A Son's Tale

She stared at herself in the mirror. “No.”

“Good. Do you mind if we talk a minute?” There was a new note in his voice. Something more personal than she’d heard before.

Her nipples were hard again. And she hadn’t touched them this time.

She turned her back to the mirror and grabbed her robe with her free hand, holding it up to her chest. “No, I don’t mind. What’s up?”

“How was your day?”

“Fine.” Minus the bit with her father. But he hadn’t called to hear about that. He hadn’t known she was meeting with her dad. “How about you? Your father said you were on a business call.”

“I had some calls to make. Mostly I just wanted to give Dad some time alone with Sammie. It seems to have paid off.”

“The way Sammie ran his mouth tonight, I’d agree,” she said. “Every word out of his mouth was either basketball or Frank. He said your dad told him to call him Frank.”

“It’s his name.”

“I would have preferred Mr. Whittier.”

“Yeah, well, I’m guessing Dad was going for something a kid would feel more comfortable with. I can tell him to cut the Frank and go back to Mr. Whittier if you’d like.”

Morgan smiled. “No, Frank’s fine. I’m just glad it’s working out so well. The man time with Sammie.”

Not that it was going to help her with her case. Which she needed to tell Cal before his father got too attached to Sammie. “Maybe too well,” Cal said.

Sliding down to the fluffy bath mat, Morgan leaned back against the tub, watching the shadows from the candle she’d lit flicker on the ceiling. “What’s up?” she asked.

It hadn’t occurred to her until that second that Cal had called to bail out on their plan. But that would save her from having to tell him that their plan wasn’t going to have a chance. She’d just hoped that Sammie would have at least one more day like today before she was forced to pull the rug out from underneath him again.

“I have something to discuss with you, but I’m going to ask you not to discuss our conversation with Sammie.”

“Okay.” What else could she say? She had to know what was going on. “If, after hearing what you have to say, I change my mind about that, I’ll let you know before I talk to him.”

“Fair enough.”

“So what’s up?” Her tea was growing cold. Her bathwater was growing cold. She was getting cold, too.

Morgan listened, without saying a word, while Cal told her about the honor her son had shared with his father. An honor he hadn’t told her about because he knew she didn’t have the means to help him.

Her father was going to use all of his power to win his fight. And if she didn’t have Sammie on her side, because she couldn’t give him what he wanted and needed, she didn’t have a hope in hell of keeping her son.

“…so here’s what I propose,” Cal was saying. “After just two visits, it’s safe to say that my father needs Sammie as much or more than Sammie needs Dad. My father would very much like to pay for any fees and expenses involved if Sammie makes the team. And he’d like to be able to pick Sammie up after school and take him to practice. Dad doesn’t drive, but they could take the bus. Dad’s already checked and there’s a route between the nursing home and Sammie’s school and, with one transfer, they could be at the junior high in time for practice. After practice, either you or I could pick the two of them up and drop them off at home. That’s saying Sammie makes the team at all. First he’d have to make it through tryouts, which start next week.”

For the second time that day Morgan was choked up. This time the tears didn’t fall. She could hardly believe that life could be so horrible and so wonderful all in the same day.

“So what do you say?”

What could she say? She had to think of Sammie. Of what was best for her son. Sammie knew that her father wanted him to live at the mansion. He didn’t know that George was taking them to court to win custody away from Morgan.

“What if my father wins the court case?”

“What if a tornado hits one of our houses tonight?”

Her father intimidated the hell out of her. He scared her until she couldn’t think straight.

But she didn’t waver in her belief that Sammie was better off with her.

There was still a chance that Leslie would be fair.