“The circumstances of this issue are black-and-white. I’ve reviewed the case law, and met with lawyer friends well versed in family law. The birth mother signed away her parental rights, but the father-Garrett-didn’t. Garrett should be the custodian of the baby, simple as that. No court would disagree. Regardless,” he said, waving the legal argument aside though he’d made his point, “I still feel we can work together. You obviously have feelings for the baby, and you’ve acted in good faith. There may be some wiggle room we’d agree to. Maybe you could visit her occasionally and be a positive part of her life, like an aunt and uncle. But the fact is the baby is our blood, and she legally belongs to us. One can’t diminish that fact. Blood is blood, the law is the law. Any judge can see we have the means to take excellent care of her and a wonderful home environment.”
“What does that mean?” Melissa asked. “That we don’t?”
“Of course you’ve done your best,” Moreland said, not without sympathy.
“We love Angelina,” Melissa said, a note of panic showing.
John Moreland nodded and pursed his lips.
“Think about having Garrett sign the papers,” I said. “You say we can adopt another baby and Garrett needs to accept responsibility. Maybe he can visit her on occasion. Maybe Garrett can be the uncle.”
I felt Melissa’s eyes bore into me. She wanted nothing to do with either of them.
“Ah, compromise,” Moreland said, toasting me without a glass as his way of acknowledging what I’d said. “That’s not going to happen. I just hope we can resolve this among ourselves, without a protracted legal struggle you’d eventually lose. That would make it tougher and more emotionally draining on you and the baby. In fact, it could be cruel to her, since the outcome is certain, and your ability to pay lawyers is finite.
“Look,” he said gently, “I know this is tough on you right now, and your head is probably spinning. But my offer still stands. There are other babies to adopt, and I can help make that happen. There are thousands of babies out there who could be nurtured and loved in a home like yours. My offer still stands to make things right for you.
“Let’s talk about timing. While we have every right to demand the baby right here and now, that wouldn’t be compassionate. And we want to avoid any scene of sheriff’s cars rolling up to your house with lights on and having them forcibly return the child. So we’ll give you three weeks to say goodbye-until the end of the month. That’s a Sunday. That should give you enough time to get new adoption proceedings under way-with my help-and to say goodbye to the child. I’ve already notified the sheriff of the date, and he and his team are available. He won’t come unless he has to, so please don’t make him have to. That’s the best we can do, I’m sorry. Three weeks.”
Garrett stood there, his face stoic, giving no signal of what he was thinking.
“Well,” Moreland said, “we had best be going. Go Broncos, I guess,” he said. “At least we can agree on that, right?”
He closed the door behind him. Melissa joined me at the window. There didn’t seem to be much oxygen in the room. We watched Garrett climb into the passenger seat, close the door, stare straight ahead. Moreland paused before reaching for the door handle to gaze at our house, as if making a decision that pained him. He looked remorseful, but at the same time he had a determined set to his face. My heart sank. I knew then he would never change his mind.
But he couldn’t leave yet. My friend Cody had chosen that moment to pull up to our house in his police department Crown Victoria and unwittingly block the judge’s car in the driveway. The judge stood there with his hands on his hips, glaring at him. Cody was oblivious. He swung out of his car and opened the trunk, his always-present cigarette dancing in his mouth. I could hear the loud twang of country music from the Crown Vic’s radio. Cody grabbed the power drill he had borrowed months before and finally remembered to return as well as a twelve-pack of cheap beer and turned toward the house. That was when he saw the judge, and the judge saw him.
I couldn’t hear their exchange of words, but it was obvious Cody was apologizing all over himself and backing up. He threw the drill and beer into the trunk and quickly backed up to let the judge and Garrett out.
Melissa saw none of it because her face was buried in my chest.
“This can’t be happening,” she cried.
“I know.”
She looked at me fiercely. I’ve never seen such absolute manic conviction. “Swear to me, Jack, that you’ll do everything you can to save our baby from them.”
I nodded, squeezed her tighter.
“Swear it to me!”
“I swear,” I said. “I promise.” My stomach churned.
Cody let himself in the front door. His sandy-colored hair was uncombed, and he wore stained sweats. “Jesus Christ, I hope that judge didn’t recognize me out there. I’m not supposed to use the car when I’m off duty to run errands. What was he doing here, anyway? Hey, what’s wrong with you two? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
From the other room, we heard Angelina stir over the baby monitor. We listened as the baby yawned, gurgled, sighed. We heard the crib squeak as she tried to pull herself up. She said, “Ma…”
THREE
TWO MINUTES INTO THE first quarter of the Broncos game that evening, I heard the bass burbling of a car motor outside in my driveway. Melissa was upstairs bathing Angelina.
The doorbell rang.
There were three of them: Garrett, a young Hispanic covered in tattoos who looked like a gangster, and an emaciated red-haired Caucasian who was dressed in the same hip-hop style as the Hispanic. Garrett’s bright yellow H3 Hummer was parked in the driveway, looking like the muscle-bound older uncle of my Jeep Cherokee.
Garrett said hey in an overly familiar way. Then: “I hope you don’t mind that I brought my friends Luis and Stevie.” They’d come, Garrett said, to hang out.
I said nothing.
“Problem?” he asked, wide-eyed and mocking. Stevie smirked.
Luis said, “Hey, amigo,” and nodded at me with a deadeye stare.
Garrett and Luis sat on the same couch Garrett had occupied earlier in the day. Stevie sat on the arm. Stevie’s body language suggested he was subservient to them. The three boys watched the game in utter silence, not commenting on anything. I can’t say they looked bored, because they were alert and didn’t miss a thing. They both watched Melissa come downstairs and go into the kitchen and close the door. And I caught the “See? What did I tell you?” look Garrett gave Luis after she was gone.
Luis was shorter and darker than Garrett, with a blunt pug face that looked like it had been hammered in. He wore an oversized white T-shirt with an even larger open long-sleeved plaid shirt over it and massive cargo pants. He had close-cropped black hair and dull black eyes, and a tattoo on his neck below his jaw reading “Sur-13.” Unlaced and oversized heavy boots with Vibram soles were splayed out in front of him. Stevie wore the same oversized clothing as well as a red bandana on his head. But his haircut, perfect teeth, and expensive new sneakers gave him away as a rich kid pretending to be a gangster. I could see Stevie as Garrett’s friend. But Luis was the real deal and didn’t seem to fit.
During a commercial for curing erectile dysfunction, I asked, “Garrett, is there anything you want to talk with me about?”
He looked at me sincerely, said, “Yes, there is.”
I nodded, urging him on.
“I’d like a cold drink. Another one of those Cokes would be just fine. I’d bet my friends could use a cold drink, too.”
“I’d like a beer, man,” Luis said, grinning, showing gold teeth.
“Me too,” Stevie said with a slight-and false-Mexican accent intonation.