“That’s what he’s trying to do.”
I shook my head, fear continuing to dance on my spine. In fact, it had now moved to the pit of my stomach. I dragged my fingers through my hair, biting my lip in hopes of stemming the tears that seemed to flow much too easily these past few hours. As frustrating as JT could sometimes be, I wasn’t going to allow some liar to march in and take him away from me. It didn’t matter if he was his father. He wasn’t here for the past fifteen years. I was. He couldn’t just disrupt JT’s life, turn it upside down, and rip him away from the only home he’d ever known. I wasn’t about to allow that to happen.
“How do we fight it?”
“Well,” Jack said, drawing out the word as though he was searching for the answer to my question, “we contact the local courts and set a hearing. In the meantime, we get an injunction against this custody order. Where is JT right now?”
“At school.”
“I would suggest you go withdraw him. As long as this man is employed by the school, he’ll have free access to JT. And that could be counterproductive, considering what he’s trying to do.”
I had actually considered that. But I wanted JT’s day to be as normal as possible until I figured out what our next move would be. Now, I supposed, that would be my next step.
“What’ll happen at the hearing?”
“We’ll make a case for you and the original adoption. You have the adoption papers, right?”
“Somewhere.”
“You’ll want to bring those so we can have them submitted as evidence. And anything else your parents might have kept that could help. Letters from the mother, emails or letters from the adoption attorney…whatever you think might be helpful.”
“I’ll take a look at their stuff.”
His eyes were filled with compassion when he looked up at me again. “We’ll do everything we can to fight this, Penny. But you need to prepare yourself for the possibility—“
“No.” I stood and tossed my bag over my shoulder. “I won’t. I lost my parents. I can’t lose my brother, too.”
I held my head high as I stormed out of his office. But my courage crumbled when I reached my car. The tears I’d been fighting all morning released themselves in a torrent, sobs tearing through my chest as I beat my hands against the steering wheel.
I could I have gone from complete bliss to such misery in the stretch of just a few hours?
How stupid had I been to let that man into my bed?
I thought…shit, I don’t know what I thought. I wanted him to be a good man. I wanted him to be a teacher who actually cared. I wanted him to be the guy who went looking for someone else’s kid just because it was the right thing to do, not because he had a secret that would blow up everything that I’d built the foundation of my life on.
That was what I got for trusting a stranger. A stranger who’d already threatened to take my brother from me.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
*****
Susan was busy, but she made the time to talk to me when I arrived at the high school. It was nearly noon when I walked into the office, so the students were restlessly waiting the half hour until lunch. I could almost feel the restless energy that vibrated within the building even though most of the students were sitting behind closed classroom doors. I remembered being a student in these rooms, sliding notes to my friends under the cover of notebooks and unopened text books. It was certainly a more innocent time, but I wouldn’t go back to it for all the money in the world.
“What can I do for you, Penelope?”
I settled in a chair in front of Susan’s desk, thinking about all the students who had sat here to face the consequences of some classroom disruption or ill-advised prank. JT had been here just the day before, facing the consequences of his arrest Friday night. It was here that he found out he’d been cut from the football team because of his behavior, the catalyst that led to his argument with me, his disappearance, and my decision to call Harrison and ask for his help. And that…I wouldn’t soon forget where that had led.
“I need to take JT home. And I’ll be keeping him at home for the foreseeable future.”
“Can I ask why?” Susan said in her principal’s voice, a voice I was still getting used to. Susan and I had been classmates at this same school. She was two years ahead of me, but the school was so small we still had many classes together over the years. She even dated—and married—one of my closest friends. So, despite her meteoric rise from counselor to vice principal to principal, it was still a little difficult to see her in this position of authority.
I chewed on my lip for a second, wondering just how much trouble I wanted to cause Harrison. The spiteful side of me wanted to see him marched from these corridors in humiliation. But the more cautious side of me didn’t want to do anything he might be able to use against me in court.
“You know that JT is adopted,” I said slowly.