She crosses her arms and rolls her eyes, “I saw your ‘man’ on TV. Big shot athlete?” She makes a tsk sound. “You should know better than that.”
“My father played football in high school and knocked up fourteen years old.”
“I was fifteen, and he was seventeen,” she says defending him.
“When youhad meat fifteen, and he was a second-year senior, at nineteen. But I didn’t come here for a math?—”
“You have always been such a smart mouth little bitch,” she shakes her head. “You must think even more highly of yourself now.”
I stare at her for a moment, remembering the days or months she was trying to get her life together, the few times she even got an apartment on her own and got us out of that trailer park. How she loved the Gilmore Girls and said that was us, me and her and it lasted all of two months before my father rolled back into town and played house for a week or two and left her. There are three times that I remember that very same scenario.
“Don’t you think I always prayed you’d realize you deserved better?” The words come out before I can stop them. “Don’t you think I wanted to believe that one of those rock bottom nights, maybe the one that you woke up outside to me crying because I burned my hand, putting out one of those backyard campfires roasting marshmallows turned into a group of people getting so fucked up they didn’t remember there was a first grade girl amongst them?”
She laughs, and it’s cruel. The insults start immediately. Lazy —that’s what she called me when I was reading. Delusional —when I began applying for college scholarships. Ungrateful— her go to when on the rare occasion I complained about anything, like oh I don’t know, there being no food or the electricity was out, and I couldn’t finish my homework.
Every sentence sharper than the last, it’s always been like this, but I realize now it doesn’t hurt like it did back then, like itdid when I didn’t know I could fight my way out using my brain and doing the work.
I let it go on for a little while longer and then decide I am done.
I stand. “That’s enough.”
She stops mid-sentence. “Excuse me?”
“You do what you want,” I say quietly. “But I will fight for her.”
I reach into my bag, pull out the bunny that had to be scanned and inspected before I could give it to her, and set it on the table.
Her eyes drop to it, and there is just a brief bit of emotion, enough to show she is human, and then it’s gone.
“She’s so sweet,” I say quietly. “She wanted you to have the only thing that ever made her feel safe.”
I swear I see her eyes soften, but truly, I do not care, not anymore, I can’t allow myself to.
“If by chance you don’t sign,” I add, “Lucy will likely be eighteen by the time you get out.” I meet her eyes. “Regardless, no judge will ever pull her from a family that loves her.”
Silence fills the room. Then I take a slow breath and allow myself to give her one last chance.
“If you can make one good choice for her. She’ll forget a hundred bad ones. I know this because I don’t hate you nearly as much as I used to.” I clear my throat. “Because of you, I have Lucy.”
I manage to hold the tears at bay until I walk out of the gate. Scotti isn’t there waiting; Lenzin is.
We both walk toward each other; he is quicker than I am, and he holds me while I fall apart.
Once I have stopped crying, he helps me inside his vehicle and hands me tissues from his console.
“Talk to me,” he says, dabbing under my eyes softly.
“Where is Scotti?” I sniff.
“I sent her back when I arrived,” he answers quietly.
I wipe under my nose, “I’m not going to lie, I’m not happy she called you.”
“That makes two of us unhappy with her,” he says.
“Why are you upset with her?” I ask.
“Not upset, unhappy that she didn’t tell me there was a change of plans.”
