“Sure.” I reached down and unbuckled Holly, picking her up. She quieted immediately.
“Hello?” Carrie put her finger in her other ear, ducking out of the kitchen so she could hear. The kids were now throwing shredded cheese at each other, laughing and making a mess.
“You guys, stop,” I chastised them, stepping between, getting a face full of cheese.
Henry’s eyes widened, his jaw dropping, and then he burst out laughing,
“Come on, your mom is on the phone.” The baby had grabbed a handful of shredded cheese and brought it to her mouth, gnawing happily. At six months, she was really ready for solid food. I’d have to show Carrie.
I went around the corner, laughing at Holly’s expression of wonder at the delightful taste of cheese in her mouth. She made gurgly noises as she tried to suck it down. Her brain only associated taste and food with sucking.
“Carrie, look,” I said, seeing her sitting on the sofa, still on the phone, Doc beside her.
He looked up at me, his face pale, eyes giving me a warning.
I stopped, heart hammering in my chest. I knew who it was. Of course. Maureen Holmes had decided that her husband would stand by her, that he would know she was just possessed by the devil when she’d been sexually involved with the Baumgartners. She had decided she couldn’t live with the filth and perversion of the Baumgartners’ lifestyle and had called the authorities. That was either Maureen Holmes on the phone telling the Baumgartners she intended to call Child Protective Services, or it was a CPS social worker. I just knew it.
My knees wouldn’t hold me and I fell to them, still holding the baby. Holly squealed like I was taking her for a ride, laughing. Doc just looked at me, not saying a word, but the more I searched his face, so stunned and shocked, the sicker I felt. This was my fault. All my fault. Sound had receded. Carrie was nodding, asking questions, but I didn’t hear what they were. Janie and Henry, now back to goofing around in the kitchen since their supervision had vacated their immediate vicinity, were just background noise.
“Okay, thank you… yes, I understand… we will… please keep us informed… goodbye.”
Carrie hung up the phone, putting it on the coffee table, and I hung my head, waiting.
This was it. It was over. All the sweetness and love we’d shared the past few days was decimated with one phone call. I knew it was my fault, but I selfishly had hoped that this time, this one time, I could finally have something to call my own.
“That was… that was Holly’s social worker.” Carrie’s voice was hoarse, like she’d been crying, but her eyes were dry. I realized she was looking at me, talking to me, and I glanced up. It was so hard to look at her, to know how much pain I’d just caused them, the two people I loved most in the world. I wanted to die.
“Apparently her paternal grandmother has… has come forward.” She cleared her throat, like it was hard to get the words out. I looked over at Doc, but he had his head down, in his hands, elbows on his knees. “She lives in Utah. I guess she didn’t even know about the baby.”
“But…” I couldn’t think. It wasn’t Maureen on the phone? It wasn’t CPS? “Wait… they said she didn’t have any other relatives. When they placed her with us, didn’t they say that?”
“They said they were looking for other blood relatives, but they didn’t know of any at that time,” she said, lower lip trembling. I saw her hands shaking. “This grandmother has petitioned the courts for custody. She wants Holly.”
I let the words sink in, like a knife to my belly, and I instinctively held the baby closer.
“Well she can’t have her.” I felt tears stinging my eyes at the thought of giving this baby to anyone, ever. She belonged here, with the Baumgartners. This was her family. She’d been with them only a few months, but she was happy and loved and doing so well. Of course, the social workers would see that. The judge would understand. He wouldn’t want to take her away from a family she’d come to know and love and count on.
“Unfortunately, she’ll probably win,” Doc said, lifting his head to look at me. His eyes were wet. Carrie choked out a sob at his words, covering her face with her hands. “Unless she’s a serial killer or something, the courts are partial to blood relatives in cases like this.”
“But you could fight it,” I cried, holding Holly so tight she started to squirm. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law, isn’t it? You have her until a judge says you have to give her back, don’t you? And the longer you have her, the more time she has to bond, then the less chance there is a judge will say you have to give her up. Isn’t that right?”
“And the longer we have her, the more damage we do, if we have to give her back,” Doc said sadly. “Think about it, Gretchen. Say we drag it out in the courts for a year, two years, maybe three. Now we have a beautiful three-year-old daughter who calls us Daddy and Mommy, who knows nothing else but our family.”
Carrie was really sobbing now and Doc put an arm around her shoulder, pulling her to him. Tears rolled down my cheeks. This couldn’t be happening. It was wrong, so very wrong. This baby had been born drug addicted, she was given back to her abusers, and of course they did it again, torturing and nearly killing her-and now she was safe, with a family that loved her, and they wanted to take her back?
“What happens when we’ve exhausted all our appeals, and a judge still decides she has to go live with someone else? Now she’s a heartbroken three-year-old who doesn’t understand why Mommy and Daddy are telling her she has to go away.”
“Noooo,” Carrie sobbed against his chest.
“We talked about this.” Doc rocked her, stroking her hair. “We said, if this happened, we would give her back right away, so she wouldn’t get too attached. This is for Holly, remember?”
“I know, I know.” Carrie sniffed, drying her eyes, taking a long, shaky breath. She looked at the baby in my arms and teared up again. “Can I have her?”
The answer was clearly “no.” At least, as far as the state was concerned. Because Holly belonged with some stranger in Utah who had never even seen her, simply because they shared some DNA? I thought of Maureen Holmes. I’d been so sure it was her. Had she prayed for us? Had she asked God to punish the wicked? I’m sure, if Maureen ever found out, she would consider this our punishment for living a life of sin. But as far as I was concerned, this was just more proof that there was no God. If there was a God, he wouldn’t let things like this happen. Ever.
I stood, still shaky, and went over to them. Holly smiled when Carrie took her in her arms-she knew her mama already. Doc and Carrie put their arms around each other, around the baby, a cocoon, but I knew it was an illusion. Nothing could keep them safe. Holly was going to be taken away. I heard Janie and Henry in the kitchen, oblivious. The Baumgartners were going to have to tell them. The thought made me sick to my stomach. They were singing Jesus Loves Me at the top of their lungs, changing the words to Cthulhu Loves Me. It was a horrible sacrilege and Mrs. Holmes would have been appalled, but I was pretty sure, if there was a God, he didn’t really care.
I didn’t know if there was or wasn’t a God. I didn’t know if this was a punishment or some horrible, random act. I just knew things would never be the same again.
Chapter Ten
The Baumgartners had generously given me my own laptop for Christmas, but the photo software I had installed wasn’t anywhere near as good as the computer in Doc’s office. He had Photoshop on that machine and his own laptop, but I didn’t want to ask them to spend another gazillion dollars to put it on mine too, so I just used the computer in the office.
It was hard walking into that room. Holly’s bedroom. I thought of it that way still, even though it had been months since she slept here. The walls were now taupe, the mural painted over, the ceiling an off-white that was almost gray, and Doc’s office furniture had been moved back in. It was an office again, and all traces of the baby had been erased. Carrie and I had packed up all her sweet, little pink baby things and boxed them. The social worker promised she would give them to Holly’s grandmother. The baby furniture, purchased new, had gone to Goodwill.