Contracted To Love

“Pajamas? Really Michelle? Is that what we’re doing now?” he asked.

“Andrea’s a very special girl, you and I both know that and she has very few things that give her comfort and her special jammies are one of those things.”

“Fine.”

Jean was almost yelling. She could almost picture him holding the back of his neck, the way he usually did when he was frustrated.

“By the way, I thought you should know that I’m taking a trip to Key West next weekend. For work,” he said and she shrugged. She really didn’t get what she had to do with anything he’d just said.

“So?” she asked.

“So, I’ll be leaving Andrea with my parents because I’ll be gone through the weekend,” Jean said easily, as if what he had said didn’t have any effect on her at all.

“What do you mean you’ll leave Andrea with your parents? I’m supposed to have her for the weekend.”

“Well, you know the rules… I have to be around in case she wants to come back home or whatever.”

Michelle rolled her eyes.

“This is still her home. It will always be her home.”

“You told the judge that you preferred seeing her in pain,” Jean said, and for a moment there, she wished she could reach into the phone and just strangle him.

That whole statement had been taken out of context by Jean to play the judge. He’d always been queasy when it came to Andrea’s shots but Michelle’s policy had always been that she would rather deal with a little pain from a simple jab than deal with long, sleepless nights caused by infections. She would have gone through a million jabs just to spare her daughter any kind of sickness.

“You got your lawyer to twist my words and you know it, Jean!” She began pacing up and down. “This isn’t the agreement we had. I should have her this weekend and you can always pick her up when you’re back in town.”

She knew that what she said made perfect sense but for some reason Jean wasn’t prepared to listen to reason.

“I’m going on the business trip, Michelle, and I’m leaving my daughter with my parents,” he said decisively before he hung up.

She wanted to call him again but she just knew that trying to talk sense to Jean was hopeless. She had a better chance talking to her living room wall. She exhaled loudly. Jean was always going to be a thorn in her side until she could find a way to get joint custody of Andrea. Or better yet, full custody. Sometimes she wondered if letting him have the money he wanted in the divorce would have tipped the odds in her favour as far as the custody hearing. She always found herself wondering how different her life would have turned out if she’d budged on that issue. It wasn’t the easiest thing to think about but she always found herself thinking about it anyway. In the back of her mind she knew that the judge had decided to award custody to Jean just to make it appear that she wasn’t siding with the proverbial one percent.

She hated to admit it but Jean was a great father. She always wondered how someone could be such a bad husband and somehow such a decent human being when it came to his kid. Michelle had lived in constant fear of Jean when they were married. He was terribly temperamental and unfortunately, she was the one who’d born the brand of her husband’s tempers. Her head had hit the floor one too many times, her rib had a few too many fractures and her medical history told a story that many chose to keep silent; maybe because of the embarrassment or maybe because of the threats.

The worst thing about the whole ordeal was that because Michelle had never filed charges against him, she’d been unable to use the abuse against him. She also feared how a public figure like her was going to be represented in the public. She hated the stigma that came with it. For her to be presented as a victim of domestic abuse. It was easy for a woman like her, a black woman, to be blamed for who knows what while the white male played the hero. But it was on days like this that she looked back and wondered why she hadn’t filed charges against him. She had needed something public so that the world could know who Jean was. Who he really was. That simple act of reporting him would have won her the case. She would have had custody of her daughter, but because she never did, Jean now had Andrea. And while she was sure that he would never hurt his own daughter, a part of her always went into a state of mild panic when she thought of the possibility of him snapping and poor little Andrea paying the price of her ignorance. Or was it the price of her procrastinating nature? Maybe it was her need to protect the people she loved a little too much… so much that she compromised her own happiness.

Michelle pulled the pin that held her straightened hair up and let her tresses fall freely onto her shoulders. The tone in Jean’s voice had been clear. Stern. It was obvious that the only way forward was to not fight him. It was hard enough dealing with him as it was. Besides, she knew that the toll their fighting had on Andrea was terrible. It was that simple thought that made her let the issue go. At least for now. She knew that she was going to get full custody soon enough, but she just had to play her cards right before she went ahead and sued for full sole custody. Her lawyer had been clear about the way forward. All she needed to do was keep going as she was. Be there for Andrea and make note of the days Jean pulled something like this. It would work in her favour in the long run.

She made her way to the bedroom and grabbed her journal. She sat on the bed as she pulled a pen from the journal binder.

4. Denied me my weekend with Andrea.

She sighed loudly. That was the fourth mistake in three months. Usually, people got a three-strike opportunity. Three strikes and they were out. But with Jean, the more mistakes she recorded, the better her chances of getting her daughter back home. She always knew that Andrea would come back to her. That was why she’d never touched Andrea’s bedroom. The Moana theme splashed on the walls and the bedspread remained exactly as she’d left it because Michelle knew it wasn’t going to be very long before she got her daughter back. Not long at all.