Page 37 of Baby Blue
“Then I’ll make this easy for you. YOU’RE FIRED!” he barked at Blue and started to laugh. “You won’t have to take any time off. You’ll have all you need.”
“You can’t do that!” Blue yelled as Turner spun and walked away. “You need me! I’m the best mechanic you’ve got!”
“I can get other mechanics, mechanics who won’t cause trouble and break the law!” he yelled back, then flipped Blue off.
Shaking with rage, Blue went back to the oil change. In less than ten minutes, a soft, feminine voice said, “Blue?”
He scooted back out from under the car to see Judy standing there. “What’s up, Judy?”
“Here.” She held out an envelope toward Blue. “He told me to get it ready. I’m so sorry.” When Blue reached out and took it, she turned and high-tailed it back to the office.
Inside the envelope was a check, and on the subject line it plainly readLast pay. He’d done it?Turner really had fired him. Blue couldn’t believe it. He had a baby and now he didn’t have a job. What the hell was he going to do?
The tools in the chest nearest him were his, so he got a box from the back and started taking them out and going through them. When he was satisfied he had all of them, he picked up the box and looked around. He’d worked there for quite some time, and that was all he had to show for it. A couple of the guys turned and watched him walk out, but no one said a word to him.
He shoved the box of tools into the bed of the truck and then climbed into the cab. When he got home, instead of going straight to Anne’s for the baby, he went into the house. It was just a little after eleven, so he took a quick shower, changed into clean clothes, and dragged himself across the lawn. Tapping lightly on the door, he stuck in his key, turned it, and opened the door slightly before whispering, “Anne?”
There was a rustling sound and she appeared at the door in her nightgown. “Brent? What are you doing here this time of day?”
“My boss fired me.”
“What? WHAT? No! He can’t!”
“Yeah, he did. And I’ve Galloway to thank for that,” Blue said, plopping down on her sofa.
Anne’s brow dropped into a deep furrow. “Galloway? How’d he get you fired?”
“Apparently he called social services this morning and sicced them on me. They’re going to be investigating me, Anne. They might take Indigo away from me.” Blue dropped his face into his hands. “What the hell am I going to do?”
The sofa cushion shifted as she sat down beside him. “I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out, I promise. Don’t let it get you down. It’s going to be okay somehow,” Anne said. He felt her arm wrap around his back and she leaned her face against his upper arm. “I don’t know how, but we’ll find a way to make it okay.”
“No. It’s not going to be okay. I shouldn’t have even tried this. I should’ve just turned her over to the authorities and walked away. I wouldn’t have gotten fired. Social services wouldn’t be dogging me. She would’ve had someone taking care of her who actually knew something about babies, and you and your friends wouldn’t have been out all the money and time you’ve invested. And I wouldn’t have fallen…” He stopped. He’d started to say,And I wouldn’t have fallen in love with her. He knew the truth.
In barely a week, he’d become Indigo’s daddy. Thinking about someone taking her away was horrifying, and he couldn’t even contemplate it, but he knew it was a very real possibility. He felt so lost and alone, even with Anne sitting there, and he scoured his brain for an answer, but there was none. “Maybe I could just take her in the middle of the night, disappear and…”
“You can’t do that. They’ll be looking for you. What did she say?”
Blue recounted the brief meeting as best he could. When he finished, he said, “I can’t afford a paternity test.”
“You don’t have to. You have a birth certificate. You’re her father. If they want to challenge that, they’ll have to pay for the testing.”
“I get the distinct impression they don’t have to do anything if they don’t want to, and they can do any damn thing they please.” Blue leaped up from the sofa and started pacing. “I mean, they could put me in jail, Anne. They could claim I stole her from somebody and put me in jail.”
Anne reached out to him. For reasons he didn’t even understand, he reached back, and she took both of his hands in hers. “That’s not going to happen and you know it. We won’t let that happen,” she said. “Don’t get all strung out. It’ll be fine.”
“No, it won’t be.” Fear was rising in Blue like the tide at dusk. “I wish I’d just said no and taken her to a safe drop.”
“No you don’t. You don’t mean that.”
“I do. Yes, I do. Then I wouldn’t be in all this trouble, and I wouldn’t have gotten fired, and I wouldn’t?”
“Stop, Brent. I mean it. You don’t mean any of that and you know it.”
“I do! It’s not right! I don’t know anything about babies and I don’t have anything to offer a kid! She’d be better off with someone else, someone who could take better care of her and give her a better life, not some unemployed loser with a crappy little band and a piece of shit truck and a house that’s falling down. Somebody nice, somebody with some money and, and, and…”
“Stop it. I mean it.”
“Somebody who would love her,” he said, snatching his hands away from her. He went back to pacing, running his fingers into his hair and pulling it hard as he paced.
