“Because if he’s the father but doesn’t want to pay child support, gets no custody and realizes he has no way to wield your children as a method of controlling you, he might relinquish full legal parentalrights. You could be done with him for good, Delilah.”
Oh my god.
How have I not thought of that?
“So you’re saying in the worst-case scenario, Earl has to pay child support and I can set up a nest egg for my kids. Best-case scenario…”
“You never have to see the motherfucker again, unless you need your car fixed. And even then, I recommend going out of town. Son of a bitch overcharged me for a brake replacement once, and I will never forget.”
Ivy squeezes my hands, her freezing cold palms grounding me and bringing me an odd sort of comfort.
“Alright. I guess we’re going to family court.”
“There’s just one thing…” Leonard says.
The secondwe walk past the front door to my parent’s house, I’m assaulted by love in all directions. My daughter flings herself at my legs, wrapping them in a hug. My little brother—who is now annoyingly a six-foot-something grown man—hooks an arm around my shoulder and gives me a noogie, andhis fiancé crowds my other side, air-hugging me while begging to rub my belly.
“Mama! Uncle Stephen and Auntie Dottie Lynn are here!”
“I can see that, Lollipop. What the heck? Why aren’t you in San Francisco?”
“Stephen flew in so he and your dad can take measurements for the nursery expansion, and I tagged along. I had to see my best girls!” Dottie squeals when Ivy lifts her off her feet in a hug. She’s always been a tiny wisp of a thing, but Dottie looks much happier and healthier now that she’s living and working with Stephen in San Francisco instead of wasting away alone as an influencer in Los Angeles. Her curves have filled out, her cheeks are pink, and the smile lines by the corners of her mouth are the cherry on top of her beautiful features.
Dad appears through the open back door, wiping his hands on a towel. The smell of burgers and grilled corn floods my nostrils, and Little Bean starts to kick in tandem with the growls of my empty stomach.
“And we’ve got to check out that kitchen next to the—” Dad starts, but he’s interrupted by Ivy’s sudden coughing fit.
“Sorry,” she gags. “The smoke from the barbecue. C’mon, Old Man, take me out for some fresh air.”
Ivy practically drags my father out the back door by his elbow, and Stephen follows with Sadie tugging on the back of his t-shirt, leaving Dottie and me standing in the kitchen.
“What the hell was that about?” I ask Dottie.
“Who knows? I always zone out when Stephen talks about work and construction to me. Come, sit. I made mocktails. I want to hear everything.”
Dottie drags me to the kitchen table and pours me a virgin Paloma (which is basically just sparkling grapefruit juice, but I don’t complain), and we sip as I fill her in on the pregnancy, the divorce and custody situation, as well as a few dirty-but-still-sister-appropriate details on mine and Ivy’s bedroom affairs.
“Wait,” Dottie says between gasping laughs. “You seriously balded the Earl?”
“Yep! Nair in the shampoo worked like a charm,” I chuckle.
“Oh my god. We stopped at Miss Pattie’s to pick up dessert on our way over and she was talking about some guy showing up at the emergency room with a burnt penis? Tell me that wasn’t you, too.”
I shrug, smirking.
“Well, technically I know nothing about that. But there may have been some discussion about slipping cayenne pepper into Earl’s jerk-off lotion. I certainlydid no such thing, but I do know Artie has a thing for spicy food...”
Dottie and I burst into another round of laughter, the thought of Earl waddling into the ER because he was masturbating at work and his ineffective dick got a little too spicy too much for me to handle.
“Unfortunately the petty pranks have to end, at least for now. Leonard says it’s basically the only thing Earl can hold up against me in court, even though he can’t prove it’s me. It’s pretty obvious that I’m the only one in town who’d want to see him suffer like that.”
“Uh, that’s not obvious whatsoever. Everyone in Fox Hole hates Earl. Remember when I was in high school and he started calling me Dick Eater Dottie? He can rot for that alone.”
“Oh my god! How did I not know he started that? What a fucking asshole.”
“Well, jokes on him, since I’ve only ever been with your brother. I’m sure Earl has eaten way more dicks than I have in his lifetime. And besides, Stephen was the one who slashed all but one of the tires on Earl’s ugly ass Mustang in the school parking lot, so he got his.”
We sip our drinks and marinate on how I could marry such a prick. At one time in my life, thethought alone might have been enough to send me into a downward spiral. But I watch out the window as Ivy scoops my daughter into her arms, the two of them running away from my brother as he chases them with a NERF gun. I can’t help but think that all of that pain was worth it, because it led me here.
