“Mom!” I tried again.
“I did nothing wrong, Jake. Cassie needed to use the bathroom, so they went upstairs. When they reappeared, Kellie looked like she’d seen a ghost and was hightailing it out the door.”
“Did she say anything?”
“She just said she had to go.”
“Agh!” I raged, stomping out of the kitchen and heading upstairs. When I rounded the corner and saw some papers on the floor, I bent down to pick them up. I might be as mad as a cut snake right now, but I wasn’t about to trash the place. At least I hadn’t thought I was going to until I saw it.
Snatching up the paper lying on top, my blood roared through my ears, and my pulse skyrocketed. Spinning on my heel, I stomped into the kitchen before tossing it down on the kitchen table.
“What the fuck is this?” I hissed, pointing at the offending document.
“What?”
“Don’t. Just don’t. Where the hell did this come from?” I demanded.
Mom picked it up and scanned it quickly. She didn’t need to read it. She already knew what it said. “When I spoke to our lawyers a couple of days ago, I asked them to draft it.”
“You asked them to draft it?” I repeated, not sure I’d heard her correctly. At least I hoped I hadn’t.
“She doesn’t even call you Dad, Jake.”
“That’s between me and my daughter. You had no right…”
“I have every right!” Mom spat angrily as she stood up and glared at me. “That woman kept my granddaughter from me. She kept your daughter from you. Surely, you can’t be going to forgive her for that.”
Mom and I had never fought. Not really. We’d argued, especially when I was a horny, dumb teenager doing stupid shit, but it’d never gotten real. At the end of the day, she’d always been my mom, and I’d always been her baby boy. It wasn’t like it was with Dad. He and I could fight and go weeks without exchanging a word, but usually, I apologized to Mom, undoing the damage before I even went to bed that night. I couldn’t remember a time when we hadn’t spoken for more than a couple of hours. Right now, though, I could barely stand the sight of her. This time she’d crossed the line, and there was no way I would back down. I couldn’t.
“Kellie’s not the one to blame here!” I defended.
I knew Kellie had made mistakes, but we both had. I wasn’t blaming her any more than I was blaming myself. And at the end of the day, what was the point in fighting? Fighting wouldn’t get me what I wanted. If anything, it would drive a wedge between us, and we’d end up shuffling Cassie back and forth as we tried to co-parent. And the last thing I wanted to be was a weekend dad. I wanted Cassie in my life and in my home every day. And what’s more, I wanted Kellie too. For me, this wasn’t just about getting access to Cassie. This was about getting my family back, and if I had to hold back the wince and hide the ache it caused in the center of my chest every time Cassie called me by my name instead of Dad, then I’d suck it up and do what I had to.
“You had no right.”
“Jake. You might not see it now, but I had every right.”
“You didn’t. You overstepped. And if you fucked this up for me…”
“Don’t threaten me, Jake. You still live under my roof…”
“Not for long,” I tossed out without really thinking before storming up the stairs and throwing some clothes into my duffle bag.
Ten minutes and a sweep of the bathroom later, I slung the bag over my shoulder and clomped down the stairs, ignoring the happy family memories lining the walls. The happy family in those pictures was all an illusion.
“Don’t go, Jake.”
“I have to.”
“Jake…”
“Mom,” I started, taking a deep breath. “You need to realize you went too far. Kellie and I will figure this out. We just need time. But you had a lawyer draw up paperwork…”
“She shouldn’t have been snooping!” Mom screeched.
“And you shouldn’t have left anything for her to see.”
“If, and I mean if we decide to change Cassie’s last name to Samuels, that will be a decision Kellie and I make… together. Not one you pay some fancy lawyer in a suit to put on paper and leave lying around for her to find.”
