Those Children Are Ours Read online

  ***

  RING.

  The first bell sounded as Emma Coleman turned down the upper school hall toward her classroom. Spotting Christa Lindsay taking books from her locker, she came up behind her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

  “How’s it going, Chrissie?” she asked, using the nickname that only she used.

  Christa turned. Her large eyes, usually a soft brown, were dark, a sign that Emma recognized as anger.

  “She thinks she’s going to take us away, Emma. I mean, Ms. Coleman. She thinks she can take us away from Dad.”

  “That won’t happen. Your dad told you that didn’t he?”

  “He told us that.” She nodded. “But you know what happens. They go to court, they tell lies, they twist the truth, and they make stuff up.” Her voice was rising.

  “It will be all right, Chrissie. It will be fine.”

  “Alexis told me that she won’t go with her, no matter what some judge says. She says that she will run away and be a…a streetwalker on the docks before she goes with her.”

  Emma smiled. “I’m sure it won’t come to that.” Emma could hear Christa’s sister, Alexis, saying just that. Unfortunately, Alexis was not one who was given to idle threats.

  Christa sighed. “I know.” She looked into Emma’s eyes. “I want you to be my mother, not some stranger who abandoned me so long ago I don’t even remember her. It’s not fair, you know.”

  Emma hugged her. “No, it’s not fair.”

  “I’m so angry I could just…just…”

  The bell rang a second time.

  “You need to get to class. Come see me at lunch if you want to talk.” She watched as Christa walked toward her room. Anger is good, Emma thought, better than depression. I’d be angry, too…I am angry. Imagine, popping up after twelve years.

  Emma had known Thomas, Christa’s father, for almost ten years. They had been dating, they once decided, for about five, and they had been engaged for almost two months. She felt like Christa’s mother now. In August she would be, in fact.

  Her friends and family had teased her about how long she and Thomas had gone together. “I have friends,” her sister had told her, “who have met, married, and divorced guys in the time you’ve dated Thomas. And some of them have married again.”

  Emma always brushed their comments aside, saying they were taking things slowly. It was true. Both had been married before, to people who they had known for years. Both were divorced. Her husband had been abusive. Thomas’s wife, the one who was suing for visitation, had turned out to be crazy, Emma thought. Both wanted to avoid a replay.

  Then, too, dating did not seem to adequately describe their relationship. They lived a couple of blocks apart, below Broad as they said in Charleston, in the historic part of the city. Each had two daughters, the same ages, friends. Their children attended the same school and they found themselves at many of the same events—ball games, concerts, Christmas programs. Dates were typically family affairs and Emma could count on one hand the number of times they had been out, alone. Thomas had become her best friend and Emma felt so lucky that she had, finally, realized that she was in love with him.

  She glanced down the hall that led to the cafeteria and she smiled. That was where she and Thomas had first met, a decade ago. Her divorce had been granted just a few months earlier and she was not searching for someone new. They had met when they were flipping pancakes. Well, Thomas was manning the griddle, at any rate.

  The PTA fall pancake supper had been cranking up. Her daughter, Tasha had been in first grade, and Emma, a new teacher at the private school that Tasha attended, had volunteered to help out. She had been supposed to arrive at five o’clock to help set up, but she and Tasha had left school late, her younger daughter, Amy, had lingered at daycare, both girls had needed baths, and Charleston’s traffic had been, as usual, horrific. She had rushed into the cafeteria at quarter till six, her arms loaded with books to occupy her children while she worked.

  The serving line was already forming. She parked the girls at the end of a long table and dashed into the kitchen, apologizing for her tardiness.

  “What can I do?”

  The coordinator looked toward the giant griddle set in the middle of the kitchen. “Thomas, do you need help?”

  “All you can give me.”

  Emma turned to see him—tall, thin, brown hair, brown eyes. He smiled at her and his eyes twinkled. As she watched, he slipped a spatula under a pancake and flipped it into the air. It made one and a half complete turns, landing flat on the cook surface with the cooked side up. As she and the coordinator watched, he turned eight more in the same way.

  “They will serve three people. I’ll never manage alone.”

  “Emma, this is Thomas Lindsay. Thomas, Emma Coleman. Emma is teaching English at the high school this year.”

  “It’s nice to meet you.” He smiled at her again, held out a ladle, and pointed to a small plastic container. “Batter—there is room for more pancakes over here.” He pointed to the other end of the griddle.

  Emma donned an apron and set to work. As Thomas lifted his pancakes and placed them in a metal pan from which another parent filled plates, Emma began to pour batter. Two of hers were twice the normal size. The other four were tiny.

  “It’s not as easy as it looks.”

  Thomas caught her eye. “I destroyed my first three batches. I’ll help you with your next ones.”

  When it was time for Emma to pour again, Thomas stood behind her, taking the hand that held the ladle in his.

  “Dip until the ladle is two-thirds full.” He moved her hand and his arm brushed against hers. “Then, let it run out of the ladle. Don’t move your hand. The batter will spread.” Emma felt his chest against her back as they repeated the process eight more times.

  “Good job.” Thomas released her hand and placed his on her shoulder. “Like a pro.”

  Emma felt warm all over and she was sure that her face was red. Just heat from the griddle, she told herself.

  “Thank you.”

  “Mama.” Amy, her younger daughter, stood beside her. “Tasha is being mean to me.”

  “What is Tasha doing, sweetie?”

  “She’s using the blue crayon and I need to color the sky.” She held up her book.

  “We brought plenty of crayons. I’ll bet you’ll find another blue one if you look. If not, start with the grass.”

  “Okay.” Amy hugged her mother and dashed away.

  “Two kids?”

  “Yes, two. They can be a handful.”

  “Tell me,” Thomas said as he turned his pancakes. He pointed to hers. “Don’t let them burn.”

  He watched as Emma flipped hers into the air, each landing perfectly.

  “Good job.”

  “How about you?”

  “I have two.”

  “Daughters? Sons? One of each?”

  “Two daughters. Alexis is six. Christa is four.”

  Same as mine. Tasha is six and Amy is four.”

  As Emma got into the rhythm, Tasha appeared beside the grill.

  “Mama, Amy won’t stay in her chair. She’s running around the table and she bumped into a man.”

  “I’ll be right there. Tell Amy that if she wants to be able to sit in a chair for the rest of the night, she’d better be in it when I arrive.” She turned to Thomas. “Let me see what’s going on.”

  While she was gone, Thomas watched her pancakes, taking them off of the griddle when they were done.

  Emma sighed as she returned to the kitchen. “I know that I shouldn’t threaten her. One day she’ll call my bluff and I’ll have to follow through.”

  “Got them by yourself tonight?”

  “Every night.” She paused while she poured the batter. “My husband and I are divorced.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s better this way,” Emma snapped.

  Thomas didn’t respond immediately.

  “I meant I was sorr
y it was necessary…”

  Emma put down her spatula and looked him in the eye. “Thank you. I’m sorry I was short with you. Our divorce just became final and I’m still getting used to being a single parent.”

  Thomas nodded. “It takes a while.”

  “You’re…”

  Thomas nodded. “We’ve been apart for two years, but the divorce was final this summer.”

  “Mama, when are we going to eat?”

  “Amy, what did I tell you?”

  “But I’m hungry.”

  “Amy…”

  “If you’d like they can come back and sit with my girls.”

  “Where?” Emma glanced around the kitchen.

  “Over there.” He pointed with his spatula to a table in the corner. Alexis and Christa were playing with Legos and munching on Fruit Loops. “They can eat some of the cereal if you don’t mind, and we can cook their dinner in a few minutes when things calm down.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Not at all. I’ll manage the fort while you get them settled.”

  The six o’clock rush finally ended and the seven thirty seating had not yet begun. Emma was called out to talk with a parent. When she returned thirty minutes later she saw all four children grouped around the griddle. Thomas was pouring batter.

  “Okay, that’s the body. The little circle is his head. These are his legs…his feet…”

  “You forgot the hands.” Alexis pointed.

  “You’re right. Right hand…left one.”

  Tasha looked up and saw her mother. “Alexis’s dad is making people pancakes. See? Aren’t they cool?”

  Emma spied four large pancakes, more or less shaped like people.

  “Very cool.”

  Thomas smiled at her and she felt warm again.

  “Ten years ago,” she whispered. Looking back she realized that she had fallen for Thomas that night. It took her three years though, to acknowledge that they were more than friends, two more before their first real date—the two of them, alone for dinner, followed by their first kiss.

  Emma sighed. She had been afraid to even hope that she would be happy again, but Thomas was…wonderful. She began to walk toward her classroom. Now that witch was trying to get his children.

  “Our children,” she said aloud. “Ours.”

  ***

  “I hate the winter,” Askins Bateman, Jennie’s father, mumbled as he stared through the window at his back yard. He gulped his coffee.

  “If we didn’t have the cold, we wouldn’t appreciate the summer.” Sheila smiled as she wiped off the kitchen counter. Sheila and Askins had been married for over forty years.

  “I’m willing to try. Move to Florida or someplace like that.”

  Sheila ambled across the room and peered out to see what he was staring at. Two squirrels ran playfully across the yard, chattering loudly. She placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’d be miserable anywhere else except Whitesburg. You think it’s the Garden of Eden. That’s why you’ve been pestering Jennie to get custody of her girls and move in here with us.”

  “And finally, she’s going to do it. How long have I been telling her to go after them? Years, that’s how long.” He took another gulp of coffee. “Never should have left them with that man in the first place.”

  “That man is their daddy, Askins. You know Jennie was in no shape to take care of them. Angry all of the time. Cursing everybody. Drinking. She was crazy as a loon if you ask me.”

  “Could have brought them to us,” he mumbled. He turned toward Sheila. “A man has no business raising children by himself. He has no idea what to do with them. Amazing they survived.”

  He drained his cup and walked to the coffeemaker for a refill. “Want another cup?” he asked.

  “Please.”

  “A man certainly shouldn’t have girls by himself. How can he answer their questions?”

  “Questions? What questions?” Sheila took the cup from his hand.

  “You know what questions. About their bodies. About babies, where they come from. About boys.”

  “I suppose he would answer the same way a woman would, Askins.” Sheila smiled.

  “Not natural, a man living alone with two young girls.” He shook his head. “Probably up to no good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Askins stalked around the kitchen. “Abusing them. Making them do things.”

  “Oh no, not Thomas. He’s not like that…”

  “How do you know?”

  Sheila blocked his path. “Thomas was always so nice. He was good to Jennie, and he loved those girls to death. You remember, he would give them their bottles, play with Alexis out there in the back yard.” She motioned toward the patch of grass behind the house. “She was so little that she could barely toddle about, but he would toss her a ball, time after time and clap and cheer when she caught it.”

  “I never liked him.”

  “And you made that clear, Askins. Very clear. In my book, the big mistake Jennie made was in leaving him.” She paused, watching his face. “Do you remember when he drove all of the way out from Atlanta to cut wood for us when you broke your leg? Cleaned out the barn while he was here too.”

  They sat in silence for several minutes. Finally, Sheila pulled herself to her feet.

  “I need to pack. Sarah is driving her SUV to Charleston for the hearing. She and Jennie will pick us up tomorrow afternoon about three.” Sheila was happy that Jennie’s sister was going with them and had volunteered to drive. Askins would be more likely to behave if Sarah was with them.

  “I’m going pack your white shirt and your suit to wear in court.”

  “Why do I have to wear a suit?” Askins frowned. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing now?” He looked at his plaid shirt and fraying khakis.

  “Because you’re going to court to support Jennie. You’re going to be in a big city, around lawyers and judges and you want to make a good impression.”

  “I don’t care if I make a good impression. I don’t care what they think of me…”

  “You’re going to help Jennie. It won’t do her any good if the judge looks at you and thinks you’re a dumb redneck.”

  “Maybe I am a dumb redneck,” he mumbled.

  “Maybe so.” Sheila laughed. “But looking like one won’t help your daughter get her children.”

  He gave a deep sigh. “Okay. I’ll dress like a circus clown if it will help her get those girls.”

  ***

  Jennie and Sarah arrived at noon.

  “I do not understand why we have to leave so early,” her father grumbled as he climbed into the second seat of the SUV, next to her mother. “South Carolina is not across the ocean. It’s the next state over. And why are we spending a night on the way? And another night in…where is it that we are going?”

  “We’re going to Charleston, Daddy. I’ve explained it all to you. Thomas and the girls live in Charleston, so we have to go to court there.”

  “Why not in Carrollton?”

  “Daddy, that’s how it works. A judge in Charleston gave him full custody. A judge in Charleston has to modify the order.”

  “But…”

  “That’s how it works, Daddy,” Jennie said firmly. “Charleston is a long way and we have to be there tomorrow at ten, and it’s a seven-hour drive since we are picking Si up in Athens. We decided to spend the night in Columbia so we won’t be tired when we get to court.”

  Jennie’s entire family was making the trip to Charleston. She was glad that her brother, Si, was able to go. He could help to control her father, who appeared not to have heard her.

  “Don’t see why we don’t just grab the girls and come home,” he muttered, affirming her assumption. “My cousin Tom in Alabama can hide them until it all blows over.”

  “Askins.” Jennie’s mother looked horrified.

  “Daddy, we’ve talked about this. I’m asking for visitation.”

  “For now.”

  Jennie didn’t
reply.

  “It wouldn’t be kidnapping. Those children are yours…”

  Jennie caught his eye. “In the eyes of the law it would be. If anyone hears you even joke about that, I’ll never even see my children.” Her father looked away. “Daddy, you listen to me.”

  “I’ll be quiet.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stared straight ahead as Sarah pulled onto the highway. “It’s still what we ought to do,” he said under his breath. “Simpler, cleaner, cheaper…”

  “Daddy, not another word.” Jennie flipped around so that her back was toward him. “Not a single word.”

  ***

  At seven o’clock, Jennie’s family and Alice Green gathered in the lobby of their hotel. Sheila sat beside Jennie. She felt a tingle of excitement as Alice began to speak.

  “Jennie and I have talked about what is likely to happen over the next couple of days. I wanted to talk with the rest of you for a few minutes to try to minimize any surprises.” She looked around the group.

  “Now, Jennie has petitioned for visitation with her two daughters, Alexis and Christa. Specifically, she has asked the court to grant her the right to visit with them a weekend each month, for two months in the summer, and for a week at Christmas.”

  Sheila smiled. She was overjoyed at the prospect of getting to know her granddaughters after all of this time.

  “Should be demanding full custody, sole custody,” Askins snapped.

  “Daddy…”

  Alice Green frowned, turning to Askins. “Jennie does not believe she is prepared to be the sole, full-time caregiver to two teenaged girls who do not know her, nor does she believe it would be fair to her daughters to uproot them and transport them away from the only home they have ever known.” She paused, not dropping her eyes from Askins’ gaze.

  “Besides that, it is incredibly unlikely that such a petition would be granted. Based on all of the information we have, Thomas Lindsay is a loving father, a model parent who has singlehandedly raised two delightful, well-adjusted children. Without some other information, it would not be possible to prove that he is a poor parent nor that the children would be better off living away from him.”