I couldn’t chase those worries away for but so long. By the time I finished breakfast and moved on to doing laundry, they were back in full force. I couldn’t help but think about the fact that I should be at Grant’s house with Remy right then. It was Thursday, which meant it was supposed to be my time with my son. Only, I was purposely staying away from him to try to keep the situation under control.
Now I was even more worried about how Grant was going to approach that with our son. Knowing now how I was dealing with his court case, he could get vindictive fast. I spent most of Thursday with Grant looming over me. I was waiting for him to call and yell at me. I fully expected him to lose it when he got the brief from Charlie. But by the time I needed to go into the bar, I still hadn’t heard from him.
Several times throughout the evening, I checked my phone to see if he called. I reached out to Charlie to see if he’d sent word through his lawyer. But he hadn’t heard anything from Grant, either. There was something slightly off-putting about it, but my lawyer seemed optimistic and encouraged me to stay hopeful. That made me feel calmer. But the false sense of security was blown all to hell Friday morning.
Thursday night found me at the bar particularly late, which meant I had only been asleep a little more than two hours when banging on my apartment door startled me awake. Not fully cognizant of what was going on, I stumbled out of bed and tried to get my wits about me. I managed to stuff my feet into slippers and throw a bathrobe on over my threadbare pajamas. Whoever it was out there, they didn’t need to see me in my favorite pants and shirt that should have long since been retired.
The pounding on the door continued as I made my way out of my bedroom. Passing my kitchen, I caught the time on the stove clock. It was three hours before I usually got up, and probably four and a half before I would have forced myself up that day.
“I’m coming,” I hissed toward the door, hoping whoever it was would stop all the noise. “I have neighbors, you know.”
My phone was clutched in my hand as I approached the door. I watched far too much true crime network TV to be dismissive when heading toward an unknown visitor in the wee hours of the morning. I pulled open the door, and Grant’s mother descended on me. In a starched, pressed beige suit, simple heels, and flawless makeup, Beatrice looked like she had been going for hours already. She was quick to notice the same.
“Typical,” she shouted, gesturing at my clothes and looking at me in disgust. “This is how you dress? I thought you already reached the truest levels of slovenly, but you always find a way to stun me.”
“I’m in my own home, Beatrice. You woke me up,” I said.
“You’re so lazy you can’t even get up and be presentable at a decent hour, but you can take the time to find a lawyer well outside your budget and class to represent you in your mockery of the court system,” she said.
“I didn’t get home from work until two hours ago,” I said.
“Your disreputable choice of a job is none of my concern except when it comes to my grandchild. This alone proves you are an unfit mother. Not only do you not make enough money to live a halfway decent life, but it also makes me wonder what would happen to him if he was in your care and you were working late. It really does make me beg the question of how you are able to afford an attorney of his ilk.”
“My finances are none of your damn business,” I said.
“Don’t you dare use profanity with me. Who do you think you are speaking to me that way? Perhaps I overestimated your attorney. Considering he would accept the likes of you as his client, he cannot possibly be as intelligent and respectable as I believed.”
“He’s far better of a person than you could ever hope to be, and he will be the one to help me regain custody of my son. My son, Beatrice. He’s not your child.”
That opened up the floodgates. Grant’s mother launched into me, yelling and flailing until her face was red. Even half-asleep, I could see the situation escalating. Thinking about what Vince and Nick would say, I knew I couldn’t just deal with it. Instead, I put my hands behind my back. Glad I instinctively grabbed my phone, I dialed 9-1-1. Rather than saying anything, I let Beatrice just keep shouting. At one point, I mentioned where I lived so the dispatcher could send police.