Page 40 of Sweet on You
Her eyes met mine and her smile widened. “You’re Alexander?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Everyone calls me Lex.”
“Lex,” she repeated as though trying my name on for size. “How… British.”
“Well,” I shrugged and gave a little laugh. “That is me.”
We followed the line of people out of the courtroom into the open hallway. “I’m so sorry about…” I paused, stopping myself from calling her London. “Sarah.”
The corners of her eyes tightened. “Yes. Well, I hate to say it, but we’re sort of used to it with her by now.” Then, she paused and glanced at me. “She went by another name when with you, didn’t she?”
I startled at that, but eventually nodded. “She called herself London when we were… together.”
“How long were you two dating?”
Dating. I’d never once taken Sarah on a date. Dating for us mostly involved shooting up at home. Occasionally ordering takeout when we had the extra money. Watching TV when the cable wasn’t shut off. “We were together for a while,” I said. “A few years before she left.”
“You seem… nice.” Her eyes traveled the length of my body, sizing up every inch of me, from the side part in my smoothly combed hair, down to the little scuff on my black dress shoes. The only dress shoes I owned. As a baker, I didn’t have a lot of reason to dress up in more than jeans and a t-shirt most days. “You’re not at all what we expected. Not from what Sarah told us.” Another pause. “Except your eyes. She said you always had the kindest eyes, even when you weren’t being kind.”
I swallowed hard and felt the lump land heavily in my stomach. What was I supposed to say to that? Thank you? It didn’t exactly feel like a compliment. Mrs. Murphy was guarded around me. Then again, why shouldn’t she be?
“I’ve made many mistakes in my life—”
“Okay, Lex,” Brady cut me off and sent me the fastest death glare I’ve ever seen.
Don’t admit to anything, he had told me in the car.Don’t give them any reason to not award you this custody unless they point blank ask about your past.It was hard as hell for me. I prided myself on the fact that I learned from my mistakes. And part of learning from your mistakes was owning up to them. While I wasn’t proud of who I was back then, I was proud of how far I’d come. And frankly, I think Mrs. Murphy would be, too. Especially knowing how Sarah had struggled with sobriety. Then again… I was privileged. If I’d had sole custody of our child and was paying for everything on my own, perhaps I would have fallen off the wagon, too.
But truly, in my deepest soul, I didn’t believe that. Having Olivia would have made me want to be a better dad. A better person. A father she could be proud of.
“I’m so grateful that you’re letting me meet Olivia today,” I said. “I’ve been dreaming of this for what feels like forever. A day hasn’t passed since I knew of her existence that I haven’t wondered about her. What her name is, whose eyes she has, whether she got my brown hair or Sarah’s blonde—”
“You didn’t know Olivia’s name?” Mrs. Murphy interrupted.
I shook my head. “No, ma’am. I knew nothing of Sarah’s or Olivia’s whereabouts. Except this.” I reached into my back pocket and from my wallet pulled out the ultra sound and the envelope and the short letter Sarah had sent with it. “All I had for two years was this ultrasound with the doctor’s name sharpied out. And the city stamp from a town called Maple Grove. When I got this, I packed up my stuff and moved to Maple Grove to search for Sarah.”
Mrs. Murphy shook her head and as a tear fell down her cheek, she swiped it quickly away with her knuckle. “Sarah told us she called you every day for months and that you were impossible to track down. She said that when she finally did talk to you, you wanted nothing to do with Olivia. You didn’t even want her picture.”
I winced and with a quick glance at Brady, he gave me the nod, telling me to go ahead. He’d heard this already and approved what I was allowed to say. It was like we were in a play with rehearsed lines. I hated it. “That’s not true at all. But I don’t doubt that’s what Sarah thought would happen if she did talk to me. In our time together, I’d never given any indication that I wanted kids or that I would be anything near a good father. But… the second I got this letter with the ultrasound, all that changed.”
“You seem like a good man. Like my husband.” She smiled, still clutching the tissue in her hand. “He wanted so badly to be here at Sarah’s arraignment today, but one of us needed to stay with Olivia. I hope you understand why my husband and I are so cautious.”
“Of course.” I smiled. “It’s your granddaughter.”
She nodded. “And she’s an amazing one. You’ll see. But we’re getting old, my husband and I. We want to be grandparents. Not parents. That doesn’t mean we won’t do it… if we have to. But when we got the call from your lawyer… Lex, it gave us such hope.”
She reached out her hand and I took it, tears filling my eyes. It was everything I’d been waiting for. Sarah had always said her parents were such awful people. That they hated her. They didn’t seem awful. They seemed… wonderful. Mrs. Murphy squeezed my hand.
I cleared my throat, saying, “I hope you know, I’m not looking to take Olivia away from you. Or Sarah, even. I just… I want a relationship with my daughter. I want to raise her. Be a dad.”
Mrs. Murphy rolled her shoulders back and stood a little taller. “That makes me so happy to hear, Lex. Why don’t we proceed with… cautious optimism.”
“Cautious optimism. I like that.”
Her smile set me at ease. It was warm and kind and everything my own mother’s smile wasn’t. It wasn’t that my parents didn’t love me… they did. They were just cold. Maybe it was a British thing. But, then again, my sister wasn’t cold. She never was. And now that she’s a mother, she’s loving and playful and kind. No, I take that back. It wasn’t a British thing. It was a Bailey thing.
Did Sarah know how lucky she was? When I needed to detox, my parents turned me away from their home. Admittedly, I knew why. I’d tried to get clean several times before, only to fall off the wagon and steal from them to support my habit. They didn’t trust me. And I didn’t deserve their trust at the time.
But my sister never gave up on me. She put me up in yet another rehab center. And I promised her that this time would be different, even though I had made that promise hundreds of timesin the past. She claimed to see something different in my eyes that time. And I think for the first time, she believed me. She believedinme.
