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“Which makes him culpable. He’s not going to risk his law degree, Whit. He’s not.”
She pulls up in front of my house, and I reach over and put it in park. Turning to face her, I take off her glasses, and she closes her eyes, but not before I see how red they are.
“I was told there was nothing filed.”
She sniffs. “He has her birth certificate, the one I?—”
“Whit—”
“He said he’d have her taken away. That he’d make sure she was in foster care and have this held up in court for years.”
“He can’t do that.”
“Yes, he can, and he will. Then what? I’m supposed to lie in court?”
“No, he can’t, not when my name is on her original birth certificate. Ask me if I’d think twice about lying in court to keep you and Nora together.”
“I know you; of course you wouldn’t.”
“I know you, and I’d never have thought you’d go to the extremes you have to protect my name either, but you did, Whit, and so will I.” I pull my phone out of my hoodie pocket. “And it’s not going to get that far. His father’s called several times, and today, he sent a message. Read it.”
After she reads the message, she holds my phone to her chest and closes her eyes. When she opens them, her worry is back. “He’s not gonna stop.”
I grab her keys and get out. Walk around the vehicle and open her door. Take her hand and say, “Let’s go.”
“I have so much to do,” she says but follows me.
Once inside my house I turn and wrap her up. “Cry, Whit. Let it all out, and then we decide how you want me—or us—to respond to this text.”
When she releases all that frustration and fear in the form of tears, it’s heartbreaking. Her body begins shaking so badly. I lift her up so her feet are just off the floor and walk us to the couch, where I sit beside her as she curls into a ball.
“I’m not weak or stupid or?—”
She stops when I pull her into another hug.
“You’re perfect, Whit.”
When I feel someone poking me in the arm, my eyes flutter open, and I realize I dozed off after Whit cried herself to sleep with her head on my lap.
“Got a minute?” Marks nods to the other room.
Very carefully, I slide out from under her, surprised she doesn’t wake, but also grateful for it. I’m guessing she hasn’t slept since I’ve been home.
I follow him into the kitchen, where he pulls an envelope out of his inside pocket and hands it to me. “I might have lied and said I was you when I called and requested it. Had it sent to your PO Box.”
I open the envelope and see Nora Mae Johnston, born March 22 at 7:37 p.m. She weighed seven pounds, ten ounces, and she was eighteen and a half inches long. Her mother is listed as Nelly Anne Johnston, and her father, John Paul.
“Guessing she didn’t know your middle name?”
“Apparently not,” I say, staring at my name on Nora’s birth certificate.
“Got something else.”
“Yeah? What’s that?” I ask, looking at her little feet prints.
“Whit’s amazing—we all know that—but the fact that Kal is coming unhinged, that couldn’t be all about you.”
“What are you implying?”
