Page 41 of Baby Blue
Blue sat up, then took her hands and pulled her to sitting. “That would be good. But you have to go to work this afternoon.”
“I’m not going to work. I’m going to call in sick. I’ve got three weeks of sick leave built up and I never miss work. This is important. If I don’t go with you, Iwillbe sick?sick with worry.”
“Are we leaving Indigo with Polly and Toady this afternoon or taking her with us?”
“Oh, I think she absolutely should come with us.” Anne stood and smoothed her gown. “Let me make us a couple of sandwiches and then we’ll talk about what’s probably going to happen.”
Blue was hungry, but he was almost too excited to eat. Even with the impending storm brewing over his head, he had a measure of hope he’d never had before. Someone loved him, and he hoped she’d love him forever.
The office building was huge, and it took them a few minutes to get from the front doors to the offices of Baker, Word, and Fogerty. From the sign on the door, Blue ascertained that Glen was the Baker. His name was first, and Blue took that to be a good sign.
The office itself was terrifying. There were pieces of artwork on the walls that Blue was pretty sure cost more than all the money he’d made in his life combined. Everything was beautiful and elegant. It smelled clean too, and Blue thought about that ratty rug in Indigo’s room. His little house had a musty, stale odor to it, and he made a mental note to see what he could do about that.
“Mr. Baker will see you now,” a young woman told them and led the way to a set of large double doors, their wooden surfacesgleaming. She opened the door and swept an arm inward, encouraging them to enter.
“Anne! It’s so good to see you!” the man behind the desk said, rounding the end of the huge wooden work area and embracing Anne.
“It’s good to see you too, Glen! I missed you at the Christmas party last time around.”
“Yeah, well, I was in the middle of a helluva trial and I just couldn’t spend any time away from the office. Shelby wasn’t happy about it, but we won, so there’s that. And who do we have here?” he asked, pointing to the Wallaces.
“Oh! Sorry. This is BrentWallace and his little girl, Indigo.”
As soon as Anne had finished the introduction, Glen extended his hand to Blue. “It’s great to meet you! Any friend of Anne’s is a friend of mine. She’s a cutie,” he said, gazing down at the sleeping baby, then motioned for them to take a seat. “Now, what exactly is going on?”
To Blue’s embarrassment, that was exactly the moment Indigo decided to start fussing. “I’m so sorry, sir,” Blue said, trying to figure out what to do. He took her from her carrier seat and cradled her in one arm, and she quieted down immediately. Anne had pinned her pacifier to her little top, and Blue tickled her lips with it until she took it and sucked away.
“You don’t have to apologize. That’s what babies do. Now, tell me about this difficulty you’re facing,” Glen said and sat back in his chair.
Blue started the story and when he told Glen how Indigo had come to him, Glen laughed. “Oh, god, that sounds like a bad movie plot!”
That had never occurred to Blue, and he chuckled. “Well, now that you mention it…”
“Someone wasn’t very creative, were they?” Glen said, still laughing. “Sorry. Go on. So what happened then?” Glen asked.
Continuing on with the story, Blue explained everything that had happened, and Glen interrupted him. “Do you have her birth certificate with you?”
“Sure.” It was a good thing Anne had encouraged him to bring it along. “And the note she left is there too.”
“Aha. That’s useful. So we’ve got a note telling you that this is your child and her birth certificate with your name on it. I’ll have my assistant make copies of them. So, what happened then?”
It took a little while, but Blue finally got to, “And when the woman from social services left, my boss came out and fired me.”
“Oh. No. That’s, no, that’s just wrong. Okay, so social services put you in a position that caused you to lose your job. And are you working now?”
“No. It just happened this morning,” Blue explained.
“And have you heard from the social worker yet?”
“Yeah. She called earlier and made an appointment for tomorrow at nine o’clock.”
Glen sat back and tapped his ink pen against his lip. Blue could almost see the gears turning in his head. “Okay, let’s attack this meeting tomorrow morning first. We’ve got to make sure she sees you in a positive light.”
“It may be too late for that, sir. When she called, I blurted out that my boss had fired me because of her visit,” Blue said, feeling pretty damn foolish.
“No, that’s okay. Now she knows that if you don’t have a job, it’s not your fault. And if her superiors find out that she did something that left you jobless, she could be in a lot of trouble. That could work for us.” Glen scribbled something on his legal pad. “Let me ask you this. How would you rate your home where a child is concerned?”
Blue shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve never had a child before.”
