Baby Girl Read online

  That thought hurt like hell, but I had to admit she was probably right.

  The waiter came by, and we ordered a second round of drinks.

  “You need a lawyer,” Nicole said. “And you need to be quick about it, or he’ll screw you out of everything.”

  “Like what? Some used furniture? Those old houses he’s renting?”

  Nicole raised her hand and rubbed her fingers together. “Money. Whatever he’s got, you’re entitled to half of it.”

  “I don’t want anything, I just want out. I’ve given up too much alrea—”

  “More bullshavicky,” she said, but this time she kept her voice a bit lower. “If you walk away and let him keep everything, then he wins. Is that what you want?”

  I shook my head.

  She tore a square off of the paper placemat, wrote something and handed it to me.

  “Call this guy,” she said. “He’s the lawyer who handled Sissy’s divorce, and he’s good.”

  She’d scrawled a number on the scrap of paper and below it was a name: Leon McVey.

  Nicole and I shared an order of chicken quesadilla and talked until after ten; then she suggested I bunk on her sofa for a while. I thanked her and said no. At some point between the second and third margarita, I’d come up with a plan.

  That night I checked into Babe’s Motel out on State Highway 23. I knew Babe Wilson. She was one of my customers, and I’d gotten her good placement in the business-to-business tabloid supplement. When I told Babe I was going to be there for a while, she gave me the room next to hers and suggested I come by for coffee in the morning.

  “I’ve always got a pot going,” she said.

  This might sound strange, but knowing she was right next door made me feel good. I had a place where I belonged. Not a house owned by Ryan or Mama, but a place of my own. It was a dinky little room with a bed, two nightstands and a dresser with a bottom drawer that wouldn’t open, but none of that mattered. What mattered was that I’d taken the first step in what would prove to be a very long journey.

  Ryan’s Reason

  Leon McVey’s office was on the second floor of a red brick building in downtown Wyattsville. The reception room had a single desk, a brown leather sofa and two-year-old magazines.

  I approached the silver-haired woman at the desk and said, “My name is Cheryl Ann Carter; I’m here to see Mister McVey.”

  “Okay.” Without moving from her seat, she turned toward the back office and yelled, “Leon, your two o’clock is here!”

  Seconds later he stepped from his office into the reception area. He paused beside the receptionist, reminded her that she was supposed to use the intercom not holler, then turned to me and stuck his hand out.

  “Leon McVey,” he said.

  “Cheryl Ann Carter,” I replied and shook his hand.

  “Pleased,” he said and led me back to his office.

  As we walked I told him, “Nicole Polanski suggested I talk to you.”

  “Yeah, she called this morning and told me you’d be coming in.” He sat behind the desk and pulled out a note pad.

  I took the chair in front. “I want to file for a divorce.”

  There is no way to describe how strange it felt to hear those words coming from my mouth, but all of a sudden I had an urge to explain.

  “It’s not actually me who wants the divorce, it’s Ryan. Day before yesterday he came home and out of the blue said he didn’t love me anymore.” I stopped and started digging through my bag for a tissue.

  “What did you do then?” McVey asked.

  “I waited until the next morning, then I packed my bags and left.”

  His wrinkled face pinched into a grimace. “That’s not good. You should’ve stayed and made him get out.”

  “Why?”

  “With you leaving he’ll claim you deserted him and argue to keep the house.”

  “So let him keep it. I don’t want any part of him or his stuff.”

  “Whoa!” McVey said. “I know you’re upset, but you’ve gotta be practical about this. You should get everything you’re entitled to.”

  “I don’t want it! Not the house, not those investment properties, not the boat, not even this damn ring!” I blinked back the tears blurring my vision and started struggling to remove the wedding band I’d worn for over a year. It was stuck.

  “Try cold water and soap,” McVey suggested. Without slowing for another breath, he said, “So tell me about the boat and these investment properties.”

  I explained that Ryan now had three houses rented out for more than the cost of the mortgages and a twenty-six-foot Lyman cabin cruiser docked at the Two Rivers Marina.

  “But I don’t want any of that stuff,” I said. “All I want is out.”

  To hold the pieces of my broken heart together I’d decided that whatever I did I would do on my own; I was no longer going to be dependent on anybody. Dependency was nothing more than a welcome mat for disappointment.

  “You’re nuts,” McVey said sharply. “You walk away with nothing, and the sleaze gets exactly what he wants.”

  I have to admit I liked hearing McVey call Ryan a sleaze. It was a strange sense of justification for the way I was feeling.

  “All that stuff is in his name,” I said. “So what can I do?”

  McVey started scribbling notes on his pad. “You’ve gotta go at him with a demand for something. So decide what you want; then if he doesn’t agree to the terms, I’ll slap him with an injunction that puts everything in escrow until we battle it out in court. That means the rent money, use of the boat, everything is tied up until final settlement. Unless he’s a real asshole, he’s not gonna want that.”

  The thought of making Ryan miserable was somehow comforting. At first I thought of saying I wanted two of the rental properties, but the truth was I didn’t. They were always in need of some repair or another and in neighborhoods I wasn’t crazy about. Remembering Ryan’s love of the boat, I figured losing that would be the thing that hurt most.

  “I want the Lyman,” I said.

  “A boat? Not a house?”

  I nodded. “Last summer there was a guy at the marina who said he’d be interested in buying it, so I think it would be pretty easy to sell.”

  McVey gave a dubious shake of his head and moved on.

  I gave him all the information he needed: where Ryan worked, his Social Security number, the name of our bank and a lot of other seemingly insignificant details. He made note of everything.

  When we neared the end of our conversation, McVey said, “I’m gonna check this dude out. My gut tells me there’s more to this than meets the eye.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “We’ve gone through a rough patch, and he probably just got tired of the situation.” I explained about giving up Baby Girl and how, despite all our trying, we’d not been able to have another baby.

  “We’ll see,” McVey said. Then we shook hands, and he said he’d call as soon as he’d had a chance to look into everything.

  I left his office happier than I’d arrived. There was an odd satisfaction in thinking I could conceivably take away the thing Ryan prized most. It seemed like poetic justice since he’d made me give up Baby Girl because of the damn boat.

  ~ ~ ~

  A week later I got a message from McVey. I called, and he asked me to come in.

  “I’ve got something for you,” he said.

  I had appointments lined up for most of the day, so it was close to five when I got there. The woman wasn’t at the reception desk, so I stood around for a minute or two then called out as she had.

  “Hello there…”

  Seconds later McVey stuck his head out. “Sorry. I was wrapping up a phone call.”

  I followed him back to his office, and we sat as we had before. He pulled a large manila envelope from the drawer and laid it on the desk.

  “I was right,” he said and pushed the envelope toward me. “This is why he wanted you out of the house.”

 
I opened the envelope. Inside were pictures of Ryan and a girl who looked to be about fifteen. She had long blond hair and was quite obviously pregnant. He had his arm circling her waist the same way he did with me when we first moved to Burnsville. Tears filled my eyes as I sat there looking at those first two pictures.

  “There’s more,” McVey said. He pushed those pictures aside and uncovered a third and fourth where the two of them were walking into our house. Ryan was carrying an unfamiliar suitcase—most likely hers.

  “She looks pregnant,” I said, stating the obvious.

  “She is,” McVey replied. “And from what I can gather it’s his.”

  It’s odd the things that come to mind at a time like this, but my next question was, “When is she due?”

  “Sometime in January.”

  “That means he’s been seeing her…”

  McVey read my thoughts and nodded. “Seven months.”

  This thought made my blood boil. All the while I believed we were trying to have a baby and blamed myself for the failure, he was shacking up with somebody else and making a baby of his own. In that single moment I came to hate Ryan more than I’d ever thought possible.

  “So,” McVey said, “do you want to rethink what you want in this divorce settlement?”

  “You bet I do!” I replied angrily. “I want the boat and a fifty percent buy out on all the investment properties.”

  McVey grinned. “Good. I’ll also include he has to pay for all legal fees.”

  When I left his office that evening I knew Nicole had been right. McVey was exactly what I needed.

  Who Gets What

  My life had been one long stretch of leaning on other people. As a toddler I’m certain I leaned on Mama, but honestly speaking I can’t remember such a time. I do remember being a young girl and looking to Daddy for almost everything. Once he was gone, I slid Ryan into that spot and leaned on him. Then when I got pregnant with Baby Girl, Ryan became emotionally unavailable and I leaned on Ophelia Browne. She gave me the wisdom and strength to get past what I had to do.

  Now I was through with leaning on anybody. It was time I stood on my own two feet and learned to take care of myself. I didn’t mean I wouldn’t have friends, but I wasn’t going to use those friends as leaning posts. That’s for sure.

  I didn’t have to worry about doing it with Nicole; she was the kind of friend who’d smack me in the head and say, “Get a grip!” I needed more friends like her.

  ~ ~ ~

  By the time McVey got the ball rolling, Ryan already had his own lawyer. Harold Sorenson was a man who stood a good six-and-a-half feet tall and had a booming voice that could intimidate the devil himself.

  Our first meeting was the week before Christmas in the conference room of Sorenson’s office. When McVey and I walked in, Ryan was already sitting at the long table. He looked up at me and gave a smug smile. I walked by as if he were invisible and sat on the other side of the table, not directly opposite him, more towards the end.

  Sorenson shook hands with McVey; then he sat and started the conversation.

  “Although Cheryl Ann Carter abandoned the familial home, my client as a gesture of generosity is willing to offer $5,000 in exchange for her release on any and all claims to what she refers to as jointly owned properties,” Sorenson said. “We feel this is a more than fair offer since my client is in fact the sole owner of these properties.”

  McVey chuckled and leaned back in his chair. “Fat chance,” he said and laid the manila envelope on the table along with a folder stuffed full of papers. “We’ve got your boy dead to rights.”

  Sorenson eyed him with a dubious look. “Meaning?”

  “We can start with the fact that Mister Carter gave my client no alternative but to leave because of his flagrant affair with an underage minor.” He lifted the flap on the envelope and slid the pictures out onto the table.

  Ryan’s face turned red. “Shelby’s eighteen, not underage.”

  McVey folded his arms across his chest and shook his head. “Not good enough. She turned eighteen two weeks ago. But judging from that bump in her belly I’d say you were screwing her when she was seventeen.”

  Ryan rolled his eyes and looked away.

  “Let’s not turn this molehill into a mountain,” Sorenson said. “Our objective here is to come to some sort of settlement agreement, not argue about who’s at fault.”

  “So you want to discuss finances?” McVey opened the folder. “Okay, then. In 1995 when they first moved in together, my client deposited $3,728 in their joint account.” He handed a copy of the bank statement to Sorenson. “And in the three-plus years since then her earnings have exceeded his, which means that technically he has been living off of her.”

  He leaned forward, took a small sip from the glass of water in front of him, then continued.

  “If we take a look at the first three quarters of this year alone…”—he paused just long enough to hand Sorenson another packet of statements—“…you’ll see that my client has actually been the major contributor to the bank account that funded all of the purchases, including the Lyman cabin cruiser, the rental property on Washington Street, the rental—”

  “Excuse me,” Sorenson said. “I need a moment with my client.”

  He looked at Ryan and motioned for him to step outside the room.

  “Hurry back,” McVey said. “I’ve got more.”

  They returned five minutes later. Ryan had that pissed-off look I’d come to know only too well.

  “Obviously this is not going to be a one-and-done deal,” Sorenson said. “So let’s talk about what your client wants. Then we can work on narrowing down an equitable percentage on the distribution of assets.”

  “Since your client has already ensconced his underage friend in the primary dwelling, my client feels it only fair she get the boat.”

  Ryan’s back stiffened. “Not the boat!”

  McVey ignored Ryan’s outburst and turned to Sorenson. “If your client won’t agree to this, I’ll petition the court to hold all assets in escrow until the properties are appraised and percentage of ownership can be established.”

  “She just wants to sell it,” Ryan snapped. “But that boat means something to me. I’ve put a lot of work into it!”

  Before the meeting McVey had warned me not to say anything.

  “You’ve got to realize they’ll try to trick you into saying something they can use against you,” he told me.

  At the time I’d nodded and given my promise, but now I simply couldn’t control myself.

  “That’s true, you have put a lot of work into the boat,” I said angrily. “But maybe instead of playing around on it, you should have been working on your marriage!”

  McVey turned and glared at me, so I ended my tirade and sat back.

  “I appreciate the claim that your client put a lot of work into the boat,” he said, “but my client put a lot of work into making their house a home. She’s suffered a grievous wrong because of his actions. So where do we go from here?”

  After a two-hour session of back and forth claims and blames, it was finally agreed I got the boat but with the stipulation that if I wanted to sell it Ryan had the right of first refusal. The remainder of our holdings would be appraised at current value and divvied up on a 50-50 basis.

  A Small World

  On Christmas Eve I moved out of Babe Wilson’s motel and into the small cabin on the boat. Before the stores closed that evening, I went to K-Mart and bought a little twelve-inch screen TV. On the way back to the marina, I stopped and picked up two bottles of red wine and a bag of potato chips.

  That night I sat in my tiny little cabin watching movies and trying to pretend it wasn’t Christmas Eve. Shortly after nine a storm came through, and I sat there listening to the rain as I cried my heart out. I thought back on the Christmas after Daddy died and even though we didn’t have even a sprig of pine or a lit candle, that miserable Christmas was way better than this one. At least I wasn’t a
lone.

  The loneliness of that night caused a shell to form around my heart, and I vowed I would never let anybody hurt me as Ryan had. The thing I didn’t realize then was that in closing the door to heartache, I was also closing the door to love.

  In that week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, I became a different person. You can say such a thing is impossible, but I assure you it’s not.

  ~ ~ ~

  The cabin of the boat was livable but so tiny that if you turned quickly you’d bump into yourself. The stove consisted of two small burners and a microwave that took forever to reheat a mug of coffee. Below the stove there was a square box refrigerator large enough for a six-pack of beer, a bottle of wine and a chunk of cheese or some cold cuts. If you had a loaf of bread you had to squash it into the overhead. There was no countertop. None. The entire kitchen fit into three feet of space.

  Everything in the cabin was compacted and made tiny. To use the shower, you had to flip the toilet seat down and sit; there wasn’t room enough to stand.

  There were no clothes closets, only cubbies. I could fit two or maybe three hangers on the single hook outside the bathroom door. Everything else had to be folded over again and again until it was small enough to fit in a cubby.

  This was my new life, pared down to nothing but the bare necessities. You might wonder why I would choose to live this way. I did it not because it made me happy, but because my having the boat made Ryan miserable.

  The old adage “Misery loves company” is truer than you might think. I was miserable and found a certain sweetness in making Ryan miserable also. In my mind he deserved every mean thing I could heap on him and more. He was the cause of a thousand heartaches that picked at my soul, and the thing at the top of my list was that he’d pushed me into giving up Baby Girl.

  Taking the boat from him was my twisted version of revenge. I foolishly thought that making him unhappy was more important than making myself happy. The truth was I got no joy out of the boat. I didn’t know how to operate it and wouldn’t dare try to back it out of the slip, but I stayed there to spite Ryan.