Page 72 of Baby Blue
“Listen to me,” Blue said to the kids. “Indigo’s not going anywhere. I’ll do whatever’s necessary to make sure that doesn’t happen. Do you understand?” Both kids nodded. “No one is taking her away from us. I won’t let that happen.”
“Please don’t let that lady take her, Blue. She’s my sister,” Toady mumbled and began to cry.
“She’s not leaving us, buddy. Not gonna happen. Let’s have a happy day and try to forget about all that, okay?” He hoped he could take his own instructions, but he was afraid that wouldn’t happen.
And he was right. The image of Cindy standing there, glaring from across the front yard, dogged him all afternoon. He managed to shake some of the apprehension, but when they loaded up in the van to go home, it came right back.
Stuck in his front door was a scrap of paper with a phone number written on it. The only other thing written there was,You’ll be hearing from me.
And that was precisely what he was afraid of.
First thing Monday morning, Blue went to Chuck’s office and told him what had happened. Chuck’s comment was, “This is a family business. We’re behind you one hundred percent.”
Then he called Glen and got exactly the response he’d expected. “You’re not serious.”
“I wish I weren’t, but I am. Bitch showed up and demanded I give Indigo back to her.”
“And you said what?”
Blue’s answer was simply, “Over my dead body.”
“It’s not going to come to that. We’re going to take care of this.”
But his worst fears came true on Wednesday morning when a man showed up, pretending to want his car serviced, and served him with papers. He felt like his whole world was being pulledout from under him. He called Ms.Parker only to have her tell him, “I’m sorry, Mr.Wallace, but I’ve been subpoenaed. I can’t talk to you about the case.”
Telling Anne was the one thing he dreaded more than anything. They’d all been so happy, and then Cindy had shown up and jabbed a dagger in his heart. While Anne was at work that evening, he tried to keep his emotions as even as possible so the kids wouldn’t suspect anything. Once they were in bed for the night, Blue sat down in the rocker in Indigo’s room, held her, rocked her, and cried. It wasn’t fair, but then nothing in his whole damn fucked-up life had ever been fair.
That was how Anne found him when she got home, rocking the baby and sobbing quietly. “God, Brent, what’s wrong?” Placing the sleeping baby back in her bed, he tiptoed out of the nursery and handed Anne the document. For the next three hours, they did nothing but hold each other and cry.
Blue had been scared many times in his life, but never as terrified as he was right then. Nothing could’ve prepared him for the way he felt about that little girl. After all he’d been through in his miserable life, he’d fallen in love with her and given her everything he had to give, only to have someone threaten to snatch her out of his arms. He knew that, even if Cindy succeeded, he still had Anne, Polly, and Toady, but that wasn’t the point. He’d daydreamed about the day Indigo started school, about the first boy/girl dance she’d go to, and about her graduation. He’d started a college fund for all three kids, and he put all his song-writing money in it. It wasn’t a lot, but it was adding up, and he’d wondered if she’d want to be a teacher, or an engineer. Maybe she’d even want to be a nurse like her mommy.
Blue’s heart broke with that thought. Annewasher mommy in every way that counted. His grief was a living, breathing thing that was swallowing him whole. It was hard to get up and go to work, to concentrate, and to keep himself together for the kids.Everything was harder. In the middle of the maelstrom was this tiny person who had no idea what the hell was going on, a child who was just happy to play with her brother and sister, see her mommy in the morning, and see her daddy at the end of the day.
They’d become a family, and his family was threatened. Blue hadn’t been prepared for the avalanche of feelings that overwhelmed him, but hisfight or flightmode was in pure war preparation. He wasn’t giving up without a fight, and this time, it would be the fight of his life.
He met with Glen the following Monday, and the news was disheartening. “The family court judge has decided to hear the case. I was hoping they’d throw it out for lack of merit and maybe just give her a supervised visitation once a month, but that’s not what’s happening.”
“So what happens now?”
“They build their case, and we build ours. I’m going to need to get a list of people who’ll vouch for your character. I’ll also have to call the social worker.”
Blue shook his head. “She’s never liked me.”
“Yeah, but she never found reason to take the baby away from you, and she’ll have to give an accounting for that,” Glen said in explanation. “She’ll have a hard time telling the court that you’re unfit if she’s left Indigo with you all this time.”
“That’s true.”
“So let’s see who we’ve got.” They made a list. Ms.Parker would be one. Devon would probably say something nice about him, so Blue gave Glen his name.
“Oh, Mr.Wentworth! He’s known me for a while,” Blue said, feeling a little better. Mr.Wentworth was well known in the area and well respected. His word would go a long way. “And his son, my boss. He said he’d go to bat for me.”
“CharlesWentworth? Oh, yeah. That’ll be good. Let’s see… we’ll need to get her medical records from the pediatrician,” Glen said.
“You might want her to testify too. Cindy hadn’t done anything to take care of my girl,” Blue told him.
“Good idea. Of course, before it’s all said and done, Anne will have to testify. We want to downplay your relationship and play up anything and everything she can say about your parenting skills, since she’s got two kids and is a nurse.”
Blue’s heart hurt. “I really don’t want her to have to?”
