He was used to people asking for free advice. Friends, family, even people from high school he barely remembered but found him on Facebook. Everyone wanted to know what a lawyer thought, nobody wanted to pay for the privilege. With Kara, it felt different. He sensed asking was hard, and not her first choice. It only made him more determined to assist. “Hit me.”
“It’s about my ex, Henry. Zach’s father.” His fingers tightened a little on her arm, and he quickly forced himself to relax it again. But she’d noticed, and she rubbed the heel of her hand over his chest, soothing. “He’s not in our lives, either of us. Which is exactly how we like it, honestly. But sometimes, when he’s feeling the pinch of child support, he likes to threaten that he’ll takes us back to court or mediation to lower the amount. Usually giving some bullshit reasoning, having to do with taking him for more visitation to justify the amount he pays in support. It’s a threat, really, and not a new one. He’s been using it for years.”
“Does he see Zach often?”
“He hasn’t seen Zach in years. He took Zach for what was supposed to be a full day visit, and brought him back at lunchtime claiming there was nothing he could feed him and I’d set him up to fail. I’d given him a list of foods Zach could eat because we were still going through the allergy testing phase and he also was going through a picky phase.”
“As any kid tends to do,” Graham murmured.
“Exactly. He survived on bread, butter and a few other staples for about eighteen months back then because we were so limited on what we could add into his diet, and again by what he would actually eat. Henry accused me of making up a lot of his allergies—but thank God he didn’t try to test that theory out. And that was the end of him giving enough of a shit to come see his son.”
“Bastard,” was Graham’s quick and unequivocal judgment. “The guy is scum.”
“I’m not arguing. But he’s pulling it again, this whole ‘if I’m paying for being the kid’s dad, I should see him’ junk. Henry doesn’t want to see him. He just knows that I don’t want him to take Zach alone. He’s old enough to know what he should and shouldn’t eat—Zach, obviously, not Henry—but that doesn’t mean I want to trust him with an adult who has shown zero respect for his medical issues in the past, and uses his son’s feelings as a weapon.”
“Of course not.” She was so calm about it, so collected. No hysterics, no sobs, and no real anger either. The anger, she’d have earned. But she kept it down, and he sensed it was only because it was more efficient to be able to talk without using curse words that she did so. “How can I help?”
“The lawyers think it’s going to come to a head. He can’t keep coming back and demanding we lower support on paper, because even the state has its own standards that he can’t go below. But he might be more tempted to lower the payments made directly to me, and for me to keep my mouth shut about it, if I knew it meant he would abide by this unspoken agreement he leaves us alone and doesn’t push his right for visitation.”
“I’m not really up on family law,” Graham began, and he could feel her slump against him. “But the law is the law. I can give you suggestions, I just can’t represent you.”
“I have a lawyer,” she said quickly. “I pay for her, it’s not like, court appointed or anything. She’s just expensive.”
“The good ones usually are.”
“No kidding,” Kara said with a puff of air that stirred her bangs. “I had a court-appointed lawyer back in the day, when I was still a teenager. I remember sitting in court before our time to go in front of the judge, and Tasha was representing the mom ahead of me. She ripped into the deadbeat father like a shark on a bucket of frozen chum. It was . . . a little terrifying to watch, actually. She’s scary in the court room. I knew then and there, if I ever had enough money to hire a lawyer, I’d do whatever I could to make her mine.”
Graham smiled, but said nothing.
“I’d rather not waste my hourly rate asking simple questions that could be answered if I just knew where to look.”
“Research, basically. Someone to bounce ideas off of.”
“Exactly. I’m sure you get asked this sort of thing all the time.” Sadness tinged her voice now, and she rolled and shifted until she perched on her knees, facing him. One hand came up and cupped his cheek. “I hate to be another person to ask.”
“You’re not ‘another person,’ Kara.” He held her hand in place, then eased forward to kiss her long, deep and slow. When her other hand came up to play in his hair, then slide down and pull him against her more, he called it a win. He broke the kiss. “You’re not ‘another person.’ You mean a lot to me. You and Zach both. It’s for both of you. I’ll do whatever I can, however I can.”
She kissed him this time, peppering his face with tiny, playful pecks in between gasping “thank you, thank you, thank you.”