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“I want to meet her,” I said, turning around and pinning Lisa with a look that let her know this wasn’t so much a request as it was an order.
She swallowed and nodded, resigned.
“You said you needed my help with something,” I reminded her as I returned to my seat.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s about custody. My father…the mayor. He wants custody of Violet.”
I frowned. “How the fuck would that work, seeing as you’re her mother?”
She swallowed. “I don’t know, but I think he’s planning something, probably something illegal, to snatch custody from me. He knows people, powerful people, including judges. He might get me committed or have them declare me an unfit mother.” At this, she looked away from me, analyzing her hands in her lap. “A few years ago, before I had Violet, I was in a bad place mentally. He might use that against me or try to say that I never got treatment and might relapse.”
“Bad place like how?” I asked, suspiciously ugly memories rushing back to me. I didn’t remember much about them, but I knew my parents were addicts. It was why they were driving down the highway in the first place, high out of their minds. As a child, I was occasionally surrounded by drugs and paraphernalia, which skewed my perception of addicts to this day. I wouldn’t lie and say I wasn’t biased against them. I didn’t want to judge Lisa too harshly, but I knew how difficult it was to get over most addictions without active treatment. I didn’t want that for my daughter.
Lisa shook her head. “Not with drugs or alcohol or anything. I swear, the only time I ever got drunk was that one time when we…And after that, I haven’t touched a single drop of anything alcoholic.”
Her gaze pleaded with me for understanding. And I believed her.
“A few years ago, I was very depressed,” she said. “I stopped eating and sleeping. I think I might have…I might have tried to take my own life. Not seriously, though.”
“How do you commit suicide unseriously?” I asked, even though the thought of her doing such a thing sent an inexplicable alarm through me.
She shrugged. “I wasn’t actively trying to die, but I wasn’t trying to live either.”
I understood that feeling all too well. I just never expected it from her. I pictured her as a nice, happy, rich girl who had everything going for her. Anything she wanted, her daddy would provide. “Why were you depressed?”
She didn’t look like she wanted to give me an answer, and when she did, it was cagey. “Nothing. Just a bunch of stuff happened all at once, and I didn’t see a way out. But I didn’t think I wanted to kill myself. I think I just wanted to hurt myself, thinking that maybe it would jog me out of the stalemate I found myself in.”
“Did it work?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “But a few weeks later, I found out I was pregnant, and it gave me the will to live.” She looked away from me, staring behind me with a vague smile on her face. “Violet was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. She was so sweet and small, and I instantly knew I wanted to be the best mom I could be for her.” She looked back at me. “I haven’t relapsed since. I didn’t need to go to therapy, but he might try to use that against me.”
“And why does your father want custody of Violet so badly?”
“To punish me,” she explained with a sigh. “I left home a few years ago and cut off all contact with him. He hates that. He wants me under his thumb again, where he can control me. I’ve refused to play along, so now he wants me to suffer for it.”
“Huh,” I said. I vaguely knew of the mayor and knew he was likely the type of control freak to do such a thing. And if he were anything like his son, he wouldn’t mind using underhanded ways to do it. She might be his daughter, but if she left home, he would probably cut her off from the lifestyle of luxury she was used to. The money would be the first thing he tried to use to bring her back. And when that didn’t work, he would do this—try to take her child.
A surge of another emotion rose inside me, an outrage that highlighted another key emotion. I was attuned enough to realize what it was. Protectiveness.
It had nothing to do with her, I told myself. I just hated bullies, that was all. Especially when the person who was getting bullied was the mother of my child.
The mayor had no clue who he was fucking with.
“I won’t let him have her,” she promised, her eyes glowing with determination. “I promise.”
I smiled. It was difficult not to admire her spirit. And I also admired her for holding out this long against her father’s antics. Most other rich girls I knew would have folded the minute their daddy took away their credit cards. But instead, Lisa started working to make a life for herself and her daughter—my daughter, our daughter.
What an admirable woman, I mused.She would make a good wife for someone someday.
Following the thought, a sudden idea struck me like a lightning bolt, jolting me.
God, I wondered why I hadn’t thought about it before.
The situation was an unusual case of serendipity, where the universe brought an unlikely answer to my problem. Lisa was young and pretty enough without being too glamorously beautiful. She was also shy and biddable enough to go along with the plan but not too much of a doormat that she would be crushed by the media. We had history, and she was interesting enough to hold my attention for more than a few minutes at a time. Plus, she had the singular advantage of being the mother of my daughter.
She was the perfect subject for my redemption arc.
I smiled triumphantly, and she glanced at me, looking confused. But I was still lost in my thoughts. She was perfect. Absolutely perfect.
