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“For now,” she hissed back at him, flouncing out the front door and slamming it behind her.
Twenty-One
IT DIDN’T TAKE long for her to make good on her threat, and on Tuesday Scott called his lawyer, Mark Lystead, trying to parse the paperwork Lindsay had sent him.
“Can she do this? Unilaterally reopen a custody negotiation?” Scott had hoped Lindsay’s threats had been nothing but empty bluff, or, at least, that she couldn’t do anything to change the status quo.
“She’s supposed to have a good reason, preferably one showing a clear and present danger to the child. She’s claiming a lack of caretaking on your part and questioning whether your girlfriend is a safe person for him to be around,” Mark explained.
“That’s ridiculous. Right? I mean, a judge is going to take one look at this and say it’s garbage... won’t they?” Scott began ticking things off on his fingers. “I have a great nanny for Dylan, his grades are good, he’s happy. He adores Abby and Gen. Hell, Gen is a therapy dog, so Lindsay can’t claim she’s aggressive or untrained. Abby works in pediatrics, for crying out loud. I’m sure she had to pass some kind of a background check...”
“Scott, relax. We’ll gather all your paperwork and send it in. I don’t expect we’ll get an initial hearing for a couple of weeks, but at least it’ll be here, because this is where Dylan lives. The biggest question is whether you’ll be able to attend with your schedule.”
Scott knew the importance of the hearing; he couldn’t not go, even if it interfered with games. His best defense lay in how well he’d cared for Dylan since he’d won custody. No judge in the world would see skipping a custody hearing, even for work, in a positive light. “I’ll make it work.”
“Okay, then. I’ll send the paperwork in and let you know as soon as I have a date.”
After hanging up, Scott forced himself to take a deep breath in, fighting the knot in his stomach.
This is so stupid.
Lindsay didn’t want Dylan; hadn’t ever wanted him. Oh, they’d gotten married because she’d wound up pregnant; it had been “the right thing to do,” the obvious next step in their relationship, but she’d never made a secret of her resentment, anger, or sorrow.
She’d been devastated when she found out, and she hadn’t been alone. His future had been uprooted, too, equally unready to face the reality of fatherhood.
But she hadn’t adjusted. Her visceral reaction remained, long after he’d made his peace with their life plans suddenly wrenched wildly awry.
Sure, she’d married him, and he’d thought the tears she’d cried as she walked down the aisle had been for joy. He’d long since accepted they hadn’t been. He’d once read an article talking about how tears of joy and tears of mourning had different chemical makeups.
He knew from experience they still looked the same.
He’d hoped with Dylan’s birth, she’d come around. That she’d be so in love with this child she wouldn’t notice the cost, or would count it worthwhile, as he had.
Instead, she’d rejected him from the start.
She’d refused to nurse him, even when, minutes after he’d been laid into her arms, still slick with blood and fluid, he began rooting. She’d handed him off to a nurse, pleading exhaustion, requesting he be placed in the nursery, asking for a bottle. Scott had fed him his first meal, marveling at the tiny human he’d helped create, while Lindsay had turned her face away.
She’d continued to withdraw once they were home, and Scott, having been warned, assumed the post-partum depression had overwhelmed her. Trying to help, to take some pressure off her, he’d soon begun getting up for night feedings and diaper changes. Hoping to help them bond, he’d make a bottle and bring it to Lindsay while he ran laundry, did dishes, or made dinner.
Take care of her, he’d been told.She birthed a baby. She’s weak, exhausted, hormonal.
Except the more he helped, the more drained he became, burning the candle at both ends, and still trying to manage his rookie year in San Diego.
And then she left. Right before Christmas, only a few games left, when Scott had been looking forward to their first holiday together, as a family, as well as a period of rest and recuperation once the season ended.
The Chargers wouldn’t even make the wildcard round, so he counted down the days until their last game. He’d taken Dylan shopping, walking up and down the light-strewn aisles to show his son the twinkling strings twined around the fake Christmas trees in their burlap-wrapped stands. He’d agonized over which toys to pick: wooden, plastic, or cloth; appropriate for babies or toddlers... They had to last a whole year, or at least until his birthday.
In the end, he’d gotten them all. His contract in San Diego hadn’t been huge, but it was enough, he rationalized, to let him spoil his son at their first Christmas.
He came home, maneuvering car seat and shopping bags through the door, to find the house cold, dark, and empty. Nothing but a note on the kitchen counter, and, though he’d wanted to rail, even to cry, Dylan fussed with hunger and needed a diaper change; he had tape to watch, and a game on Sunday; there wasn’t time to do anything other than keep moving forward.
By the start of the next season, he’d managed to piece his life back together. It had been a rough run for a while. A series of short-term sitters, a few too many wild nights, and some women (and choices) he’d always regret, but he’d known from the start he didn’t want to lose Dylan, so when his lawyer in California suggested his recent exploits may not be the perception he’d want the court to have when awarding custody of his son, he’d mended his ways.
Now, here they were again, and this time his eyes were wide open. No rose-tinted lenses, no misperceptions, only the harsh reality that Lindsay’s interest in Dylan hadn’t changed.
“Then why is she doing this?” he asked aloud, to the empty room.
No answer came.