I stared at my brother for a few seconds, trying to process it all. If he thought telling me that would make me any less mad, he was delusional. Now I was even more infuriated. This guy wasn’t just trying to take Lindsey’s son away from her completely. He was denying a child who already faced the world at a disadvantage of a mother who loved him. He was low enough to take advantage of his child’s disability in order to get what he wanted. The thought made me sick.
There was nothing I could do about the situation right then. As much as I wanted to resolve it for her and make everything go away, the reality was we had to wait. We had to figure out exactly what was going on and decide how to move forward. Most of that was on her, leaving me in a frustrating holding pattern. All I could do was focus on the work I had in front of me. I did my best to put my anger aside for the rest of the workday. Fortunately, everybody left me alone and I was able to just disappear into my preparations for the upcoming race exhibition.
I managed to hold it together until I got home. As soon as I walked in the door, I heard Frankie’s paws hit the floor and he rushed toward me. I grabbed a bag of treats from the drawer in the entryway table and tossed a few down to him. While he was eating, I opened up about everything. I ranted and paced, spilling everything out again and adding my further disgust and frustration on top of it. It was even more cathartic than the spiel in the parking lot. By the time I was done, I felt like I had really gotten it out of my system.
When I’d managed to get ahold of myself, I flopped down on the couch and called Charlie. Frankie came and curled up in my lap, purring his commiseration. Without mincing words, I made sure the lawyer knew that whatever it took, I was paying for this battle. It wasn’t fair for Lindsey to be at such a disadvantage just because she didn’t have a wealthy family behind her. She deserved to have money on her side, too. And with me, she did.
Charlie picked at me a bit about being a white knight, but I wouldn’t let it dissuade me. It was all in fun, and it probably wasn’t too far from accurate. I would do anything to defend Lindsey and ensure she was protected.
Exhausted from the day, I crawled into bed that night far earlier than I usually did. I couldn’t turn off my brain, and I fell asleep with my mind full of Lindsey.12LindseyI woke up that Tuesday morning feeling hungover even though I hadn’t had a single drop to drink. Not that I hadn’t wanted to. With as angry, frustrated, and overwhelmed as I was, all I wanted to do was pour myself a drink and drown my worries in it. The idea of guzzling down enough alcohol to dull the edges of the pain and make all my thoughts fuzzy was extremely appealing.
But I knew myself. I knew the family I came from and how alcohol affected us. I was worried that with as angry as I was and as close to the edge as I already felt, alcohol was the last thing I needed. It wouldn’t be a smart idea to drink and then be left alone to my own devices. All that could possibly result in was making more of a mess of my life than it already was. The last thing I needed was to make the situation more complicated and nastier. Or for Grant to have anything else he could put in front of the judge as proof I wasn’t fit to be Remy’s mother.
Instead, I forced myself to be responsible. That night had to be the first in my battle. I didn’t want it to be. I never wanted it to be. From the very beginning, I didn’t want there to be a fight. Remy didn’t deserve to be put in the middle and treated like a commodity. He had enough in his life he was going to have to adapt to and cope with. It was my duty as his mother to give him every chance he could have. To make sure he knew just because he was living with a disability didn’t mean he was any less than anyone else, or that he wasn’t going to be able to have a good life.
That started with not causing him pain and stress by being torn between his parents. Grant wasn’t who I ever would have chosen to be the father of my child. He wasn’t the kind of person I wanted to share that journey with or would want that unbreakable link with for the rest of my life. But it was the way it happened. I would never describe Remy as a mistake. He wasn’t. There was no regret about Remy, no part of me that wished he didn’t exist.