The Deepest Blue (12 page)

“I know, sweetie, but you need to be able to speak your mind with this attorney, and I don't want anyone to get the idea I might have pressured you. I'd like to go, really, but Chuck said it would be better for him to take you, and I have to agree.”

My stomach rolls itself into a knot and cinches up a bit. “But what am I supposed to say?”

“Whatever it is you feel you need to say, hon.” Maggie pauses. “You say what you want. You say what you think is right and is best for you. The rest will take care of itself.”

I swallow against the mild panic rising in my throat. “But don't you have to be there to say you'll adopt me? Don't you have to tell them why you'd make a great mom or something?”

Maggie chuckles softly. “That's up to you to do, honey. And it will be more important coming from you than from anybody else.”

I think for a minute, and then I decide she's made up her mind, so I'd best just get ready. “Do I need to call Chuck and ask him to drive me?”

“I already took care of that last night.”

“But last night I didn't even know—”

She cuts me off. “Just as a precaution. I didn't know what you would decide, either, but I asked Chuck to be ready, and he said he would.”

“What time is he picking me up?”

“Be ready to leave by nine thirty. Chuck will not want to be late since this is a friend of his who's doing us a huge favor.”

“Will I need to pay her money?” I feel the knot tighten a little more. I only have about sixty dollars left.

“All taken care of,” Maggie says. “She's paid by the county to do this. Kids can't afford to hire lawyers, so the county pays the lawyers to represent kids who need them.”

The knot eases up a little. “I'll call you as soon as I get back.”

“Okay, bud. I'll be here waiting.”

“Not going to work?” I ask.

She lets out a soft sigh. “Not for a little while.”

I hang up and head to the shower. My pile of clothes from yesterday is still in a wet ball on the bathroom floor. I scoop them up and toss them out into the hallway, deciding I'll do a load of laundry when I get back from Jacksonville. After a quick rinse, I dry my hair with a towel and head to my bedroom to find something “nice” to wear. I don't have much opportunity to dress up, but I find a pair of khakis and a white, collared, button-down shirt. I even find a belt that isn't too beat up. I have one
old, ratty pair of tennis shoes, a pair of water shoes I sometimes use for surfing or diving, and about thirty pairs of flip flops in varying conditions of hammered. I look under my bed for the woven leather sandals that will have to pass as nice shoes. I grab my wallet and flip it open: sixty-two dollars and some change scattered around on the floor and the dresser. I'll ask Chuck if we can maybe stop somewhere to look for nicer shoes than these.
I'll need them on Monday,
I think.

I fix a bowl of cereal, draining the last of the milk from the carton. I write “milk” on the magnetic notepad attached to the fridge that Dad and I used for our shopping list. Then I write “shoes” below that. I lose my appetite after just a few bites, so I dump the bowl down the sink. In my head, I can hear Dad yell at me about wasting so much food, and a twinge of guilt tweaks at my gut.

The clock reads 8:07
A.M
., so I decide to get on the computer to kill some time. I check my email, hoping to hear something from Jayd, but there is nothing in the inbox from him. I poke around the Internet for a while then play a few games. At about nine, I decide to call Rachel. Her cell rings once and goes straight to voice mail.

“Hi, this is Rachel. I'm too busy to answer this call, so you'll just have to leave a message if you wanna hear back from me. Bu-bye.”

I wait for the beep. “Hey, Rachel, it's Mike. Just wanted to say hey and let you know I'm going to Jacksonville today. Be gone a few hours. I'll call you when I get home. I love you, Rachel,” I say, and I'm pretty sure I mean it.

I head back to my room and click on the television. I scan through a few channels and finally settle on some sports show. I try just sitting down, but I need to move. I pick up dirty clothes off my floor, make the bed, straighten books and magazines that are lying around. I grab the dirty clothes I threw in the hall, take the ones from my room, and then head through the kitchen to the laundry closet. It's not a laundry room, it is literally a closet with a sliding door. There's nothing in the washer, so I start a big load of my stuff. I've been doing laundry since I was seven or eight, so I'm pretty good at it; I just don't like doing it.

I pull open the dryer and find two pairs of my dad's jeans, a few dark T-shirts, and one pair of white boxers that accidentally found their way in with the other stuff. I laugh. “Nice goin', Dad,” I say. The boxers look bluish gray now, and there is a blue splotch from the jeans on the left butt cheek of the shorts. Then I freeze. The color reminds me of Dad's skin at the funeral home: cold, empty, lifeless. I drop the shorts on the floor.

A car horn honks out front, and I run to my room to turn off the television. Then I head out the door to Chuck's car and climb in.

“Hey, Mike,” he says in a serious tone as he claps me on the shoulder. “How you holding up?”

I buckle the seatbelt and look out the front windshield. “I don't know. I'm okay, I guess.”

Chuck puts the car in gear and heads toward the highway. “I understand, man. I really do.”

We drive in silence for a while, and then Chuck says, “You know, your dad was like a father to me, too.” He signals a lane change and then looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “My dad left when I was about three, and I've never heard a word out of him since.”

I think about what Maggie said last night, about how a lot of people loved my dad and lost someone important to them, not just me. I try not to be bothered by what Chuck is saying.

“When your dad hired me to work on the boat, it felt like I was working for family.” He pauses and then continues. “He took good care of me, helped me get through college and law school. He was really a great guy.”

“A lot of people thought so,” I say.

“I expect a lot of the island will show up on Monday for the service. Have you thought about what you're going to say?”

“What I'm going to say?” I'm not sure what Chuck is talking about.

“For the service. I assumed you were going to want to get up as one of the speakers. Is that wrong?”

I scan my memory. Did I agree to do that? “I don't know. I haven't even thought about it. I don't remember saying I would do that.”

“Yesterday at the funeral home. Maggie asked, and you said yes.” Chuck shifts the car into a lower gear, and we come to a stop at an intersection. “You don't remember saying you'd speak?”

“I don't remember much of anything from yesterday.
But if I said I'd do that, then I guess I will. I'll think on it tonight and figure it out, write something down.”

“You'll need something to wear, too.”

“A monkey suit,” I say, which is what Dad always called anything requiring a tie or a jacket.

Chuck smiles. I know he got the joke. “We'll stop somewhere in Jacksonville after your appointment. It won't take long—and I promise we'll get something you'll be okay with.”

“I'd be okay with surf shorts and flip flops, but I bet more than a few people wouldn't appreciate my sense of style so much.”

“Maggie asked if I'd find you something comfortable. She didn't specify what.”

“I only have about sixty bucks.”

“Not to worry,” Chuck says. “Maggie sent enough to get you appropriately decked out.”

“I'll buy my shoes.” I'm not sure why it's so important to me, but it is.

“Your call,” says Chuck.

I don't say anything else. Chuck turns on the radio to fill the silence in the car. He taps his hands on the steering wheel in time with some country tune I've never heard. It takes a little less than an hour to get to the office in Jacksonville, but it feels like half the day is gone when we get there.

Sylvia Young is a heavyset woman who looks like she's about Maggie's age, maybe in her midthirties. She has short, light brown hair that is super curly like a poodle's.
She is dressed in a denim skirt, a white-and-blue blouse, and a pair of white sandals that makes me wonder why I worried so much about shoes this morning. She has white, plastic, hoop earrings that match a white, plastic, beaded necklace and white, plastic bracelet.

“You must be Michael,” she says, extending a pudgy hand with pink frosted nails.

“Yes, ma'am,” I say, shaking her hand. Her skin feels doughy and warm.

“Come on inside, and let's you and I have a little conversation.”

“I'll be back in about an hour,” Chuck says as he heads back toward the car.

“Best make it two, just to be sure,” Ms. Young says. “We've got a lot of work to get done today if we have to be in court Tuesday.”

“Tuesday?” I ask. “This coming Tuesday? Why so soon?”

“Because your mother has filed a motion to have custody transferred to her immediately, so we had to file a motion for immediate adjudication with the court to get an emergency hearing on your case.”

How did all this happen, and I don't even know about it? And why didn't anyone bother to talk to me about it or ask what I think?

Ms. Young pulls open the glass door that leads into the building. I follow her down a hallway to a wooden door on the left marked G
UARDIAN
A
D
L
ITEM
. We step into a dimly lit office with a large desk piled to eye level with papers. There are no windows, and the room feels a little claustrophobic.

“So young man, sit down in one of the chairs here and tell me what brings you to Jacksonville this morning.”

She has a funny voice, like she's really a funny person when she doesn't have to do all this legal stuff.

“Well . . .” I say, dragging the word out as I collect my thoughts, “my dad got hit by a drunk driver just two days ago. He was about to propose to Maggie . . . um, Margaret Delaney.” It sounds weird, but I feel like I need to be sure I make everything clear. “So Maggie would have been my stepmom, because they would have gotten married pretty soon, I think. And that's what I want, for her to be my mom.” My heart is beating hard, but I can feel the strength of how much I believe what I'm saying. “I want her to be my mom.”

Ms. Young sits in a black office chair. She has picked up a yellow notepad and started writing. “What about your biological mother?”

“She's not really my mom. She hasn't been my mom since I was five. She just decided to try to creep back into my life now, even though I haven't seen her for, like, ten years. She thinks I'm moving with her to Washington, but I'm not. I won't go with her. She isn't my mom anymore.”

Ms. Young looks up from her notepad at me. “You get to the point, don't you?”

“I understood there was a bit of a hurry to this,” I say. I'm not trying to be a smart aleck, I just want to make sure she knows that I know how serious this stuff is.

“You're right, there is. I like your attitude. You're direct.” She smiles at me, her bright pink lips framing
perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth. “You and I are going to get along swimmingly.”

My heart has slowed a little, and I take a deep breath. There is a musty smell to the room, like an old house filled with antiques and shadows. The smell reminds me of the mortuary in Moorehead, only not as sad and final.

“The court is going to ask you some tough questions. We have to be prepared to answer them.” She looks back to her notes and starts writing again. “So let's spend a little time discussing this situation you're in.”

I look at Ms. Young. “Okay, shoot.”

“Why haven't you had any contact with your biological mother? Did your father keep you away on purpose? Did he speak ill of her or tell you things about her that made you want to avoid having any interaction with her?”

I feel my body tense and want to defend my dad, but I know she's only asking to help me. I take another deep breath, let it out slowly, then I start. “Dad and Julia divorced when I was about five. Julia decided she didn't want to be a mom. She told my dad that the whole thing—being married, having a family, all of it—had been a huge mistake, and she didn't want to do it anymore.” I picture Julia's face, red and screaming, her finger pointed at my dad's chest as she yelled and cried.

Ms. Young scribbles on her notepad. “Did your father tell you this?”

“He didn't really talk about her,” I say. “Most of it I remember from when I was little.”

“Tell me what else you remember,” she says, not looking up from the notepad.

“I remember them fighting a lot. It seemed like every day. It would wake me up at night sometimes. After awhile, my dad would come in to check on me and tell me that everything was going to be okay.” I sink back into the overstuffed leather chair and rest my elbows on the padded arms. The cushion sort of squeaks as I shift my weight. “Julia never came in to check on me. In the mornings, my dad would look like he hadn't slept, and I'd see blankets and pillows on the sofa in the front room. Sometimes I'd find him there during the night, and I'd climb up on the sofa and sleep with him because I thought he was scared or had bad dreams like I did.”