Forever Right Now

“You call if you need anything,” he said. “I’m at your beck and call.”

“Thank you, Jackson.”

“Anything for you, Darlene.”

He turned to for the door.

“What are his chances?” I asked before he could turn the handle.

Jackson stopped, shrugged. “He’s got that freakish memory. That’ll get him through the multiple choice—”

“No, I meant what are the chances he’s going to keep Olivia?”

He blew air out his cheeks, and ran a hand over his close-cropped hair. “I don’t know, Dar. We just have to hope for the best.”

I shook my head incredulous. “Jackson, how do you stay so positive? My stomach feels like it’s going to turn itself inside out.”

“Well, according to Henrietta, the universe is listening.”

“What’s that mean?”

“You get back what you put in. Negative shit gets you negative shit. Positive energy begets positive energy. Whatever you put out there in the universe…it listens. And then it answers. So when I talk, I try to give it something it wants to hear and hope it answers with something I want to hear.” He shot me a wink. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go lay down. I put in too much vodka last night and my body has answered.” He rubbed his temple. “Loudly.”

I watched him go, and heard voices on the stairs after he shut the door. A knock came, and Elena peeked her head in.

“I saw you come in with the boot and the cane,” she said. “Poor dear, is it broken?”

“Just two toes. The little ones. I’ll be fine.”

She nodded, her hands turning over and over in front of her. “Henrietta tells me the hearing was hard on Sawyer.” She leaned in, as if she were afraid the universe was listening too. “They can’t take her from him, can they?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “There’s a law. A deadline, of sorts. If he’d had Olivia for a year, with no help, he’d have been able to put his name on her birth certificate.”

Elena scoffed. “A year? That’s weeks away! What difference does a few weeks make?”

I shrugged helplessly. “That’s the law.”

Elena shook her head and then reached to pat my cheek. “We will tell the judge. I’ll come to the next hearing too. Character witnesses. Whatever he needs.”

Acting on pure instinct, I threw my arms around her. She hugged me back in a motherly embrace I was loathe to leave, and I smelled cumin and a light perfume, and over that, the clean baby scent of Olivia. She was still there, in Elena’s clothes and in her skin.

When I pulled back, the woman had tears her in eyes.

“I love that little girl. And I love him, the sweet boy.”

“I do too,” I said. “Both of them.”

Elena’s face burst into a smile like a sun from behind dark clouds. “See? What did I tell you,” she said, moving toward the door. “This is no house. It’s a home.”

Elena left and the quiet of my place descended, leaving me with a thought that sunk its claws into me and wouldn’t let go; if Sawyer lost Olivia, I’d lose them both, and this home would be empty.

Darlene

The next day, Monday, I struggled through my shift at Serenity. My foot throbbed with a second heartbeat and by three o’clock, I was fighting back tears. Whitney, my supervisor, was more concerned that my boot was ‘unsightly.’

“If it’s too much, maybe you should stay home tomorrow,” she said in the break room as I readied to head out.

I took up my cane and limped past her, my chin up. “I’ve dealt with worse.”