Chapter Two
Arlo
I love Lucas—Ido. I won’t ever have any biological kids of my own since Zoey doesn’t want more kids. She had her tubes tied shortly after Lucas was born because she had a horrible pregnancy, a long, rough delivery that nearly killed Lucas, and it ended in an emergency C-section that nearly killed her.
Lucas may be my step-son but that still makes himmine. Myson, not “just” my step-son. I’ve always felt like that. I love him as if he’s my own flesh and blood. Hell, I’ve known him most of his life. He was just turning four when I first met Zoey, and we got married when he was five.
I’ve been there for him through Cub Scouts, doing homework, taking him to Little League practice, making doctor runs, and wiping his face when he puked. Taught him how to ride a bike and how to fish.
He’s myson.
Yes, I’m still hurt and resentful Lucas put us, and especially Zoey, through the wringer the way he did two years ago when he decided to live full-time with Bill without any explanation.
Bill lives only fifteen minutes from us, meaning Lucas was still in the same school district at either house. Normally, he alternated between our houses, spending a week with us and a week with his father. That was the joint custody arrangement agreed to during the divorce.
Then the massive clusterfuck happened. It started with Lucas returning after spending a week with his father and tearfully beegging to live with us full-time. It’d been the culmination of several rough visits with his father, where Bill apparently spent a good deal of time yelling at Lucas every time the kid turned around. Apparently, if Bill wasn’t yelling at Lucas, he was yelling at the girlfriend who’d been living with Bill at the time, because Bill was going through a bad patch with her.
I found out later from friends of mine who knew the woman that she’d caught Bill cheating on her.
No shocker there, because Bill cheated on Zoey all throughout their relationship.
We’d had a few instances of this in the past, Lucas wanting to live full-time with one of us—usually us—which could almost always be traced back to normal childhood acting out. Attempts to play one parent against the other. Frequently triggered after he did something at one house or the other to get himself in trouble, or grounded.
Usually at Bill’s, because the guy’s a dick. We rarely had behavioral problems with Lucas.
This time, however, itfeltdifferent. Lucas was adamant he wanted to live with us full-time and only visit his dad on the weekends. When Zoey asked Lucas if he wanted us to talk to our attorney about it, he said that he did.
So we got an appointment with the guy, took Lucas in, and let him talk to the attorney. Then we gave the go-ahead for the man to draw up the revised custody papers and prepare the motion. But we also told Lucas we’d give it a few weeks before actually filing the motion, to see if he felt differently then.
That wasn’t my idea—that was Zoey’s.
If it’d been up tome, we would’ve filed immediately. Like I said, Zoey’s kind-hearted. I wanted to do it before Lucas changed his mind.
Bill is a narcissistic asshole. There’s no way to put a finer point on it. I’ve seen the guy be a dick to Zoey and Lucas for no good reason other than he’s a miserable human being. He doesn’t try that shit with me, because I threatened to deck him the first time he got in my face. That happened during the first few weeks after Zoey and I started dating. I strongly believe he was trying to scare me away from Zoey, because he was still convinced he could somehow win her back.
Like how he tried to woo her to stay for a candlelight dinner at his house when she arrived to pick up Lucas one Sunday evening. That happened a couple of weeks after we started dating. Funny thing was, Bill had barely said ten words to her in the preceding months.
Of course she said no. Luckily, I was waiting out in the car. While Bill was standing there and applying copious layers of bullshit—because ofcoursehe didn’t have Lucas ready to go in a blatantly transparent effort to stall her—she quickly texted me, asking me to come in.
I’m sure the timing of that stunt wasnota coincidence. Especially in light of the fact that I took Zoey and Lucas fishing the weekend before, and Lucas had a great time. The weekend following Bill’s failed wooing session, when he arrived at Zoey’s to get Lucas, was when Bill tried to get shitty with me and I put him in his place.
I know Bill hit Zoey once while they were married. That’s how she got the divorce in the first place. He was drunk and they had a fight, a pretty bad one, and he hit her. When it happened, she was brave enough to immediately grab Lucas and run to a friend’s house and get pictures. Then, leaving Lucas with another friend to babysit, the friend and her husband took Zoey home, the three of them confronted Bill, and they made him sign a statement admitting he hit Zoey and that he’d pay for her divorce attorney. Otherwise, they threatened to call the cops on him right then and there and have him hauled out in handcuffs for domestic violence.
For once in his stupid life, Bill made a smart choice, because he knew damn well he’d get fired if he was arrested for that.
Except as I said, Zoey’s too nice. She didn’t press for full custody back then, and she should have. Bill had never hit her before, although he’d apparently come close a few times. He was a wall-puncher and a dish-thrower, and had been throughout most of their relationship.
Zoey confessed to me before we were married that she goaded him into the fight that night. She suspected that he would hit her if she pushed him far enough, and she knew that’d be the only way she could finally force herself to leave him. Several previous attempts to leave him ended with him coaxing her back by sweet-talking her and pretending he would change. And if that didn’t work, by crying and guilt-tripping her.
But he’d never hit his child, was never physically abusive to Lucas, which was the only reason Zoey let Bill have joint custody. That, and she told me she felt guilty about how she’d finally gotten the divorce.
I personally don’t think she has a damn thing to feel guilty over.
But I digress.
Back to two years ago, when we had our attorney ready to pull the trigger on our motion for full custody.
Still don’t know what happened, exactly. But the next week, when Lucas returned from his visit to Bill’s, he said he’d changed his mind.
