All the Waters of the Earth (Giving You ... #3) (13 page)

Both attorneys said yes. I had almost no idea what they were talking about. After the first few minutes that felt like an eternity, now it felt like an eternity in a few minutes.  It was all going so quickly now. The judge continued, “First witness, counsel?”

Carlos’s attorney spoke. “We would like to call Carlos Castro to the stand.”

I didn’t want to have to listen to him. But I did it.

For the next half hour, Carlos told the court how much he wanted to be with his son, and how he had rights as a father, and how he just wanted to spend some time with his son and I wouldn’t let him.  Guided by his attorney, Carlos testified that he was employed but he wanted Rob to spend more time with his family.

If any of that were true, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. The thing was, it was complete bullshit. Carlos didn’t care about Roberto. If he had cared, he would have been there when Rob was young. This was about money, not about Rob.

God, exes. If only they would go away and you never had to see them again. But Carlos just kept ripping the wound open again and again.

His attorney asked him about the years that he’d not spent with Roberto. Yeah, I wanted to know that, too.

With crocodile tears in his eyes, Carlos said, “After years of not having it all together, I’m now, you know, in a place where I really want to see my son. I want to be a part of his life. And I think he wants to be a part of mine. And it’s in his best interest to spend more time with me.  Because his mother is nothing more than a nude model, which is not wholesome for my son in any way.”

An indignant squeak came out of me and I wanted to stand and give him a piece of my mind, but Amelia put her arm across my chest like she was bracing me for a crash and said, “Objection, nonresponsive, move to strike.”

My heart pounded.  Seriously?  It was art.  They couldn’t use it against me.  What if the judge believed him?

“Sustained.”

What did that mean?

The judge asked Amelia if she had any questions for Carlos, but she said, “No questions at this time, Your Honor.”

Finally Carlos got off the stand and his attorney said, “Petitioner would like to call Jacob Slausen to the stand.”

The bailiff went out to the hall to get Jake.

Not looking at either me or Amelia, Jake strode confidently to the witness stand, was sworn in, and sat down.

“Mr. Slausen,” said the attorney, “isn’t it true that you are Lucinda Figueroa’s neighbor.”

“Yes.”

“And isn’t it true that you are dating Ms. Figueroa?”

“No.”

“Isn’t it true that you have a sexual relationship with Ms. Figueroa?”

Amelia stood up. “Objection. Irrelevant.”

“Overruled,” said the judge.

What did overruled mean? Did it mean we won?

Jake answered. “No.” I guess we didn’t win. But what did he mean, no? Well, I guess we had a sexual relationship but that was in the past. So Jake was telling the truth.

“No?” asked the attorney.

“No,” said Jake firmly. “I answered the question.”

“Mr. Slausen, have you ever had a sexual relationship with Ms. Figueroa?”

“Objection. Irrelevant,” said Amelia, standing up again.

“Sustained,” said the judge.

Amelia sat down. I guess that means he didn’t have to answer the question. She looked a little smug. She whispered in my ear, “That didn’t go the way Carlos’s attorney wanted it to go. The judge agreed that your past relationship with Jake doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t. So we don’t have to go there. His plan to smear you backfired. I’ll explain about the art class.  He just got shut down. That’s what that means.”

I let out a sigh of relief.

“No further questions,” said the attorney.

“Your witness, counsel,” said the judge to Amelia. She stood up, a notebook with a list of questions in her hand.

“Mr. Slausen, have you ever spent time with the minor child, Roberto Figueroa?”  Jake’s dark eyes, previously focused on Carlos’s attorney now bored into me, then turned to Amelia, answering in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Yes.”

“In what capacity?"

“I babysat him.”

Amelia closed her notebook, not needing it.  “Did you have the opportunity to observe Ms. Figueroa on any other occasions with Roberto?”

“Yes.”

“Did you form an opinion of Ms. Figueroa as a mother?”

“Yes.”  No hesitation.  Confident.

“And what is your opinion?”

Jake let out a breath. Then he looked straight at me, blue eyes blazing. “Lucinda Figueroa is the finest mother a child could want. Her child is well-cared for. She loves him and he loves her. She does everything she can to make sure that her child’s needs are put before her own.  She’s raised a respectful kid. Ms. Figueroa has clearly done everything she could to make sure that her child was raised right.”

Hearing Jake praise my son to me sutured a small portion of the gaping wound that this process had reopened.

“Did you have the opportunity to speak to Roberto about his father?”

“Yes.”

“When was this?”

“Yesterday.”  Really?

“What did he tell you?”

Jake paused. “He told me that he wants to stay with his mom. He told me that when he’s with his dad he doesn’t see his dad that much because he works on weekends.” This was news to me. “He says he’s mostly watched by his grandmother. He told me that he was worried that he was going to have to choose between his mom and his dad. I tried to reassure him that California courts don’t make children choose between their parents anymore.”

“Anything else?” asked Amelia.

“He told me that he loves his mother more than Minecraft.”

Mijo
.  My son.

“No further questions.”

Jake stepped down from the stand.

“Any further witnesses?” the judge asked Carlos’s attorney, who looked annoyed.

“No.”

“Rebuttal,” said the judge to Amelia.

Amelia called me up to the stand. In a blur, I answered all of the questions that we had practiced yesterday. About how Carlos had not been around for Roberto’s birth or early childhood. About how I had to fight him for child support in the beginning. About how I didn’t think that it was in Rob’s best interest to be uprooted at Christmas. And about how Carlos and I tried to keep it together in front of Rob.

“Is it true that you model at an art school here in Santa Barbara?” asked Amelia.

“Yes.  It’s for art students who want to learn anatomy and life drawing.”

“Are you in any relationships with a significant other right now?”

“No.”  And then I couldn’t help myself, “I haven’t been in any serious relationships since Carlos in high school.”  And I glared at him.

When I was done, I let out a sigh of relief.

Then the judge started talking and she was angry at Carlos. “You mean to tell me that after all this time, you want to take Roberto? This is not an emergency hearing. It should not have been brought on an
ex parte
basis right before Christmas. The evidence shows that the minor child has been cared for by his mother, almost entirely, for his entire life. The test is best interest of the child.  The Court finds that it is not appropriate for the father to be awarded custody for the entire winter vacation. I will award one day of visitation extra on the day after Christmas. But the remainder of the holiday, except for the regular weekend visitations, is to be unchanged. It is so ordered.”  One more day with Rob was fine.  I’d have given him that if he would have asked.

Carlos lost. 

Thank heavens.  I couldn’t even manage the strength to think,
yay
, I was so mentally exhausted.

I let out my breath that I had been holding. I needed to go home so that I could let out the tears, too. Damn all this crying lately.  I looked at Amelia and gave her a hug. “Thank you so much,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. “Not to be a damper on things, but this is just an emergency hearing. We still have a later hearing to handle, but we will have time to prepare. Jake and I came up with a strategy to protect you last night.”

“I didn’t know how you knew all that about Rob and him.”

“He called me,” she said. “We worked on it until really late last night.  Or actually this morning.”

Oh my God. He had been helping me.  Protecting me.  Shielding me from himself to protect Rob.

“Excuse me,” I said. I ran out of the courtroom. Jake waited in the hallway looking at his cell phone, immediately turning to me and putting it away at seeing me emerge from the room.

“What happened?”

“Basically, we won,” I whispered, excitedly. “Carlos gets one extra day with Rob during Christmas break. That’s it.”

“Excellent,” he whispered back. “Listen, can I talk with you?”

I nodded.

He pulled me aside, down the hall, and down into a corridor out of the way, and kept walking until my back was against the wall, his hand on one side of me.  He started talking fast, quietly and sincerely.

“I tried to stay away. I knew this was going to happen. I wanted to protect you and Rob. I know how these family law things go. They look into everything and ask you all kinds of questions about your personal life. Anything could have been twisted and used against you. I wanted to be able to answer the judge honestly. If I would have done what I wanted to, pound on your door every day since we had that fight, then that private investigator hanging out all the time would have had a lot more than innuendo. There was no way I was going to jeopardize you and Rob. So, I stayed away.”

My eyes widened and my breathing stopped.

“But I can’t do it any longer.”

“Jake,” I breathed. My voice sounded whispery, even to me. I’d just transported myself into my own romance novel and I could care less. I could talk to him again. I could hold him again. Maybe. If he’d let me. I looked down at the ground, unable to process what he had just told me. 

The mass of thoughts and emotions swirling around inside me coalesced into a few discrete thoughts. He’d been acting noble, staying away from me for my own good, for the good of my child. He had sacrificed for me and I didn’t even know it. And these thoughts warmed me. I had believed that he’d been an asshole, but there was a whole lot more going on, things that I had no idea about. He’d taken care of my child so that I could properly prepare for the custody battle.  Not only was he on my side, but he was also on Rob’s side. My child adored him. Basically, Jake had made sure we’d won my custody battle by testifying truthfully.  I had never been more grateful to another human being.

Now, all I wanted to do was get to know him better, get to know what was beyond the wall that he had put up, that kept him from letting anyone else in.  I wanted him to be mine.

He moved closer to me and gently put his hand under my chin, lifting it up to look at him, trailing his finger, caressing me.

“I don’t know if the PI will be around watching us still,” he said in a low voice. “I don’t want to hurt anything you have with Rob. But I can’t leave you alone. I can’t—”

“You’re good for Rob.”  The words came out in a rush, my body leaning in. It was my turn to get closer to him. “You pay attention to him, real attention. And you’re a steady, honest, loyal man with a great career. This
what will the judge think
stuff is bullshit. Carlos looked like a snake oil salesman up there. I mean, I’m scared, but I think that the truth will win out. Don’t you?”

“There is nothing certain in a courtroom.”  Jake took on a lawyerly tone that matched his business suit. He stepped back from me, dropping his hand and turning away. “This proceeding that Carlos brought is a big deal. You can’t lose. Rob needs you—”

“I think Rob is going to be just fine. I can’t believe that a judge would take him away from me. I mean, I raised him single-handedly his whole life.” Then I remembered something and got mad and hissed, “And I can’t believe that Carlos works on weekends when he is supposed to be taking care of Rob.”