between the two adults who have made my life hell. “Did shepayyou to bring me here?” I direct my question to Dad, who chugs his beer when the server arrives instead of answering me.
“You people are nothing but trash. Getting your dear old dad to call you only cost me two hundred dollars.” Mrs. Fitzroy leans over the table and points her bony finger at me. “But you…you’re the kind of trash who tried to trap my son into staying with you. Thank god I saw right through you and dug your claws out of my Colton before you could ruin his life.”
“What are you talking about?” I scream the question, cemented to my seat when I should have left the moment she sat down. I startle Lily with my raised voice, and she starts to cry, her tears breaking my heart because it’s my fault. All of this is my fault.If I had just stayed home…
Mrs. Fitzroy drops her nearly translucent blue eyes to my daughter and curls her top lip even higher than the server’s had been. “I won’t let you ruin my granddaughter’s life, either.”
The fear and confusion freezing me in place goes up in flames. “Fuck you!” I scoot toward the edge of the seat, readjusting Lily so I can shoulder her diaper bag before standing.
Mrs. Fitzroy darts out of her seat and looms over me so I can’t get up without knocking her over. I shrink back when shesays, “You’re going to sign these papers”—she throws a stack of legal documents on the table that she pulls out of her oversized handbag—“and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll hand her over.”
We’re drawing plenty of attention now, and I look around for help when Dad remains seated instead of doing the fatherly thing and stepping in. Why, why, why do I keep expecting anything good and decent out of him?
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to just give her to you! You wanted me to get anabortion. There’s no way—”
“And you should have! But you didn’t. You’re a selfish little bitch and had her anyway, even though you can’t support yourself or her!” Her voice is shrill, and still, no one tries to intervene, choosing to sit and watch us like we’re putting on a show. “What’s your plan? Slap my son with eighteen years of child support so you can live on his dime? Well, I see right through that, too, and now that she’s here, I’m going to raise her so she doesn’t grow up to be a slut like you, already shacking up with another man!”
She gestures for me to pass Lily to her. When I scoot away and press my back against the wall and window, she braces a knobby knee on the bench seat like she’s going to climb on top of it.
Tears blur my vision, and I try to blink them away rapidly, but it doesn’t work. When she gets her hands around Lily and tries to tug her out of my grasp, I kick her thigh and scream, “Stop! Stop!”
Mrs. Fitzroy shrieks when I kick her again, making her fall backward off the seat onto her ass, but she springs to her feet, looking ready to murder me as a blue vein bulges in the middle of her forehead. “You little bitch!” Then she suddenly widens her eyes in faux terror and screeches, “Help, help! She attacked me! She’s crazy! Help!”
A family walks in, and the giant of a man who looks like he eats nails for breakfast is immediately at Mrs. Fitzroy’s side after passing his son to the woman behind him. “The hell is going on here? You ok, miss?” His booming voice startles Mrs. Fitzroy, and she backs up and sneers before she remembers she’s supposed to be acting scared.
“Help me, please,” I beg him, grabbing his attention. “She’s trying to take my daughter!” His menacing gaze darkens as he searches my face, reading the genuine terror on mine versus the act Mrs. Fitzroy is putting on, and he looks ready to spit those nails at Colton’s mom.
Mrs. Fitzroy backs away from my side of the booth but not away from the table. She straightens her spine, though she has to tip her chin all the way up to look the man in the eye. “She is an unfit mother, and I have every legal right to take my granddaughter!”
“Back the fuck up, now,” the man grits out, using his bulk to intimidate Mrs. Fitzroy into stumbling back on her pointy, brown leather sandals.
The young, heavily pregnant blonde woman who walked in with the man, holding their son on her hip, rushes toward me. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s go,” she says softly, and I scramble out of the booth.
I sob with relief when the man blocks Mrs. Fitzroy from following after us, screaming about calling the cops if he touches so much as a hair on her head.
“I won’t touch you, but I sure as hell won’t let you touch her either,” the man says to Mrs. Fitzroy with a growl, tugging on his bushy beard.
I give Dad one last glance over my shoulder. He drops his head in his hands with his elbows on the table next to his empty pint glass. I want to scream that he’s a bastard and demand answers out of him, but when Mrs. Fitzroy attempts to dartaround the giant, I follow the young woman out of the restaurant without a word. Everyone else simply continues to stare at us in shocked silence, some with their cell phones out recording the confrontation.
