What No One Else Can Hear (31 page)

“No danger to the children? Your son has a broken leg!”

“A fall from a ladder is hardly anything you can claim to be premeditated even if you could connect me with the fire, which you can’t, and for the record, I am denying all culpability.”

“He wouldn’t have been on the ladder had there not been a fire.”

Liston just sat smugly behind his desk.

I continued to rail at him. “Why all of this just to keep from honoring your deal? It’s not as if you’d miss the thousand a month. You wouldn’t even miss Stevie! Hell, you’ve only laid eyes on him twice in the last six years. What would it matter to give me custody?”

“If it was only a matter of custody, I wouldn’t care. I’d give it to you today. But I can’t figure out a way to, as you said before, ‘put a positive spin on it.’ I need my constituents to continue to believe the doting father routine. I don’t want to take the chance of alienating anyone I might need later.”

“If we can come up with a legitimate-looking reason for the custody change, would you consider it?” I was reduced to pleading. I’d do anything to get this man away from Stevie.

“I doubt it; it’s just too big of a risk, too likely to be seen in a bad light.”

“Well, Mr. Liston, how about the chance you are taking right now?” If pleading didn’t work, I’d try blackmail again. “I still have all the ammunition I ever had. You promised before to give Stevie to me to keep me from turning this over to the press. There’s nothing to keep me from it now.”

“Yes there is,” he said with that self-righteous look I would have loved to knock off his face. “You’ve given me time to get my ducks in a row. If you release any of that now, I can refute it. It won’t do nearly the damage to the election as it would have since I’m running unopposed. And I will just move young Steven into a better clinic across the country—or maybe even out of the country. I hear quite remarkable strides are being made with the treatment of autism in Europe.”

God, that couldn’t happen. That was why I was fighting so hard to get custody of Stevie in the first place, to prevent that very kind of scenario. I’d barely found him in time originally. He was doing so much better, even using his empathy at will occasionally, but he still had problems from time to time, and if my research and Drew’s theories were correct, my simply being around had something to do with affording him the opportunity to work on his control. I wasn’t sure he could continue to do so well if I was taken away again, especially if he was ripped from everyone he had ever known. I was convinced the only reason he was still so reachable the first time was because of all the loving people at the center who had known him his whole life.

“You can’t
do
that. He needs me to help him through all of this. You heard about what it did to him the last time you separated us.”

Mr. Liston knew he had scored on that one. He didn’t have to answer. He just sat in his chair with that damned self-satisfied smile. I couldn’t let the situation stay there, though. I squared my shoulders and tried to recapture some of the steam I had worked up.

“How will your constituents feel when they find out about your involvement with the fire?”

“You can’t prove I
was
involved. The man who started the fire is long gone by now. He certainly had enough money to be, even after paying his bail.”

“Chuck. I knew it was him
.”

“
So you see, Mr. McKinnon, you really do not call the shots here. You can’t prove
anything.
All you can really do is produce some financial records, old letters, visitors’ logs, and other old documents that show I wasn’t involved with my son over the years and that I perjured myself in court. But papers can be aged, documents forged. I can claim yours are fake. And I’ve had time to make documents of my own. It’ll be yours against mine. Who do you think the public will believe?

“Do yourself a favor, Mr. McKinnon. Go back to your little center. Work for pitiful wages if you want. You can spend all the time you want with Stevie. I’ll leave you in peace as long as suits my interests. But be assured, if you cross me again, I’ll move Stevie across the world, and I don’t really care what effect it has on either of you.”

His voice retained the same steady, calm tone he’d had throughout the meeting as he handed me the file from his desk and said, “Get out, Mr. McKinnon. You don’t have anything I need.”

I reached into my inside coat pocket. “Yes, Mr. Liston, I think I do.”

I touched a button, rewound the tape a little, and then pressed Play. From the tiny speaker came “…I’ll move Stevie across the world, and I don’t really care what effect it has on either of you.”

I thumbed another button and stopped the playback.

I
loved
watching the bastard sputter. “I have the whole conversation, Liston. Should I wind it back further?”

He sat for at least a full minute, thoroughly stunned. When he finally found his voice, he stammered, “That’s not enough to really prove anything criminal. Tha—that’s not even admissible in court.”

“Maybe not,
sir
, but it would sure make a hell of a good sound bite on the six o’clock news, not to mention it’ll probably go viral ten seconds after I post it on YouTube.”

T
HREE
DAYS
later found us in the chambers of a judge friend of Kyle’s. He agreed to officiate the adoption and keep quiet about it if anyone should ask. Publicly Stevie would remain Mr. Liston’s son. I didn’t care, as long as legally he was mine
.

I understood from Kyle that the child wasn’t always included in the legal part of the adoption and often didn’t even have to talk to a judge or anyone official, but Judge Harris liked to talk to “his kids” before making such an incredible change in their lives. Besides which, he informed me, he just wanted to meet the young man who had caused all the media hoopla lately. So Drew, Dottie, and I stood with Stevie and Kyle, while Mr. Liston and his lawyer breezed in seven minutes late. I imagined that was to give himself some illusion of control.

Judge Harris addressed Stevie. “Hey there, young man. You mind if I talk to you a minute?”

“Nope, you can talk,” Stevie answered, studiously looking around the room.

Drew and I just gave each other a look. I think we both figured drawings and paintings of the inside of the judge’s chambers would turn up all over the hall in the next week or so.

“We are here today because Jesse wants to be your new daddy.”

Stevie glanced at me but said to the judge, “What’s that?”

Thank God Kyle had filled the judge in on just what was happening here, including that Liston wasn’t really the doting father he wanted everyone to think he was. It was a testament to just how defeated Liston felt that he didn’t launch into the “poor little fragile child doesn’t understand the concept of a father due to his disability” speech. Hell no, Stevie didn’t understand the concept of a father. He’d never
had
one.

Anyway, the judge explained. “That’s a man who always takes care of you, all of the time, and loves you, and always tries to do what’s best for you, no matter what.”

“Oh.” Stevie looked puzzled. “Then Jesse already
is
my daddy.”

That seemed to answer everything for
him
, and he wandered over to the corner of the room and became mesmerized by the pendulum on the grandfather clock.

“Well, gentlemen—and lady—I guess we’ve just been dismissed.” The judge chuckled. So did everyone else on our side of the room. The other lawyer looked bored, and Liston looked contemptuous, but I was beginning to think that was just his resting face, at least when he was anywhere near me.

The judge continued with a few questions. He wanted to make sure Liston knew he was giving up all parental rights and could not just decide he wanted them back at some later date. Liston was fine with that. Judge Harris asked me if I was going to allow Mr. Liston to continue visiting the boy. Liston answered that it wouldn’t be necessary to include that provision.

We finally hammered out all the intricate details, and all parties necessary signed the document. Liston breezed out as soon as he finished the
n
on his name, as though just about
any
place was more important to be than here. I thanked him as he passed me. Not sarcastically—I seriously thanked him. He snarled and didn’t respond.

That was that. Stevie was actually mine—my son! At the moment my son was busy removing all the books from the judge’s bookshelves and putting them back according to color. Ah, the joys of parenthood.

I offered, and Drew and Dottie both agreed, to put the books back in the right order, but the judge just chuckled and said he had young nephews, so this wasn’t the first time the books had gotten mixed up.

I
T
WAS
still early, and we had all been too nervous to eat breakfast before the meeting, so we stopped at the nearest IHOP. Stevie loved waffles and had never been to a restaurant for breakfast, so we thought it would be a treat. We found a booth in a quiet corner of the restaurant. Drew and Dottie filed in on one side, Stevie and I on the other.

Stevie accepted his order of waffles and began to meticulously cut them along the raised lines. This was another ritual, like the pizza, sandwich, and french fries. This was the only way he would eat it, so we let him cut his waffle. Then he took the syrup and carefully filled the hole in each piece of waffle—just to the top, not a drop more or less. Hey, it made breakfast entertaining. Drew always commented that eating with Stevie was like getting dinner and a show.

Once finished with the ritual, Stevie ate with gusto. The three adults ate between bits of conversation. We always seemed to have a lot to talk about when we were together, even though we saw each other all the time. Consequently, Stevie finished eating well before we did and started using his place mat to draw the judge’s grandfather clock. Dottie said she’d have to see about getting one of those for when Stevie was at the house, since he liked them so much. She still had some of Liston’s money left.

We were still in deep conversation when Stevie abandoned his finished drawing and reached across the table for Drew’s place mat. Drew lifted his plate and let him have it. I’d have to see if I could do anything to
un
wind the staff from around Stevie’s finger… one of these days.

Drew tried to get Stevie to join the conversation. “Hey, Stevie, so now you have a dad. And since Dottie has all but adopted Jesse, I guess that makes her sort of your grandma.” Stevie looked like he was waiting for Drew to continue, so he did. “You know, like Lydia’s grandma.”

That actually got his attention a little more. “Lydia’s grandma brings cookies.” And he looked at Dottie challengingly.

“Grandmas don’t
have
to bring cookies. Sometimes you just visit them at their house, and sometimes they buy you waffles at IHOP.”

I hadn’t realized Dottie was paying, but it was fine with me.

“Okay” was Stevie’s response, and he went back to his drawing—another picture of me. Off center, so maybe it would have the forest behind it or something by the time he finished.

Dottie looked at Drew and commented, “And, young man, I’ll have you know I am
not
old enough to be a grandmother of a nearly teenaged boy.”

Both Drew and I chuckled. Technically speaking, at forty-seven, it was possible for her to have a grandchild Stevie’s age, but we both valued our lives a little too much to mention that.

“Ryan has a grandma,” Stevie said. “I saw a picture.”

“Yes, he does,” Dottie agreed. “I met her once, but it’s been a few years.” She turned to Drew and added, “And she was a good bit
older than me.”

Stevie was thinking. “So I have a daddy and a grandma like Ryan?”

“Yep,” Drew answered.

“Ryan has a mom too,” Stevie noted. “Who’s my mom?”

I intervened. “Not everyone has a mom and a dad. Some kids have just a dad, like Freddie on 3-A. Some people just have a mom, like Gloria from your classroom.” I was thinking about all the different kinds of families and which of Stevie’s acquaintances I could point out as examples, but Stevie beat me to the punch.

“Jacob has two dads.” He looked at Drew. “Did the judge make you my dad too?”

Drew choked on his soda, I became
very
interested in my pancakes, and Dottie wasn’t even trying to hide her laughter. I think she was counting that as full payback for the grandma remark. Stevie decided he probably wasn’t going to get an answer and went back to his drawing. Drew looked at me as if he was filing that away to be talked about later, and Dottie was now practically in spasms from laughing.

When we finally got Dottie settled down, we went back to talking, mostly about what would happen next. Sara had told me a while ago that the board of directors had agreed, if I got custody, to put $100,000 of the center’s settlement into a trust fund for Stevie. They realized that even if William Liston did
want the rest of the world to still think he was superdad, he would be under no legal obligation to continue paying anything
for Stevie, let alone anything near enough to support him after he left the center. No one thought he would leave the center permanently anytime soon, but if he didn’t leave before he was eighteen, it would have to happen that year. The center could only house children, and I wouldn’t even entertain the
possibility of having Stevie in a residential facility for adults, so the trust fund would certainly help. Until then, my pay would supply Stevie with anything the center didn’t. Dottie and Drew both said they had already been approached by staff who wanted to contribute money to a savings account for Stevie that would handle the extras.

By the time we were ready to leave, Drew quietly kicked me under the table and nodded toward Stevie’s drawing. We had all become absorbed in the conversation and hadn’t looked at it lately. Beside me in the drawing, was a smiling Stevie. His first self-portrait. We all watched silently as he put the finishing touches on it.