‹ Prequel: Infinite

Summer Boy

Strained Ties

Sascha curled in toward the couch cushions, his little body bracketed by the back of the couch on one side and my leg on the other. With my other leg curled under me, Arch off at school, and the house relatively silent, I stared down at the phone in my lap, reading off the phone number Lyla Ains provided.

Sliding back and forth between the two pages, I typed the number in, anxiety rising in my chest as I hovered over the dial button. Finally, sucking a deep breath into my chest, I lifted the phone to my ear.

After a few rings, the line connected. “Reese, Caine, and Kramer Law Offices. How may I direct your call?”

“I’m calling for Eric Burley,” I answered. “I was hoping he was available to speak with me.”

“What’s your name and nature of your call?” the receptionist asked.

“I’m Atticus Gurewitz. Mr. Burley represented my son’s biological mother in our custody proceedings. I was hoping we could speak about something related to that.”

“Okay,” the woman quipped. “Give me one moment to see if Mr. Burley is available for a call. Could you spell your name for me?”

I was on hold for less than a couple minutes before Abigail’s lawyer picked up the line. We’d never really spoken directly to each other, and Eric Burley’s voice belayed that surprise. “Ms. Gurewitz,” he greeted as he answered the call. “How are you? How’s Arch?”

Pulling my leg in to wrap my arm around myself, my gaze settled on Sascha, gauging how likely he was to roll himself off the couch in his sleep, before I could catch him. “We’re fine, thank you,” I answered the lawyer. “Thank you for taking my call. I know you don’t have to.”

“I probably should be speaking with your lawyer if this is pertaining to Arch’s custody,” he answered, slipping back into the dry, business voice I’d heard dozens of times before.

“No,” I interjected. “It’s not about my son – not exactly… I was told that Abigail Drewry had her second child, and I’ve been made aware that you’re representing Abigail and the new baby.”

“That’s not information I’m able to share without approval, Ms. Gurewitz,” he responded, the tone of his voice belaying his confusion and interest. “May I ask why you’re calling?”

I held in my sigh, watching Sascha grip my pant leg and struggle to pull himself in any direction. “This baby is my son’s sibling,” I said, unsure of my words. “I would like to know about the situation and be alerted if something happens with Abigail.”

“Atticus…” Mr. Burley started. “You’re not a social worker. I can’t share information with you. And as difficult as these last few years have been for you and Ms. Drewry both, I would hope that you would want the child to remain with her parent. Foster care is not a place we want any child to end up, you know that first hand.”

“It’s not,” I answered, “of course it’s not. But we don’t get to determine that, and if it comes to that point and there’s something I can do so this baby doesn’t go through what my son did… I couldn’t not make this phone call.”

“I understand that this is not an easy call for you to make, or an any situation for you to consider, but legally, this child is not related to yours and is not your responsibility, although I’m sure your lawyer and your social worker will do whatever they can to change that.”

I flinched. Abigail’s rhetoric had always been much the same, but I’d never had a direct conversation with her lawyer before to know that his words echoed hers. They’d painted me as a villain, someone who ripped Abigail’s only child from her arms.

“If Abigail can really take care of this baby,” I said, steadying my voice. “If she really can put the child above herself and raise them, then good. They should be together. But no baby can replace the child she doesn’t have anymore, and if she realizes that and leaves this child like she did my son, I need to know, Mr. Burley.”

“You’re lucky to not understand the depths of what it is lose a child, Ms. Gurewitz,” he answered, “and I hope that you never do. But because you don’t, you don’t have any right to judge a parent for how they cope with their grief.”

He sighed on the line, soft and quick, but his exhaustion was palpable, as was his distaste for me and the last years and months of their fight for Arch.

Wiping the strain out of his voice, he added, “Mrs. Drewry’s life is her own, and she has enough people micromanaging her relationship with her daughter without your implied threats. She understands the depths of her situation, and all I can tell you is that she has every intention of proving she can provide a life for her child.

“I have to remind you that you are not a social worker or even family, Ms. Gurewitz, and ask you to please not contact myself or Mrs. Drewry again. You have no legal rights to this child, and as such, I will not give you any information.”

The line went dead before I processed everything he said. I ducked my head as I dropped the phone, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes to staunch the tears.

In every word he said, he made me out to be the bad guy, and with a quick moment of realization, I knew that we’d spent months villainizing each other to justify our own actions. There was no love lost between me and Abigail, just the fear of losing a little boy that we both loved and longed for. I didn’t understand Abigail, and likely would never grasp how she could claim to love him after everything she put him through. How she couldn’t see the damaged she’d caused, and continued to cause when she wouldn’t let him go. I knew the visceral fear that someone might take Arch from me, but I never believed that fear could be as strong in someone who walked away from him.

I pressed my face into my hands, muffling the tears as I bent into myself. Sascha starting to coo awake, cocooned between the couch and my leg.

“Sorry, baby,” I murmured as I snuffed back her tears and reached for him, sliding him up against my stomach and chest. “Shh,” I murmured, pressing my nose to his hair, a kiss against his head.

In my mind, I could see another baby curled against its mother. The little girl a small version of Arch, a window to the baby I never knew. Chances were she didn’t look like him, but all I could see were blonde curls and blue eyes, a little girl looking at me with my son’s face.

“There’s nothing I can do,” I whispered against Sascha’s head. “I’m not a social worker. There’s nothing I can do.”

The laptop, propped up on the floor beside the couch, sat with the screen open and on, tab after tab displaying information about children born to mothers without custody of older children, to neglectful families, to sibling sets in foster care, one adopted out, one left behind.

My chest felt heavy under the weight of Sascha and my fears, my guilt and worries. I knew that I hadn’t done everything right the last few years. The court process was messy. Abigail and Arch and me were even messier. There was no good solution, no clear-cut solution that saved Arch from getting hurt. But I’d been able to justify the means by considering his ends – where would he thrive? Where did he want to be? How would he heal?

“All right, babe,” I said, wiping the last of the frustrated tears and swiping Sascha from the couch into a basket hold against my chest. “Time to get ready to go get your brother.”

Tonight was the first night I would return to some semblance of my past life. I was going back out on the job, leaving the boys with the babysitter. The plan was for her to come for dinner – to experience our regular nighttime routine and integrate. It was a buffer of time to build Arch’s trust, to see Marseilles with my sons, to assure everyone that the it would be fine.

I loaded up Sascha and headed to Nicholas, doing my best to turn my thoughts away from the sibling Arch didn’t know about. But when he walked out of his school, backpack on, bunching his blazer as he raced down the sidewalk, I imagined what his future might be.

The fear was there, unspoken and bent at the base of my spine, but palpable and loud against every rationalization I tried.

When Arch came into my life as more than a child I babysat, he instantly wanted more from me than I thought I could give him, and as time passed, it felt more and more like the two of us were bound to be together. But I’d never considered what other thoughts Arch had during that time. Had he longed for Abigail the way I imagined he longed for me? For the life I could give him? He was barely more than a toddler when he went into foster care… was he capable of making a rational choice? Or had he simple latched on to whoever he thought might be more likely of loving him back?

From the beginning, my language about Abigail was coded, my anger vibrant and indignant. Had he adopted my feelings out of fear of losing me or was it really that she’d burned the bridge between them… more fragile than most between mother and child.

Would Arch resent me when he was older? Would he feel a dissonance between his time with Abigail and his life with me? Would he be able to imagine what it would’ve been like if he stayed with her? Would his baby sister be a retelling of a life that never happened and would be see himself in her? Disconnected from her?

I dragged myself out of my thoughts, pulling my nail from between my teeth as the back passenger’s door popped open and Arch gathered up the energy to fling it all the way. He climbed in onto the floor on his hands and knees before pushing up to his feet and hopping into his spot. I got out and closed the door before meeting him at his side to buckle him in.

“How was it?” I questioned, offering the best grin I could as I tightened him in.

“I’m happy it’s Friday!” he answered, his voice verging on a cheer. “Can we have strawberry milk for dinner?”

I smiled in confusion, glancing at him askew. “That’s a random request.” I pushed the door closed and popped the driver’s open in time to hear him already speaking.

“A boy had it for lunch," he said, the first part of his sentence out of earshot. “ Does it really taste like strawberries.”

Arch crashed when he got home, fully dressed on the couch with the TV remote clutched in his hand. I moved Sascha from the rug to his pack-and-play when Arch fell asleep, hoping to get the place cleaned up a bit before the new babysitter showed up for our trial run.

I was in the kitchen with Sascha’s playpen on the other side of the island when Arch wandered in later, remote still in his hand. He rubbed at his eyes with his fist and huffed as he pushed his bangs away from where they tickled his forehead.

“What is that?” he asked, clambering up onto one of the stools and jabbing toward the chicken with the remote.

“Chicken Cordon Bleu,” I answered as I slid the pan into the oven. “It’s got cheese in it. You’ll love it.”

“They look like giant chicken nuggets,” he commented, kneeling on his stool with his palms against the countertop so he could see them go down into the oven. He dropped back onto his butt when the oven door closed.

I turned to face him, putting on a supportive smile. “Our new friend Marseilles is coming over for dinner,” I reminded him. “She’s going to spend a few hours with you, me, and Sascha before I have to go to work tonight.”

“What,” Arch said, eyebrows pulled down under his bangs as he pushed against the counter. “Can I go with you?”

“We talked about this,” I answered. “You can’t come to work with me. It’ll be late, and I have a job to do. You’ll be ready for bed before I even leave.”

“No, I won’t,” he shot back, his tone darkening. “I don’t want to stay here. I went with you before. I can help.”
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I have no clue if anyone is even reading this anymore, but it never leaves my head. I know this deserves an ending.