Chapter 15
One week later, Noah had his offer accepted on the house he and Mel had both loved. Connor was officially more than one month old, was starting to sleep longer stretches at night and be more alert during the day. Everything in his life seemed to be moving in the right direction, with the exception of the situation with Mel. Ever since dinner with her family, she had become even more distant, picking up extra shifts at the hospital and going to bed early so that she could avoid time with Noah. He was getting so frustrated at her avoidance, that he’d started to look forward to moving out. Maybe living together and pretending to be engaged had been too much for her to handle. He was starting to suspect that instead of bringing them closer together as he had initially hoped, they were drifting farther apart.
Despite the struggles in his personal life, Noah felt it was time to see how he could make it work to still work as a manager part time at the pub. So, one morning while Mel was at work, he packed up Connor to head to The Lucky Strike, for an informal meeting with Ryan and Jake about their plans.
Over cups of coffee, and with Connor sleeping in the stroller, the three friends talked inventory, profit margins, and whether or not they should approach a new brewery about being served on tap. It felt good, almost like Noah was managing to juggle the trifecta of fatherhood, friendship, and business. He was about to come clean to his friends about his financial situation, a situation that Ryan was of course already familiar with, when they were interrupted by the front door of the pub opening.
An older couple walked in, looking around the empty space with uncertainty until they spied the three men at the bar. Seeing as the pub was not officially open for the day, Noah was confused, as were his friends judging by their faces.
As they came nearer, the man asked, “Is one of you Noah?”
“That’s me.” Noah stood up to walk toward them. In that moment, the woman spied Connor’s stroller parked beside the bar and hurried over to him.
“Oh, my sweet boy!” she exclaimed and reached to pick him up. Noah’s hands automatically reached out to protect his child from this strange woman. She froze and looked at him.
“I’m sorry, I just, he’s my grandson. My name is Lois Winters, this is my husband Craig. Georgia is our daughter.”
Noah was certain his heart had stopped beating. Vaguely he could hear his friends introducing themselves, but his eyes were focused on the woman in front of him, who kept looking longingly at Connor. Gradually he came to, to hear the man’s voice speaking.
“Georgia called us. We hadn’t heard from her in over a year. She said she’d had a baby and she wanted us to take care of him. All she gave us was the name Noah, and the name of this bar. We drove in from Salem immediately to find you, to find our baby.”
The possessive way he said ‘our baby’ had Noah on high alert. Suddenly he realized, they were not here for a social visit. Before he could ask anything, Lois spoke again.
“Please, can I hold him?”
He nodded, even though a part of him wanted to grab Connor and run away.
She carefully picked up Connor and began to rock him side to side. “He looks just like Georgia, except for the hair. Where did the ginger come from?”
“My family. My brother and dad are redheads,” Noah answered, gesturing toward Ryan who gave a small wave. It was then Noah realized both Ryan and Jake had also adopted defensive postures, as if they too were worried about why these people were here.
It was Jake who finally asked, “Why exactly are you here? You found my bar, you found Noah, now what?”
What came next confirmed Noah’s worst fears.
“There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just come out with it. We wanted to meet you, and to tell you in person that we’ll be filing a petition for custody of the baby. Georgia, she, well she’s got some challenges, things that we didn’t recognize until it was too late. We made mistakes with our daughter, and we won’t let our grandson suffer for them.” Craig’s voice was gruff but determined. “We want to give him the life he deserves, a family with two parents who will be there for him, love him, and provide him with everything he needs.”
Whatever Craig might have said after that, Noah missed, because of the sound of his heart pounding in his head as he fought within himself not to lunge for his son and rip him out of the arms of the people who had just said they planned to take him away. Ryan must have sensed Noah’s escalating anger, because he placed a firm hand on Noah’s shoulder, holding him back.
His brother replied in a far more reasonable voice than Noah would have managed. “What the fuck gives you the right to come here and assume that my brother can’t give HIS SON the life he deserves. I don’t care what mistakes you made with your daughter, you’re insane if you think Noah is going to give you his baby.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that, we would want you involved in his life, Noah,” Lois interjected, clearly trying to soften the blow. “It’s just, a child needs two parents. And we can give him that. I would assume, given how my grandson came to be, that you’re not in a stable relationship. You and Georgia met at a bar for heaven’s sake, and it doesn’t seem you’ve heard from her since.”
Noah’s anger at being judged so harshly by people who didn’t even know him, hell, didn’t even know where their own daughter was, came to a head. When he spoke, he couldn’t temper the rage he was feeling.
“You have no right to come here and threaten to take my son away. You don’t know me; you don’t know my life—”
“Actually, son, we do have the right. As his grandparents we have every right to sue for custody if we don’t feel you can give our grandchild the life he deserves, and unless you can prove that you can give him a more stable life than we can, that’s exactly what we plan to do,” Craig interrupted.
The older man was not small in stature, and if he was trying to look intimidating, it worked. Because Noah was terrified that what he said was right, and these people could take his son from him. After all, they were right. As far as anyone outside of his family, and now Mel and the guys, knew, Noah was a single guy, working at a bar. The rest of the world, and most importantly the couple in front of him, didn’t know Noah was actually a very wealthy man, about to close on a house, with a very healthy bank account. Noah wondered if now was the time to use that information to defend himself. Before he could say anything, Lois placed Connor back in the stroller and backed away.
“We didn’t come here to argue, in fact our lawyer advised us against finding you. But we just wanted to meet you and tell you our plans in person. I’m sorry, Noah, I’m sure you’re a wonderful man, but a child needs two parents, and we can give him that. We have to do what’s best for the baby.” She turned to her husband and took his hand, tugging him toward the door. “Come on, Craig. We should go.”
They walked toward the door, and only then did Craig stop and turn back to Noah with the final blow. “Our lawyer will be in touch.”
Then, they walked out of the pub, leaving Noah more shocked than he was on the day Betty from the hospital had first told him about Connor.
“I’m his father. There’s no better person to raise my son than me,” he said softly, realizing the only two people who could hear him were his brother and his friend.
