Chapter 7 - What He Wants Now
Maya read Graham's proposed schedule twice before speaking.
"This is reasonable."
I hated her for three seconds.
"Whose side are you on?"
"Yours. That's why I'm not lying to you."
We were sitting in her office overlooking the Chicago River. Owen slept in a stroller beside me, one tiny sock already missing.
Maya tapped the document.
"Two weekday visits. One longer Saturday visit. Still no overnights until he's older. Gradual increases if things go well. That's not a custody grab."
"He changed his mind in six weeks."
"People do that."
"He told me to leave the country."
"We have that in writing?"
"No. It was a phone call."
"Then we have your account of it, which matters. But we also have six weeks of documented visits he has actually attended."
"He was late once."
Maya looked over her glasses.
"Claire."
"I know."
"Do you?"
I stared at the river.
"I don't want him to take Owen away from me."
There it was.
Not anger.
Fear.
Maya's voice softened.
"Is he asking to?"
"No."
"Has he threatened to?"
"No."
"Then don't fight a battle that isn't happening."
I looked down at Owen.
"He has more money. More influence. More people."
"And you have full custody in the current temporary order, a documented caregiving history, and no evidence that Graham is trying to remove you from Owen's life. Money is not a magic custody wand."
"I know that intellectually."
Maya smiled slightly.
"How generous."
I glared at her.
She had stolen Graham's line on purpose.
"I hate you."
"Pay your invoice anyway."
We agreed to most of the schedule.
I added one condition: no introductions to romantic partners without discussion first.
Graham accepted it without argument.
That should have made me feel better.
Instead, it made me wonder what was happening with Vanessa.
I did not ask.
Then Vanessa called me herself.
"I need to tell you something before you hear it from someone else," she said.
My first thought was pregnancy.
I despised myself for how quickly my brain reached for the most dramatic possibility.
"Okay."
"Graham and I broke up."
I sat down at the kitchen table.
"I'm sorry."
She laughed once.
"Are you?"
"Not particularly. But it seemed polite."
"Fair."
There was a long pause.
"Did it happen because of Owen?" I asked.
"Not exactly."
"That's an interesting answer."
"It happened because Graham kept acting like the only choices were me or his son. I told him I never asked him to choose that."
I said nothing.
"He kept saying he could keep things separate," Vanessa continued. "Visit Owen, come home to me, live the life we'd planned. But there wasn't a version of that life that didn't involve his child existing."
"You told him you don't want children."
"I don't."
"And he wants to be a father now."
"I think he's trying to find out if he does."
That was more honest than I expected.
"Why are you telling me?"
"Because people will assume you won."
I frowned.
"I didn't know there was a competition."
"There was to me. For a long time."
Her voice dropped.
"I need you to know I am not leaving because you beat me. I'm leaving because the life Graham promised me was built on pretending Owen could be removed from the equation. I don't want that life anymore."
"Neither do I."
"I know."
After we hung up, I sat at the table for several minutes.
I expected satisfaction.
Instead, I felt tired.
Vanessa had been cruel to me.
She had also spent three years waiting for a man who kept telling her his real life would begin later.
That did not excuse her.
It simply made her less convenient to hate.
Graham arrived that evening for his visit looking like he had not slept.
He did not mention the breakup.
I did not either.
For forty minutes, we talked only about Owen.
Then, while Graham warmed a bottle, I said, "Vanessa called me."
His shoulders went still.
"Why?"
"To tell me you broke up."
"She didn't need to do that."
"Apparently she did."
He tested the bottle against his wrist.
"I'm not getting back together with you."
I stared at him.
"Excuse me?"
"I just don't want you thinking-"
I started laughing.
I laughed hard enough that Owen startled in his bouncer.
Graham looked offended.
"What's funny?"
"The fact that you thought I might interpret your breakup as an invitation."
"I didn't say that."
"You literally walked into my kitchen and announced you're not getting back together with me."
"I was trying to avoid confusion."
"There was none."
He looked down at the bottle.
"Good."
"Good."
We stood in silence.
Then I said, "For what it's worth, I'm sorry you're hurting."
He looked at me.
"You don't have to say that."
"I know."
He fed Owen on the couch while I folded laundry.
Halfway through the bottle, Graham said, "I did love her."
"I know."
"I probably still do."
"Also believable."
"But I loved the idea of getting my old life back more than I understood the actual life we would have."
I matched two tiny socks.
"That's between you and her."
"I know."
"Stop saying you know."
"You say that a lot."
"Because you say you know things five minutes after proving you didn't."
He smiled despite himself.
Owen finished the bottle and fell asleep against his chest.
Graham looked down at him.
"I asked Daniel to revise the divorce proposal."
My hands stopped over the laundry basket.
"Again?"
"I'm not changing the property settlement."
"Then what?"
"I want regular parenting time written into the final agreement."
"We already have a temporary schedule."
"I mean long term."
I sat across from him.
"How long term?"
"As long as I'm his father."
The answer should have reassured me.
Instead, fear moved through me so quickly that my fingers went cold.
For the first time, I understood the real problem.
I had spent six weeks trying to decide whether Graham deserved a place in Owen's life.
Soon, a court would ask a different question.
May you like
Whether I could accept that the place might belong to him even when I was still angry.
