Page 38 of Baby Blue
“Yeah, because you don’t love her! You don’t love her at all!” Anne almost yelled at him.
Blue spun to look at her. “But I do! I love her! God damn it, I didn’t think I would, and I didn’t mean to, but I do!” He fell to his knees and dropped face-first to the floor. After lying there like a rag doll for a couple of minutes, he finally rolled over to look up at Anne. “I love her like I’ve never loved anybody in my life. And they’re going to take her away from me. And I don’t know what to do about it.”
“We’re going to fight it, that’s what we’re going to do. I need to find you an attorney, and we need to do it fast.” Anne grabbed her phone.
“What are you doing?” Blue yelled at her, pushing himself into a sitting position in the middle of the floor.
“I’m going to find you an attorney,” she said again, punching through her contacts.
“I can’t afford a damn attorney!” he yelled back. “I’m fucking unemployed, remember?”
She was punching buttons as he bellowed at her, then put her phone to her ear. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll figure something out. Yes, hello, this is AnneBlack. I work with Shelby. Could I speak to Glen, please?”
“What are you doing?” Blue whispered. “I can’t pay an attorney.”
“Yes, thank you. Could you ask him to call me? Yes, the number I’m calling from. That’ll be fine. Thank you so much.” She ended the call and stared at him. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to bother someone while they’re on the phone?”
Blue sat up and stared at her. “I don’t. Have. Any. Money. How the hell am I going to pay an attorney?”
At that very moment, Anne’s phone rang. “Hang on. Hello? Yes! Thanks for calling me back. I’m good, thanks. How about you?” Blue wondered who the hell she was sucking up to. “I was calling because I have a friend who’s in a bit of a jam. It’s kind of complicated, but let’s just say the very issues that are giving him trouble caused him to be fired today, through no fault of his own. And he needs someone to at least advise him. I know you do a few cases a year pro bono and I wondered… This afternoon at four? Yes, we absolutely can. Thank you, Glen. Thanks so much. Bye.”
“What the hell have you done, gotten me in debt to some attorney?” Blue asked, his voice hoarse from all the shouting.
“No. That’s Glen. He’s Shelby’s husband.” When he just stared at her, she said, “You know, the tall nurse with the gray hair?”
Blue remembered her from the shower. “Yeah. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Well, he takes two or three pro bono cases a year as a service for the bar association. And he hasn’t done that yet this year. So you’re the first. Congratulations. You just got one of the best criminal lawyers in the region for free.” Anne pursed her lips. “What do you have to say about that?”
“Thanks?” Blue said in more of a question than a statement. “I’m supposed to thank you for making me beholden to some lawyer I’ve never met?”
“No. You’re supposed to thank me for finding you somebody who can get social services off your back. That’s what you’re supposed to do.” Blue’s phone started to ring, but he just sat there, staring at her. “Don’t you think you should get that?”
He pulled his phone from his pocket without even looking at it and said, “Hello?”
“Mr. Wallace?”
“Yes, this is BrentWallace.”
“This is Ms.Parker from child protective services.”
“Oh, yes, Ms.Parker. I was expecting your call.” Blue was so done with the whole thing. Maybe it would be over soon.
Ms.Parker didn’t even hesitate. “I’d like to set up a meeting with you tomorrow. Would nine o’clock tomorrow morning be good?”
“Sure. Since you showed up at my work today, my boss FIRED ME,” he said, almost yelling into the phone. “So I don’t have ANYWHERE I have to be tomorrow.”
There was silence on the other end before she finally said, “Oh, I’m so sorry. That shouldn’t have happened. He shouldn’t have done?”
“Well, he did. How ’bout that? So I’m all yours, Ms.Parker. All yours. See you tomorrow morning at nine. If I can scrape up the money, I’ll buy a Danish and make some coffee, and we can have fun chatting and looking at magazines and talking aboutProject Runwayor something elegant like that. It’ll be grand,” he deadpanned into the phone. “Ta-ta.” Blue ended the call and glared at Anne. “Well, that’s that. She’s coming tomorrow morning. I can barely wait.”
“And we’re going to see Glen this afternoon at four. Maybe he can tell us something that will help.” She sat there looking down at Blue. “Get up off the floor. It’s not the end of the world. We’re going to beat this thing.”
There wasn’t enough strength left in his body to get up from where he sat. He wanted to quit breathing because the pain in his chest was so horrible. It was nothing but weariness, terror, and despair. In a voice so riddled with emotion that he could barely be heard, Blue said, “Do you ever wonder, ‘Why me?’” He lifted his head and looked straight into Anne’s light hazel eyes.
They were filled with tears when she said, “Yes. Every day. I wonder why I have to be alone, why I had to have an ex-husbandwho was such a shit, why I work and work and never seem to get ahead.”
“Well, you can thank me for some of that, I suppose. You’ve been spending money and time on me that you shouldn’t have,” Blue said, dropping his eyes to the floor again. It was no use. It didn’t matter what he did?there’d always be someone there to knock him down.
