But bottom line, no kid of his would be a kid he’d ever walkaway from.
“He was unprepared for the fact that Iwasprepared,” she went on.“Benefit of the doubt, it was my age.But the truth ofit, it was probably my gender and he underestimated me.So he didn’t think I’ddig and find out that, being a five-hundred-dollar-an-hour attorney and all,he’d managed to come out on top every time the mom took him to court to getsome support.He stuck to the line he had no responsibility for a girl he didnot know, he did not want, even before his wife got pregnant, something healleges he told his wife before she conceived against his will, and was happyto allow to be adopted, if his ex would simply move on and stop harassing him.How this made it through in this day and age, I have utterly no clue.Except hemakes a lot of money, he comes from even more, and knows the legal system andthose who work in it like the back of his hand.Credit to the woman, she didn’tgive up, until the trying nearly bankrupted her and she had no choice but to goit alone.”
“What a dick,” Dutch muttered.
“Correct again,” Georgiana agreed.“Needless to say, hewasn’t a big fan of me mentioning all of that in correlation with the life hisdaughter is leading, which hasn’t been bad, because she has an awesome mom.Butit certainly isn’t what it would be if he just paid child support.And mattersdeteriorated when I questioned him about how he felt about his part in thedecisions she’s now facing.”
“Sucks for the kid,” Dutch noted, not having anything elseto say.
Georgiana had more to say, though.
One thing was certain, she had a weight to get off herchest.
In other words, her trip to DC was seriously unfun.
“The daughter wanted to be a midwife.Certified midwives canearn anywhere from forty-five to one hundred and twenty K a year, depending ontheir experience and where they live.She’s now downgraded her goal to patientcare technician, and even if that’s the most in-demand job in the US, and anecessary one, they make about twenty-five grand.That’s double thesingle-person-family poverty level, as defined by Federal Poverty Guidelines,but almost half of the lowest salary she’d make if she did what she’s beendreaming of doing.I don’t make much more than that.So I know the toughfinancial decisions you have to make, earning that much.Decisions you wouldn’thave to make if you brought in twice as much as you do.”
Dutch still didn’t have anything to say, except what he’dalready said.
This was the way it was.
And it sucked.
“So how do I write this article without making the fatherout to be what he is, a totaljackhole?”
Dutch didn’t quite clamp down on his bark of laughter beforehe asked, “Ajackhole?”
“What would you call him?”She asked the question, butdidn’t let him answer.Instead, she kept talking and doing it fast.“Don’t tellme.I can guess.”
“I bet you can,” he mumbled, smiling at the busy highway hewas navigating.“It’s the truth he’s ajackhole.Sotell the truth.”
“My editor requires objectivity.”
“Okay.So then objectively, he’s still ajackhole.”
There was a moment of silence and then she busted outlaughing.
And that just cut it.
Because the woman had a generous mouth, a generous head ofwild, dark, curly hair, a generous body…
And a generous laugh.
She also had a generous amount of attitude, he remindedhimself.And not a lot of it was good.
He could see she’d had a shit trip.
He could not see her taking it out on a stranger who wasdoing something nice for her.
“My dad was…not around, maybe that’s it,” she muttered likeshe was talking to herself.
Christ, he shouldn’t have asked if she was okay.He didn’tneed her to give him reasons to understand why she was behaving like a bitch.
“But I think it’s that somehow, I got on the kids beat,” shekept at it.“And it’s wearing me down.”
Even if he knew it was no good for him, Dutch again couldn’tstop himself from asking, “The kids beat?”
“If it has to do with kids, they assign it to me,” she toldhim.“The state of CPS.Foster care.Social media shaming.Vaping in schools.Now this.Meeting this young girl with good grades that don’t set the world onfire, but she also has a part-time job to help mom out at home, not hours tokill to do extra credit or go the extra mile.Her mom works a data desk at aninsurance company, and she doesn’t do badly, she just doesn’t have tens ofthousands of dollars to toss around.She doesn’t even have what it takes tomake sure her daughter has the most recent iPhone and the bevy of other statussymbols kids find important these days, to the point the girl’s prom dress wasrented.And good or bad, that kind of thing matters to a kid.”
