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Prologue
“What am I going to do?” Roni Hollister asked her brother, Jaxson. “I can’t believe Jeff is doing this to me.”
Her older brother of two years took the legal papers out of her hands and read them. Not that he had any legal background, but he was a smart guy. Smart enough to be running a large not-for-profit in Durham with hundreds of employees and loads of human service programs for the underprivileged at just twenty-eight years old. “Take a deep breath and let me read this.”
She sat down on the couch in her parents’ living room. Roni hated that she had to move home years ago, but she didn’t have a choice.
It’s not as if she could afford to live on her own and care for her son when Jeff and she split.
Best decision of her life was not to marry him when he’d asked. Just because she found out she was pregnant after five months of dating their senior year of college didn’t mean she had to become Mrs. Jeff Elliot.
“He wants Eli to go to school in Raleigh,” she said. “What’s there to read? Jeff and I talked this over. We agreed that since he works in Durham and I live in Durham, it’s not out of his way to drop and pick Eli up on his days. I’m not sure why he’s changing things now.”
They were co-parents in raising their four-year-old son. Eli was starting school in a few months and she and her ex had made an agreement.
Just like everything else in her life, those verbal agreements meant nothing. Even the legal ones, Jeff found multiple ways to get them changed in his favor.
But the thought of going back to court and putting money out yet again and then maybe losing was more than she could handle when she finally thought she was getting ahead in life.
“Because he’s a dick,” Jax said. “Listen, Roni, I know it’s hard. I get it. But you need to call your lawyer and let them deal with this. It’s bad enough you aren’t getting any support and Jeff makes a lot more than you.”
“I know you were upset over that, but the truth is, we have Eli the same amount of time and split all the costs associated with our son. I’m not going to be a jerk like him. It’s fair as much as it’s squeezing my wallet. It’s not my fault or Jeff’s that he makes more than me. Once Eli starts school in a few months that full-time daycare cost is gone. That’s another thing. Eli’s school here would have before-and-after care for a minimal amount. The school in Raleigh won’t. We’d still have daycare costs and figuring out how to get him to daycare after. If I’m working in Durham, I can’t leave to get him to bring him to daycare there after school. It’s a mess.”
“That’s right,” Jax said. “Tell your lawyer all of that. Something must be going on for Jeff to do this. Do you know?”
It seemed they had periods of time they were civil and then others where Jeff just wanted to put the screws to her for no reason.
“I don’t know. Last I knew he was dating someone. Maybe that is part of it? That he wants to be closer? But again, Eli’s school is five minutes away from his office here. Maybe ten in traffic. It’s less time Eli would even have to be in the program because he won’t have that twenty minutes or more drive back to Raleigh to get him.”
“All logical points you need to bring up,” Jax said, his voice calm. He always was the calm one. She’d thought she was good that way too, but her ex just hammered that all out of her with years of this up-and-down legal battle.
It’s like he was purposely trying to get her to spend money on legal fees knowing he’d lose anyway. It was a win for him because it was costing her money she didn’t always have and emotional stress on top of it.
God, could Jeff be that much of a jerk?
She’d never thought so when they were dating, but now she wasn’t so sure.
Jeff had always had his parents in his corner paying for everything. Though Roni’s parents helped out a lot, they didn’t pay all her bills. Nor did she want them to.
Just like she wouldn’t ask them for anything.
The fact that she was living at home with Eli on the second floor of the house she grew up in and had the three rooms and bathroom up there was more than enough. Her father even put a door at the top of the stairs to give them privacy.
They might share a kitchen, but they had their own rooms, bathroom and turned an open area loft into a living room for them to have separate spaces when needed.
Half the time Eli wanted to be with his grandparents downstairs who loved spoiling their only grandchild.
She couldn’t complain too much about her life even if she felt like such a failure.
“I will,” she said, sniffling. “Thank you for coming over. I know you’re busy.”
“I was coming from a meeting anyway and not going back to the office. It’s fine,” Jax said.
Her parents would be home any minute. “If Mom and Dad see you here, they will want to know what is going on. They will want you to stay for dinner too.”
She got out of work thirty minutes before her parents and was closer. She’d walked in the door opening the letter she’d pulled out of the mailbox. She supposed it was a good thing Eli was with Jeff today. He’d probably planned it that way as a double whammy as she’d want to hug her son right now.
“I can stay,” he said. “What are you making?”
