Beyond 4/20 (11 page)

John sat very still and listened to see if the voice sounded again. It didn’t. It didn’t need to. The impact was felt. There was a verse in his little devotion book from the day before that came to mind, and though he couldn’t remember where it was located, it said something about seeking justice, loving mercy, and being humble. No, it was walking humbly with your God. That was what it said. John bowed his head and rubbed his chin. His only thoughts over the course of the evening were of annihilating Lindsey. He had the power and the means; he could literally crush her. As far as he could tell, that would be justice. She deserved it for leaving her baby.

The word
deserved
triggered a very humbling thought, though. How often had he reminded God that he didn’t deserve the life he was currently living, the happiness he felt with Chelsea? He didn’t, not after the life he had led before her.

John went to get his devotion book from the kitchen table and looked up the verse. It was Micah 6:8. It read:

“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Originally he had remembered it to say
seek
justice, but that wasn’t the case at all. Since he wasn’t the man he once was, he couldn’t take the same approach as he once would have. Annihilation and crushing were to be replaced with acting justly and mercifully. That was what the LORD required of him. For the past year he had been seeking what it meant to be wholly surrendered to Jesus. This was his first true test. Having the power and wealth to protect his family, John could use that power, or he could allow God to lead him and be willing to do what He said. That moment of decision was one of the most uncomfortable times of John’s life. Ultimately, though, he had committed to God that he would follow Him no matter where He led. So he would do things His way, but he didn’t have to like it.

The early hours of the morning was John’s truest brush with the Lord. God reminded him of how much he had changed since he met Chelsea. John was to consider that maybe Lindsey had changed as well. It wasn’t for him to judge her based on her past. He was to see who she currently was. In knowing that he would have to give her the benefit of the doubt, John fully understood the implications. If she was changed, if she sincerely regretted leaving Lucy and wanted a relationship with her, it was her right as her mother. John couldn’t stand in the way of that, no matter what he promised Chelsea. It was the first time he actually considered they might really lose Lucy.

Later that same morning, eyes burning from lack of sleep but full of determination, John stood in J. Dean Kennedy’s office. He was the attorney on record for Lindsey. The office was shabby, and John felt as if he had stepped back twenty years in time. The décor was that outdated. The assistant who showed him in was less than professional since she openly played solitaire on her computer and seemed put out by John’s arrival. All in all, the man wasn’t running a thriving practice. As he sat, John handed him his card.

Dean studied the card and then looked up at John. Sure enough, it was him. He had seen him on financial news a time or two. He was a private sort of fellow. You didn’t hear much about him other than when a big merger happened or fell through. Other than that, he stayed out of the limelight.

“I would like you to represent me here in Tulsa.”

“You know I specialize in family law?”

Dean could hardly believe John Keller was there in his office. Without question, there were other attorneys with much better pedigrees than his. Why him? he wondered.

“I do. This is a personal matter.”

He took a check out of his jacket pocket and laid it on the desk, saying, “I would like to put you on retainer.”

Dean reached for the check. He had never seen a check for fifty-thousand dollars addressed to him. In family law, he had never had a reason to see that kind of money passed along to a client. Maybe he should have gone into business law and dealt with the likes of John Keller.

Looking at John, he said, “Consider me retained.”

John nodded. “Good.”

Standing, he moved toward the small window that looked out over a parking lot. The view was of a tire store, not exactly the L.A. skyline.

“Thing is,” he said as he turned back to Dean, “it may create a conflict with another of your clients.”

Dean was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and neither did he graduate at the top of his class, but he was at least smart enough to see some caveat coming.

“How so?”

Wanting to see his expression when he said the name, John moved in closer and took a seat again. Leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees, he simply said the name, “Lindsey Aldridge.”

Dean grimaced. Distasteful mess that was, so without hesitation, he offered, “You want me to drop her? She’s dropped.”

“I don’t know yet. There may not be a conflict. I just wanted you to consider the possibility.” He leaned back in his chair and said, “I know you can’t break attorney/client privilege, and I wouldn’t ask you to, but is there anything I should know? Any extenuating circumstances with this girl?”

“If you mean extenuating circumstances that affect this case, I would say the boyfriend.”

He wasn’t the client, but he was sure the driving force behind the girl’s petition. While he wouldn’t exactly call her blameless, he could tell that the boyfriend was manipulating the situation, and she went right along with it.

“He’s wanting to open a business of some sort. Auto body, I think.”

“I suppose he needs money for that?”

“As you would for any new business.”

“Think this is about money?” John knew he was putting Dean in a bad position by asking.

Without answering, he answered, “Isn’t everything?”

Dean had known all along that it was about the money. Lindsey said on several occasions that her ex owned a big farm and could afford child support when she got custody. Once even, Joe or Joey, or whatever the boyfriend’s name was, mentioned that maybe the father would want it to go away badly enough to give them a
chunk of the pie
- his exact words.

Since only Lindsey was the client, he added, “The boyfriend is where I would start.”

John held out his hand. “For me, this isn’t about the money. I’ll do whatever it takes to resolve this. Can I count you in?”

Glancing at the check on his desk, Dean said, “Absolutely.”

After his meeting with Dean while his legal team met in the office of one of the top firms in Tulsa, John met with the detective face to face. They agreed to meet in a coffee shop near John’s hotel. He had taken a room in the middle of town so that he would be able to manage all that was underway. Though he didn’t plan to stay the night, as he would never leave Chelsea alone, he needed a place to make calls and plan his next steps.

“I hope she’s not marrying your son or something.”

Carl was loading his coffee with artificial sweetener. He had gotten the call the afternoon before with instructions to find out everything he could about the girl. She was a pretty nasty piece of work.

John surveyed the detective. The man was a heart attack waiting to happen. He could barely fit in the booth, and his shirt was bulging at each button hole. His breathing was shallow, and he had a nose whistle with each short breath.

“No. Nothing like that.”

Carl opened the file and began, “She’s got two kids. The oldest lives with her dad. They divorced about five years ago. The other lives with his grandmother. That dad’s in the oil fields in North Dakota, but I don’t think they ever married. Now, she lives with some guy in an apartment south of Tulsa. He’s got a record a mile long. Three years was his last stint, breaking and entering. No record on her, but she’s gone through rehab twice. Filed bankruptcy two years ago. Can’t seem to hold down a job longer than a month or two. She filed for disability for depression. It was denied. She claimed three work-comp suits. Lost all of ‘em. All in all, nice girl.”

John sighed. Apparently she hadn’t changed. If anything, it seemed as if she were spiraling out of control, and John could hardly imagine the Lord would want Lucy living in that kind of upheaval and, even worse, with a convict. But he wasn’t the judge, John had to remind himself; God was.

“Got an address on the boy’s grandmother?”

From there, John drove immediately to the address Carl gave him. It was a nice neighborhood, not affluent, but nice. In front of the modest house, there was a shiny new tricycle sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. John smiled. Someday, he would have a tricycle on his sidewalk. On his way to the door, he stopped, leaned down, and rolled the trike a few inches, which caused him to grin again. Sometimes that little mound of Chelsea’s stomach hardly seemed like a baby, but then in moments like these, there was this shouting voice that reminded him he was going to be a dad.

The lady who met him at the door wasn’t at all what he expected. She was John’s age. Often he forgot he could be a granddad. He introduced himself as a mediator in the custody case regarding Lindsey’s older child. Laura, the grandmother, seemed surprised to hear about Lucy, and she shook her head as if she shouldn’t be.

Laura stepped out onto the porch, not willing to invite the stranger in, no matter how absolutely beautiful he was.

“I never knew she had another one.”

She tried to hide her true feelings. She was working on taming her tongue.

“She does. A little girl.”

John glanced at the tricycle. “How long has her son lived with you?”

“Since he was two. He’s nearly four now.”

She smiled. The thought of her only grandson always made her do so. At first, she was terribly angry at having to start over with another child, but quickly she realized that having young ones can keep you young if you put it in the right perspective.

“Does she visit often?”

John was trying to put the pieces of Lindsey’s life together based on facts, prior to meeting her.

“She did early on, but not in the past year. She got tied up with a new fella. Visits stopped then.”

By that point, Laura knew her facial expressions were giving her away. That boyfriend of Lindsey’s was nothing but trouble. Having had a son who had been in trouble most of his life, she could spot trouble from a mile away.

“She can stay away for good as far as I’m concerned. Tristan doesn’t remember her anyway. I’m all he knows now.”

John smiled. “I’m sure you’re doing a fine job with him. It’s her loss.”

“I’m doing it alone, which ain’t easy, but we get by.”

Laura returned the smile and looked at his hand. Yep, married. Just her luck.

“I imagine not.”

John took a step back. “Thanks. You’ve been very helpful.”

As he walked toward his car, he dialed Irene. “I need you to find a way to provide for a family here in Tulsa. Make sure there’s no connection to me.”

John gave Irene Laura’s name and the address. After hanging up, he sat in the car and looked back up at the house, watching the face of a small boy appear in the screen door. His hair was dark, but as far away as he was, he couldn’t tell if his face looked anything like Lucy. That was Lucy’s little brother in there. So he mattered, and so did the grandmother who was sacrificing to raise him properly. John would ensure she had a much easier job ahead of her.

Chapter 6

T
uck walked out onto the front porch after getting Lucy settled into bed. This was a night he would normally drive out to the house site, but he couldn’t do that when Lucy was home. Since he was afraid she would wake and need him, he only went when she was staying at Chelsea’s. Recently, he had felt the need to do that less often, but this was a night he needed it if there ever was one.

Spending time with Chelsea shook him up. For the most part over the past months, he had done pretty well. He wasn’t over her by any means, but he was coping better. Once he knew she was pregnant, that created a shift in him and he knew things had to become different. It was time to move on. As happy as he saw she was, he began a new way of praying. No more did he pray for the waiting; instead, he prayed to let her go and for God to remove her from his heart. Night after night he prayed the same thing. Up until the day before, he had thought it was working.

Not only did thoughts of Chelsea weigh heavily on his heart, so did thoughts of Lindsey. Since receiving the petition for custody, he had experienced every range of emotion where she was concerned. He was angry. He felt guilty. His earlier thoughts of Chelsea and how he had envisioned her while with Allison made him face how often he did the same thing while with Lindsey, almost every time until after Lucy was born. After that, he had at least tried to fully engage with Lindsey for Lucy’s sake.

When Lindsey first came to live on the farm, things were tense and awkward. Though his mother tried to be kind to Lindsey, she didn’t make it easy. She was so sick during the earliest part of her pregnancy that she often stayed in bed, refusing to come downstairs with his parents. At first, he thought maybe it was because she was embarrassed, but he quickly learned that she simply didn’t like being around them, and she often told him so. She said they were too goody-goody for her and that all church people were alike. Once, she told Tuck he proved her point, how when he was at school he talked about having a relationship with God and acted as if he were somehow better than everyone else, but she reminded him, it sure didn’t take much to sleep with her. How could he argue with that?

In those early days, she was most often plain mean, mean to his parents and to him. She refused to go to church because they were a bunch of judgmental hypocrites. Many times she admitted she wished she would have had the abortion rather than marrying him. She had expected life with him to be different and openly expressed her disappointment over the reality of farm life and the hours he put in at work.

At the memory of those early months, he couldn’t help but think back to that first night, the night that changed the course of his life forever. In the beginning he really did try to stop Lindsey’s advances. Her best friend was dating his roommate and often stayed the night. That night, Lindsey was there with her. She had been there several times and had tried to talk to Tuck and get him to hang out with them, but as he usually did, he went on to his room and went to sleep. Just after midnight, he woke to find her naked in his bed. He was furious at first and told her to get out, but the more she touched him, the less he struggled. Eventually, lost in the feel of her warm skin against his, he closed his eyes, and for the first time envisioned he was making love to Chelsea.

Once Lindsey moved back home with him, for the longest time, he would have nothing to do with her physically. The thought of touching her made him sick, but as she grew larger with his baby, the more she began to feel awkward and undesirable, the more his heart began to soften toward her – not her exactly, but her as the mother of the child he was growing to love. It was after the ultrasound that the reality of his little girl set in. He could vividly see her face, and from that point forward, he was her daddy. Since Lindsey happened to be his baby’s incubator, he set out to do whatever he could to make things right for her. Never was his heart truly in it, but at least he put up a good front. From that point forward, when Lindsey reached for him in bed at night, asking him to hold her, he would switch out the light and pretend. As much as he should have felt guilty about the way he withheld his heart from Lindsey, he didn’t. If there was conviction over the way he was treating his wife, it intermingled so closely with his grief over losing Chelsea that he could never distinguish between the two.

After Lucy was born, however, everything changed. Certainly he didn’t love Lindsey, but he at least cared for her as the mother of his child. He pictured a life together raising Lucy, and because of that, decided to go
all in
. From the moment they brought Lucy home from the hospital, he truly began to engage in their marriage, but it seemed the more he drew near, the more Lindsey withdrew. Especially as she began to lose her baby weight and feel like her old self again, she became much more like the person who arrived in the beginning. She became outright mean. He could hardly count the number of times she expressed how much she hated her life with him. They were both so miserable then, but at least he had Lucy to bring him joy. Lindsey was clearly as detached from Lucy as she was from him, and every month she grew more and more so.

One evening when Lucy was only three months old, he came in to find his mother caring for Lucy. She said Lindsey went out. As much as they had been arguing, he really didn’t care and simply went about his business. He fed Lucy, bathed her, and put her to bed that night. Every moment with his daughter was like a gift to him. Never once did he regret having her. No matter how Lindsey felt, no matter how she treated him and told him how much she hated being married to him, Lucy was worth it all. So he simply tolerated her.

That first night, Lindsey came in late, long after he went to bed. He heard her but didn’t say anything even though he could smell alcohol when she slid into bed next to him. Sadly, that night was just the beginning. At first, he didn’t say a word about it. Truthfully, life was peaceful when she was gone, so why try to change it? Eventually, though, he began to get angry about it. Obviously, she was out sleeping around while married to him. If not sleeping around yet, it would happen soon enough. After a few weeks of not knowing where she was going, he finally decided to go out and look for her. It wasn’t hard to find her since there were only three bars in the area. That first time walking into a bar and finding his wife drunk and hanging on some greasy low-life was the worst. He could hardly believe such a woman could be the mother of his precious little baby.

When he walked in and they made eye contact, he could see the look of panic in her eyes. Clearly, since he had not sought her out before, his face was the last sight she expected to see. Without saying a word, he grabbed her arm and dragged her out of her chair. The long haired biker next to her didn’t appreciate his actions, though, and pulled a knife on him. Before Tuck knew what happened, he was cut on the arm and bleeding all over Lindsey. She began screaming, not at Tuck, but at the biker. Being so angry at Lindsey, Tuck could hardly feel the pain of the wound, so he proceeded to knock the biker around until the man finally passed out. There was this blur of his surroundings, people looking on, some appeared tempted to jump in on their friend’s behalf, but Tuck was crazed that night. It would have taken a small army to bring him down. At one point just before the biker passed out, Tuck realized how easily he could kill the guy but still he pounded on him. In some way, it was his only outlet against Lindsey.

When he finally got Lindsey in the truck and headed for home, she turned on him and began to scream how much she hated him and how much she wanted to leave. After all that had been said and done over the past months, he had become numb to her vile and hateful comments. Pulling over onto the shoulder of the road, he put the truck in park and grabbed her by the shoulders, something he had never done before. Never once had he laid a hand on her. She was silent, fearing he was about to hit her.

Through gritted teeth, he said, “You can leave anytime you want, but don’t think you’ll ever take my daughter. You don’t deserve her. Until you leave, you’re my wife, and I’m not going to let you do this to yourself.”

After that night, he never went after her that he didn’t carry a gun tucked in his waistband. Whether he found her in a bar or a motel, he would drag her back home, throw her in the shower to sober her up, and get her to bed once she passed out. It was the most miserable existence, never knowing what he would arrive home to find. Some nights she would be there, sulking; some nights she would be gone. Either way, whatever he went home to was hell.

Shaking off such disturbing memories from the past, disgusted to know that the chaos Lindsey caused then was back in his and his daughter’s life again, Tuck wondered if John was making any progress. He had considered calling Chelsea earlier in the afternoon. It was his afternoon to pick Lucy up from school, so he didn’t see Chelsea that day. He was going out of his mind wondering what was happening. Though John had only had one day to begin working on things, he at least wanted to know what John’s attorneys were saying. Did they agree with his attorney? Was it possible that Lucy would have to spend even a minute alone with that woman?

Chelsea heard John pull into the drive. Before he could even get out of the car, she was there in the driveway. He had called to say he was making progress and for her not to worry, but she was worried and would be until John could resolve this. He had been gone since early morning and she missed him. Lucy hadn’t come over that day and she missed her. Though her mother came at John’s insistence and spent the day, she was lonely. She wanted her husband and her daughter. All day she had this terrible fear that she was going to lose Lucy. Such fears dominated her thoughts, and before long, she was feeling weak and dizzy and had to rest for much of the afternoon.

Taking her into his arms, John whispered, “Baby, it’s going to be okay.”

“I’ve been a mess today. I can’t stop thinking that maybe we’ll lose her.”

The more John got to know about Lindsey, the more he realized he couldn’t allow that to happen. After leaving Laura’s house he tracked down Joey, Lindsey’s boyfriend. Catching him at work, John introduced himself as he did to Laura, saying he was a mediator for the custody case. He never said court appointed mediator, so he was never dishonest. If anything, he considered himself God appointed.

Joey was basically what he expected, rough, arrogant, and out for number one. Based on his conversation with him, Joey cared less for Lindsey than she likely knew. He was hoping for a settlement with Lucy’s father rather than custody. He went as far as to say that unless she got some money out of the deal, he would split. The last thing he wanted was to raise a kid. It was during that conversation that John wished he could take one day off from his Christian walk and handle things like the old him, but that wasn’t possible, so he instead thanked Joey for his time and moved on.

On his way home, he had called Chelsea with his latest update. Of course, never once throughout the day had he told her what he had found out about Lindsey. How could he expect her to keep calm considering the picture that was emerging of Lucy’s mother? That was not at all a woman who needed to raise a little girl, especially their little girl.

Once John finally got Chelsea settled into bed, he spent the next few hours trying to sort through all he had learned that day. His legal team was divided as to whether she was likely to be awarded even partial custody. One made the comment that if she didn’t show up in the courtroom with a needle hanging out of her arm, the judge would likely grant some level of custody. John wasn’t willing to risk that. Joey, though unlikely to stick around long once a child was present, was not someone he would ever want Lucy around, even for a weekend.

Act justly and love mercy
. Those words came to mind again. It wouldn’t be just for Lindsey to get custody of Lucy. With the current life she was living, she would do more damage to Lucy than good. As for mercy, John wondered how that fit in, so he prayed. It wasn’t long before he began to understand. Since he had yet to meet Lindsey in person and was forming his opinion of her based on what others said about her, he needed to see her for himself, to see if he could find even a shred of motherly love for Lucy in her heart. If he did find that, he knew it wasn’t up to him to keep her away from Lucy. It wasn’t his right. That would be unjust. Mercy would require him to allow Lindsey to be part of Lucy’s life if she wanted to be.

When John entered the attorney’s office, he laid another fifty-thousand-dollar check on Dean’s desk. Dean looked up at him and asked, “You haven’t exactly gotten your last fifty-thousand-dollars’ worth yet.”

“You’ll have to earn this one.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Represent Lindsey.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

“I’ll let you know where to have her tomorrow. We can negotiate a settlement then.”

“What exactly do you want me to do?”

John sat down in the chair across from Dean’s desk.

“Make sure she’s well represented. Negotiate on her behalf. Make sure she doesn’t get run over by me or my attorneys.”

Dean shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re up to.”

John sighed. “I won’t let her have custody of Lucy, not in any form. I’ll make a grease spot of her before I’ll allow that to happen. If, however, she wants another shot at being a mom, of at least having some supervised visitation and getting to know her little girl, I’ll allow that. I will make it possible for her to live near Lucy and make a home for herself so that she can be a part of her daughter’s life. She’ll never have to work a day until Lucy’s grown. But let me stress this again, I will not allow her to take Lucy, not ever.”

Dean never could figure how John fit in to the whole equation. “Mr. Bradshaw has a good friend in you, Mr. Keller.”

“John. And I’m not a friend of Tuck’s. I’m Lucy’s friend.”

Dean scowled. Obviously John understood that Lindsey was only in it for the money. “Why not just get Lindsey out of the picture?”