All for Maddie (6 page)

I laughed as much as possible
at the time. I wanted him to leave. I needed to see what I was being served
for.

“You sure you’re okay,” he
asked again.

“Yes, I’m fine. Don’t you
have something to do?”

“Oh, yes. Cabin twelve has a
water leak. I was heading there. I’ll see you later.”

Shit, I was never going to
find out why I was being served. Two trucks and one car all pulled in at the
exact same time. I’m not sure I have ever checked in guests that fast before. I
was asking the last name of one before the first ones even had their keys in
hand.

I looked to the empty parking
lot once the last of the three were out of the there. Sliding the letter from under
the keyboard, I sank to the desk chair.

“He wants a paternity test,”
I said out loud in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. Why would he do this?
What gave him the right? Maddie was a product of him raping me. He didn’t have
this right. Could he do this? Of course he could. I was holding the legal
binding order in my hand. I needed a lawyer. This couldn’t be. It wasn’t right.

I was in a daze, thinking the
worse. I tried over and over to tell myself I had nothing to worry about. He
had no rights over Maddie. This was ludicrous. Plain and simple. Damn. Why
didn’t I keep his number? I jumped up and went to the computer, typing in his
name. I had his address. I would probably never forget it, 2121 Wesson Court.
His street was his last name. The bastard had a street named after him. What
the hell was that theater called? They were everywhere. I couldn’t think. I
knew he probably worked in the family business. Well, I presumed anyway.

“Determination,” I called
out, remembering the theater name. How the hell did you find someone with all
these different theaters? Okay. Okay, think Whitley. His address is Lincoln.
There were only two theaters in Lincoln; one of those had to be it. Right?

Wrong…..

The phone was answered by
kids or young adults. None of which knew who the hell Alex Wesson was.

“Wesson Simulation? What the
hell does that mean?” I asked, talking to myself again, seeing the search
results in front of me. Maybe it was a different Wesson. Maybe he didn’t work
for his family. It was a long shot, but one I had to rule out.

“Wesson Simulation, this is
Janie. How may I direct your call?”

“Yes, I need to speak with
Alex Wesson, please,” I asked with a shaky voice.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wesson
doesn’t take direct calls. I can however, take your number and pass it on to
him.”

“Yeah, okay. Sure. My name is
Whitley Bradshaw and my number is 312—”

“Oh, he’s been expecting your
call,” she said, cutting me off. “Please hold.”

He was expecting my call?
Okay, get it together, Whit. This ass is not going to intimidate you into doing
anything.

“Good afternoon, Whitley. I
am impressed. You’re very prompt.”

“What the fuck do you think
you’re doing?” I yelled. I couldn’t help it. My blood went from chilled to
boiling as soon as I heard his snide little voice.

“Hmmm,” he coolly responded.
“Would you be speaking about my daughter? Or the fact that you kept her from me
for the past three years?”

“Fuck you. She’s not your
daughter.”

“I think you’re wrong. I have
a great idea. How about we let the paternity test decide that fact.”

“Did you forget that you
fucking raped me?”

“My, my, Whit. I sure hope
you don’t use that word around my daughter. You seem to speak it in every
sentence.”

“What the fuck do you want?”

“I want my daughter. That’s
what I want.”

“Stop saying that. She’s not
your daughter. You have no rights to her. You raped me. My daughter is a
product of you raping me. I will ruin you. I won’t keep it a secret any
longer,” I threatened.

He laughed. I wanted to shove
my fist down his throat. He laughed? Really?

“I look forward to you making
a fool of yourself.”

“Fuck you, Alex. You stay the
fuck away from me. You stay the fuck away from my daughter. And FUCK YOUR
PATERNITY TEST! It will be a cold day in hell before I submit to that.”

“I hear the temperature in
hell is just about to change,” he replied and hung up.

 The bastard hung up on me. I
called right back, but of course his gatekeeper wouldn’t put me through again.
I looked down at the court order: June 22, that was in three days. This wasn’t
real. This couldn’t be happening. The sad part was; I knew he was right. I
couldn’t cry rape after all these years. Who would believe me? He was going to
make me out to be the bad guy, who had kept him from his daughter. He wants his
daughter? What did that even mean?

“Lawyer, I need a lawyer,” I
said to myself again, starting a new search. I knew nothing about any of this.
What kind of lawyer did I need? I didn’t even know what he wanted. Did I need a
custody lawyer? Yeah, I guess a custody lawyer would be what I needed to
retain. Did I need one in River County where I lived or one in Lincoln where he
lived? Oh My God. My dad. My dad was going to freak, I thought, as that too
dawned on me. Why me? I didn’t deserve any of this. Maddie didn’t deserve this.

Maybe I should have scoped
out a better attorney. I set up a consultation with the first one I called. Oh
well, at least she could steer me in the right direction… hopefully. It was
going to be a long two weeks. She wouldn’t see me until I got the results back,
even after I explained that I didn’t need to wait for the results. I knew that
Alex Wesson was indeed Madelyn’s biological father.

I was extra loving toward
Maddie that night. As soon as Naomi showed up, I took my baby girl home and
gave her my upmost attention. I didn’t even care that she was a whiny brat all
night. I didn’t care that I would be cleaning the fish aquarium again in the
morning, because she decided that they needed to eat gummy worms. Fish ate
worms, so therefore she fed them worms. The water was red before I caught her.
I didn’t even care that she didn’t want her hair washed. Her hair could be
dirty as long as she was safe with me. I held her in my arms as we watched The
Princess and the Pea,
again
.

When I carried her to bed I
kissed her sleeping lips a thousand times, and then covered her up before
turning in for a long night myself. It must have been three in the morning
before my thoughts settled and I fell asleep.

I wasn’t asleep long when I
heard Maddie screaming. She didn’t normally do that. She just came and crawled
in bed with me. I went to her, sitting up on her bed as she leaped, clinging to
me.

“What’s wrong, baby? Did you
have a bad dream?”

“No. A gemin under my bed,”
she assured me.

“A gemin?” I repeated, not
sure what the heck she was talking about.

“Uh-huh, I go in your bed,
K?”

I carried her back to bed
with me and snuggled her little body close to mine.

“A gemin under you bed?” she
asked.

“What is a gemin?” I asked,
wondering if she knew herself.

She rolled to her back so she
could demonstrate with her hands.

“It dat big,” she gestured.
“Dem can’t have no water.”

“Oh, my God!” I said, sitting
up, reaching for my phone. I didn’t care that it was after two in the morning.

“What the hell, Whit?” Jaron
answered on the third ring. “Do you know what time it is?”

“YES! You freaking let her
watch
Gremlins
?”

“They’re cute,” he said.

“They’re monsters. She’s
three for God’s sake.”

“I’ll tell her they’re not
real tomorrow. Sorry, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jaron said, hanging up on me.
Grrrr. I couldn’t believe he let her watch the Gremlins.

<><><> 

I lied to my father and told
him that I couldn’t work Monday afternoon, because I had a doctor’s
appointment. I was a horrible liar. He didn’t understand why I would be taking
Maddie along with me.

“Cowboy boots!” I yelled as
the lie came to me. “Um, I want to take her with me, so that we can go to the
shoe store and get new boots.”

He looked at me peculiarly as
I buckled Maddie’s sandal, avoiding eye contact. He could always tell when I
was lying. I was going to let him down again. I was eventually going to have to
tell him about this mess. There would be no way around it. I just wished I knew
what the hell Alex was up to. Did he think he was going to get visitation and
take her to Lincoln without me? That would never happen. I would shoot him
between the eyes first.

Maddie and I went into town
to the clinic where they swabbed her mouth. She cried at first, thinking she
was at the dentist when the nurse wanted her to open her mouth. She had just
had her teeth cleaned the week before, and it was still fresh in her memory and
mine. What a nightmare that was.

We had lunch at Chucky Cheese
in the mall and walked to the shoe store at the other end. I tried my best to
talk her into a cute little pair of saddle shoes with pink laces. She wanted no
part of them. She wanted the eighty dollar, not red, but green cowboy boots.
Green. Ugh. They were going to go great with all of her pink and purple
outfits. And why do size 10, little girl’s shoes need to cost eighty bucks? She
wouldn’t wear ten dollars of them before she outgrew them.

I should have declined the
spaghetti supper at my dad and Dana’s that evening. I should have known that my
non-filtered daughter would blabber.

“I go to the dentists,
Papaw,” Maddie stated, sucking a long strand of spaghetti through her lips.

My dad looked right at me.
“You did?” he asked, turning back to Maddie.

“Uh-huh, dem
didn’t hurt me.
Dem just did dis,” she simulated the swab brushing the
inside of her cheek.

“You didn’t tell me she went
to the dentist. Wasn’t she just at the dentist?” my dad asked.

“Yeah, it was just a fluoride
treatment. She didn’t have an appointment. We just stopped in to see if they
could do it while we were there,” I lied. I was proud of myself. I pulled that
one right out of my ass and it worked. He believed me.

<><><> 

I’m not sure why I was so
nervous opening that certified letter, exactly seven days after the test. It
wasn’t like I didn’t already know what the results were going to be. Maybe I
was just hoping there was a mix up or something. There wasn’t: 99.9%. That was
a pretty accurate fact. I knew that though. What I didn’t know was what Alex’s
intentions were. I hadn’t heard one word from him or anyone else. Maybe he
decided to let it go. Maybe he realized how ridiculous he was being.

It wasn’t until three days
later that I panicked. He wanted sole custody. He would be in Split River the
following Friday for our first court date. There was no way any judge was going
to take her from me, and give her to a man that she didn’t even know. I
actually found it a little comical. I was sure my attorney would agree when I
saw her the next day.

“It seems that you have
gotten yourself in quite the pickle, Mrs. Bradshaw,” Jackie Summers said from
across her desk.

“What do you mean?” I asked,
not understanding.

“I received some interesting
information from Mr. Wesson’s attorney. Why didn’t you tell him that he had a
child? Why did you hide that fact from him?” she asked. I wasn’t sure I liked
her. She was cold with a stern persona about her.

I dropped my eyes. It’s what
I did when I was avoiding the truth.

“Ms. Bradshaw, if we are
going to work together, you need to be honest with me.”

“You’re not going to believe
me,” I said, looking up.

“It’s not a matter of me
believing you. It’s a matter of the courts believing you. Try me,” she
requested, removing her glasses.

“Alex Wesson raped me.
Madelyn was conceived during that rape.”

She didn’t falter. Did she
think I was lying? She only stared, contemplating me.

Finally, she
took a deep breath and dropped her red glasses to the desk, crossed her arms
and leaned back. “And you didn’t tell anyone?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I
was scared and young; I wasn’t even supposed to be at that party.”

“How old were you?”

“17.”

“And how many people have you
disclosed this information to?”

“One, just you,” I replied.

“I do believe you, however,
nobody else will. You waited too long for one, and I have done some background
work on this guy. He’s golden. Never been in trouble, straight A student in not
only high school, but college as well, very successful business, beautiful home
in the suburbs, and comes from a good family. I don’t think you have a leg to
stand on with that story. I don’t think we should even try. It’s just going to
make you look worse than you already do.”

“What do you mean? He’s not
going to be allowed to take her there, is he?”

“I’m sure that he will. And I
mean this,” she said, plopping a manila folder to the desk in front of me.

I noticeably gasped. I was
going to kill that mother fucker. “This is all lies. None of this is what it
seems,” I tried, looking like the biggest liar on earth, not to mention the
worst mother. The bastard was spying on me.

The first picture was Maddie,
standing up in the truck seat as I drove us down the dirt road. “She only does
that until we get to the stop sign.” I explained. Jackie didn’t respond. She
only observed me while I flipped to the next one. It was bad, Jaron was holding
a beer bottle to her lips as she took a drink. “She took a bite of some spicy
chili. That was the only thing there to cool her mouth.” Still nothing, she
just stared at me. The next one was of me hitting a joint with Jaron, while
Maddie played in the water. “I don’t smoke weed. I had a headache and Jaron
talked me into hitting it. He said it would help.” Still nothing. The next one
was me again, only this time I was topless and Jaron was between my legs on the
steps,
outsid
e of my house. Yeah, it was another one of my drunken
nights with my friends. “I am entitled to my own time. My daughter wasn’t with
me. She was with my dad. They keep her twice a month so that I can have
somewhat of a life,” I explained. “This one doesn’t need an explanation,” I
assured her, looking at the picture of Maddie standing in the shallow river,
butt naked. “She’s three. I was trying to put dry clothes on her when she ran
back into the water.”