Chapter 12

The more I thought about it, the more sure of myself and my plan I became. I had two days to think about it, and I knew I had to be absolutely sure of it before I executed it.

Today Joey was coming in for another visit, and we had talked it over and agreed that now was a better time than ever to bring Bailey in for a visit. Her fifth birthday was coming up, and I obviously had no hope of being out.

In fact, it was becoming pretty clear to me that I couldn't hope to be out before I had served a full year. I hadn't heard anything from my lawyer in two months – he hadn't called or even visited. Even Joey said phone calls came less frequently and only lasted minutes, long enough for Rich to tell him that he had been too busy working on other cases and would be able to get to it soon.

I was nearly at my breaking point. It didn't help that for the past two days, things with Abby had been awkward at best. We hadn't spoken a word about the kiss. She could barely talk to me or look me in the eye, much less talk about what happened between us. I didn't want to overstep my boundaries so I avoided talking unless I needed to, and I kept to the desk and focused on my job most of the day to avoid any uncomfortable contact with her.

Today, she had greeted me when I walked through the door that morning, but it was shortly after one in the afternoon and we hadn't talked much since then. But she sat down in the chair beside the desk to eat her lunch, surprising me.

“It's visiting day,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Do you have anybody coming?”

“Joey. And my daughter,” I said with a sigh, feeling the butterflies come back.

“I bet you're excited.”

“More nervous.”

“Why are you nervous?”

I sat the pen I was using to write down on the desk and leaned back in the chair to look at her. It was the most she had spoken to me since she had kissed me; but I wasn't going to complain.

“I'm nervous about how she's going to react, and how it's going to affect her. I'm nervous about how she's going to deal with it when she has to leave with Joey and I can't go with her. I'm nervous about what to tell her, because she's going to ask questions about this place and why I can't come home, or when I'm coming home.”

“You have two choices,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “You either tell her the truth, or you tell her a lie.”

“Thanks. That helps me a lot,” I said with a chuckle.

She got quiet and stabbed through a grape with her fork. Instead of putting it in her mouth, she looked it over for a few seconds.

“About the other day, Lance...I don't know what to say. I feel like I should apologize, but...”

“You know what, Ab,” I said, holding up my hand to silence her. “Let's just...let's not go there today, okay? I have too much to worry about today to fall down that rabbit hole and get lost there.”

Both of us went quiet and looked at each other, but quickly went back to what we were doing.

“Kids come through here every now and then,” she said. “Usually they're fine. Most of the time, the worst thing that happens is they cry when they have to leave.”

“Most of the time.”

“Ninety-five percent of the time.”

“And then there's that five percent...”

“Stop,” she said with a laugh, the first I'd heard from her in a couple of days. “I think you're worrying needlessly. I think she'll be fine. I think you'll both handle it fine.”

“You put too much faith in me.”

“You beat yourself up too much,” she said.

“Abby, my daughter's fifth birthday is in three weeks. I won't be there. I can't even help plan her party. I can't buy her a gift. I can't watch her blow out her candles.” I sighed. “Everybody says I'm beating myself up too much. Well of course I'm beating myself up – I'm missing out on a whole fucking year of my daughter's life, and I can't get it back.”

She paused and leaned in toward me.

“It's a birthday, sweetie,” she said softly. “It's only a birthday. And it's one of many birthdays. She'll have more of them. Every holiday you've been here you've beat yourself up all day over it. You've made yourself feel so bad all day because you can't be there. But it's not your fault that you're not there. It's her fault.”

She put emphasis on her; she had a certain disgust in her voice when talking about Brayden.

“There will be more birthdays, more Christmases, more Thanksgivings – and you'll be there for every one of them.”

I sighed.

“Want my advice?” she said as she stabbed through another grape.

“Can't hurt,” I said.

“Lie through your teeth to Bailey.”

I stopped and looked at her, telling her with my eyes I was displeased with her advice.

“Don't look at me like I just killed your dog,” she said. “She's four. I'm not saying you should tell her this is Disneyworld, but you shouldn't tell her the truth. And lying to her isn't going to permanently damage like you think it is.”

“A lie is a lie, Ab.”

“Do you tell your daughter that the Easter Bunny exists?”

I laughed. “Um...duh.”

“Thank you, sir, for proving my point.”

I shook my head at her, but I was grateful that she had me laughing again.

“Seriously, I know you don't think you are, but you're an amazing father,” she said, her tone changing back to serious. “You've sacrificed everything to make sure she has a good home while you're here. Look what you put up with so she would have a mother and a father.”

I looked away from her.

“Sometimes things don't work out the way we want them to, Lance. We can't change it and we certainly can't wallow in our own pity about it. We can't take a step forward and then take five steps back. It doesn't do us any good.”

She paused for a minute and popped the grape in her mouth that she had been holding for so long.

“Thanks, Abby,” I said.

She smiled. “You're welcome. You know I love ya, troublemaker.”

I smiled at her, but quickly went back to work. The mere mention of the word “love” out of her mouth made my heart fall into my stomach.

I wanted to talk with her about it, but at the same time I didn't want to. What happened between us – I didn't regret any of it, or look back on it as something that shouldn't have happened. From the way she regarded it, she did. She acted like it would never happen again – and that really was a rabbit hole that I didn't need to fall through today, with Bailey coming in.

A couple seconds later, I felt something cold and slightly wet hit my ear. I put my hand up to my ear and looked over at Abby to see her giggling with a grape in her hand, ready to launch it at me.

“How old are you?” I said with a laugh.

“You looked like you were lost in thought and never coming back to me.”

I picked up the grape off the desk and threw it back at her, hitting the side of her nose and eliciting a strong laugh from her.

“I was just thinking that you should come down with me this afternoon and meet my daughter,” I said.

She stopped laughing so abruptly that I swore she would choke on one of her grapes.

“Are you serious?” she asked.

“Why wouldn't I be?”

“That's a...big step,” she said, and I could tell it made her nervous.

“I...care about you,” I said, wanting to avoid the fact that I'd almost slipped in a bad way. “You're one of the most important people in my life. I want you to meet her.”

“If that's what you want,” she said, and took a deep breath, “then yes, I'll come down and meet her. But Lance, I'm...I'm not so good with kids.”

I smiled. “I find that incredibly hard to believe.”

The phone rang as she was about to respond, and she went to answer it. She answered it in her normal greeting and paused to listen on the other end. It only took a few seconds for her to respond and hang up.

“They're here,” she said as she looked over to me.

When we looked at each other, it seemed like both of us were equally nervous.

We were silent most of the walk down to the visiting area. My stomach felt tighter than sailor's knots. She walked with her hands in the pockets of her scrub top, watching every step I took.

“Everything will be fine, Lance,” she finally said.

“This was a bad idea. Prison isn't a place for a four-year-old.”

“Put a smile on your face. Pretend like nothing's wrong.”

We reached the doors to the visiting area and she laid her hand on the door handle, but didn't open it right away.

“Couldn't hurt for you to smile for your own sake, either,” she said, looking at me.

I took a deep breath as she opened the door for me, and walked through. It was still early in visiting hours so there weren't a lot of people around yet. I didn't have to look long to pick out Joey and Bailey – sitting at a table close to the doors. Bailey's back was turned to me, sitting on her knees on the seat, talking to Joey about something.

Kelly had put her hair into a ponytail full of bouncy, dirty blonde waves. Her hair reminded me of her mother's.

Joey saw me and pointed at me when he said something to Bailey, and she turned around.

“Daddy!”

She was off the seat in two steps and ran straight into my arms.

“God, Bailey, I've missed you so much.” I ran my fingers through her ponytail and gave her a kiss on the cheek, where I had to hide my face because I couldn't stop one tear from slipping through what felt like superhuman self-control. She had her arms wrapped so tightly around my neck that I could barely breathe, but I couldn't bring myself to move them.

Joey walked over to us, looking suspiciously at Abby.

“Daddy, why haven't you come home?”

She looked at me and I looked at her. This was the minute I had been dreading for the past month.

“Bailey,” Abby said before I could speak, “your daddy hasn't come home because he's been helping me.”

Abby walked up to the two of us, and Bailey eyed her for a moment.

“Who are you?” she finally said.

“I'm Abby.” She smiled at Bailey and held out her hand to her, but Bailey shied away from her insecurely.

“This is my friend, Bailey,” I said.

“Your daddy talks about you all the time,” Abby told her. “And you look just like your dad. You're so gorgeous.”

“Daddy says I look like my mommy.”

Abby shook her head. “I see your daddy all over you. Your daddy's eyes, your daddy's hair, and even your daddy's nose – this little button nose.” She reached over and gently poked Bailey's nose, which made her laugh and dig her face into my shoulder.

I pulled her close to me for a moment, but she quickly pushed herself away from me and closer towards Abby.

“Your hair is pretty too, Abby.” She gently grabbed a handful of Abby's dark hair. Then she observed her work ID tag and her clothing. “Are you a nurse?”

“Yes, I am,” Abby said with a smile.

“Do you give people shots?”

I chuckled.

“Sometimes,” Abby said. “But mostly I give them medicine when they're sick, and make them feel better when they get hurt.”

“Have you been taking care of my daddy?”

“I have a couple times. But your daddy has been helping me out a lot, too.”

“How does he help you?” Bailey asked quizzically.

“Well, he's been helping me do my paperwork – and he's been helping me take care of people. Did you know your daddy is very good at taking care of people when they're sick?”

Bailey nodded. “Yeah. Daddy takes care of me when I'm sick. But uncle Joey has been taking care of me now.”

Abby looked over at Joey, and Joey smiled at her a little.

“Your uncle Joey does a really good job of taking care of you, doesn't he?” Abby said.

“Yeah. But I miss my daddy,” Bailey said.

Abby's face turned sad, but she recovered quickly.

“Bailey, I hear you're having a birthday,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“How old are you?”

“I'm four, but I'll be five soon.”

“Wow,” Abby said, feigning shock. “Five years old! You're all grown up. Are you going to have a party?”

Bailey's mood immediately improved.

“Yeah. I'm having a princess party. Uncle Joey is even letting me dress up like Cinderella.”

“I love Cinderella,” Abby said.

“I do too. Want to come to my birthday party, Abby? We're going to have cake.”

I was shocked for a moment, and I could tell by looking at Abby that she was too.

“Wow, Cinderella and cake,” she said. “That sounds like a great party. I guess if it's okay with your daddy and uncle Joey, I would love to come.”

I looked over at Joey, who finally had a warming smile on his face.

“Of course,” he said. “I'll give Lance all the details before we leave. The more, the merrier.”

I could tell that Bailey got excited.

“You can dress up like a princess too, Abby!”

Abby laughed. “Well, maybe a modest princess.”

“And my daddy can come with you!” Bailey said.

Abby's facial expression dropped, and she looked at me begging me for what to say.

“Bailey,” Joey said, jumping in. “Listen sweetie, only Abby can come. Daddy will have to stay here a little while longer.”

“But why, Uncle Joey?” Bailey whined.

The three of us were silent for a moment, wondering what to say to her, before Abby spoke up.

“Well, Bailey,” she said, “your daddy got in trouble.”

I looked over at her and she smiled at me, then looked back at Bailey.

“Yes, Bailey, your daddy got in big trouble. You know what he did?”

“What?”

“He threw grapes at my head,” Abby said matter-of-factly. “He threw his grapes at my head and we had to put him in time-out for a while. He can't come to your party because he's not allowed to have cake. Because you can't have cake when you're in trouble, right?”

“That's right,” Bailey said, then she turned to look at me. “Daddy, you're not supposed to throw your food,” she said in a scolding manner.

I couldn't help but laugh at her serious tone. “I know, sweetie. I did a bad thing. I'm sorry.”

“Don't do it again, daddy,” she said, pointing her finger at me. I could see she had paid way too much attention those times when I had to do the same to her.

I looked over at Joey, who silently breathed a sigh of relief with a smile on his face.

“I have to get back to my office now,” Abby said to me. “I have a ton of things to finish up.” She turned to look at Bailey. “I can't wait for your birthday party, Bailey.”

“Abby,” I said as she turned to leave.

She stopped and turned around to look at me.

“Thank you,” I said.

“No problem,” she said with a smile.

“Bye, Abby!” Bailey yelled excitedly, and I wrapped my arm around her a little tighter.

“Bye, Miss Bailey,” Abby said, and waved at Bailey before she walked out the door.

Bailey wriggled out of my arms and back to Joey, who picked her back up and walked over to me.

“Wow,” he said. “I fell in love with her a little too.”

“I'm that good at hiding it, huh?”

“Yeah, about that good,” he responded.

“Well, then maybe it won't be so shocking to you that I have a huge favor to ask you before you leave.”

As I predicted, Joey turned around and looked at me with a concerned look on his face.

“Why do I have a feeling that this is like, the Titanic sinking huge and it's a really bad idea?”

I smiled at him and walked over to one of the tables to sit down and enjoy my visit with them.

Our hour and a half went by in what seemed like fifteen minutes. Bailey spent at least thirty minutes gushing to me about all the things she was doing in her preschool class. She poured over how much fun she was having playing with her “cousins” while she was staying with Joey. Then she moved on to talking about her birthday party. She was so excited that she didn't mention me coming home again once.

Joey eventually distracted her by asking her to sing the alphabet song for me.

“Okay, tell me about this favor,” he said quietly as she sang.

“You said you'd do anything to help me out, right? We're brothers and all that?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“You'd even do it if it might mean I'd get caught and be here longer than planned?”

“You're seriously freaking me out right now, Lance. You're not usually the type to do things that get yourself in trouble. Not on purpose, anyway.”

“Daddy!” Bailey interrupted. “Did you hear me? I did the whole alphabet by myself!”

“That was great, sweetheart. Can you do it again for me?”

She started singing again, accompanying it with her own choreographed dance. Joey looked over at me and I looked at him.

I sighed. “Joey, you just have to trust me.”