Chapter One
Aaron didn’t have to guess at the Judge’s low opinion of him – with the telltale sharp glare and the occasional twitch of her flared nostrils, her disgust was worn plainly on her face. She seemed to detest him on sight.
“So Mr Calloway,” she addressed him. “Despite having no evidence that you can actually provide for your child, you’re demanding sole custody.”
Aaron cleared his throat. “What do you mean by evidence? You have my financial records, obviously, you know I work. What more do you expect me to show you?”
Judge McConnell narrowed her eyes and stared at him as if inspecting a black-jeans-clad bug that had just bit her, deciding whether or not to crush it beneath her heel. She was perfect, prim and proper, not a single strand of her peppered black hair escaping her taut bun. Aaron was far less composed, compared to her he must have seemed utterly provincial.
“I want to see receipts and photos proving you have a bedroom for your daughter to sleep in. I want to see photos and videos of your pantry and fridge, to prove that you have food to feed her. I want to know how you plan to make sure she attends school. I want to see your work schedule, verified by your employer so that I know you will be around when she’s home.”
“You want pictures of my fridge? Are you joking?” Aaron clenched his fist.
The small-framed woman beside him, his navy-suit-wearing lawyer, barked under her breath to “Stop talking.”
“No, this is ridiculous. I haven’t seen my daughter in six months! You never made her -” he threw his arm out at the other bench, where his ex-wife and her lawyer sat, “- take photos of her fridge, or Cait’s bedroom, or the pantry, or anything!”
“Mr Calloway!” Judge McConnell bellowed. “Your constant whataboutism, aggression, and outbursts of rage have done you no favors. It seems to me you are only fighting for custody to hurt your ex-wife, that’s what your attitude and lack of effort tell me. Bring the proof requested of you – and a change in attitude – to the next hearing, or your custody application will be denied.”
“How dare y-”
“I swear if you finish that sentence Mr Calloway I will hold you in contempt!”
“What did I say?” His lawyer Meghan Nguyen hissed. “Are you trying to lose?”
He gritted his teeth and backed down. He tuned out the rest of the proceedings. The legal gibberish flew in one ear and out the other, he had neither the education nor the patience to try and comprehend it. Occasionally he would glance over at the other table, despite screaming at himself in his head not to.
His ex’s lawyer was a tall, broad-shouldered man over sixty, with silvery-grey hair and rectangular glasses. Everything he said sounded like a command in his deep, booming voice, and he easily dominated the room every time he had the opportunity to speak.
His ex April wore a suit like her lawyer’s – black, with a white blouse, pants, and shoes polished to a mirror shine. Occasionally, April would look back at him with a smug expression, and every time he caught a glimpse of her smirk, his blood grew hot and his muscles tensed.
He wanted to scream as loud and as long as his lungs would permit. He wanted to scream until all the anger was gone. He wanted to scream until the people around him were willing to listen to what he had to say.
As the court session came to a close, April shook her lawyer’s hand and pulled a pair of sunglasses from her designer purse – both being gifts he had gotten her for her twenty-ninth birthday and Christmas, respectively. It seemed she had cut her hair recently. Her layered black hair dripped down to her shoulders, a salon-quality presentation that informed him exactly how his child support was being spent.
Aaron grabbed his black hoodie with the hole in the left pocket off of the back of his chair. Meghan smoothed her skirt and retrieved her briefcase, following him out of the courtroom.
“I told you to wear a suit,” she muttered in the halls.
“Well I haven’t got one,” he snapped back over his shoulder.
She shook her head. “You need to control yourself in there, we’ve talked about this! Every time you react to their provocations you make yourself look dangerous and aggressive. You’re sabotaging yourself. You have to shut up and let me do the talking, be short but polite when answering questions, and you have to look presentable!”
He stopped and whipped around on his heels. He opened his mouth to shout but he thought better of it, and with a heavy sigh he deflated to a more relaxed posture. “I know. It’s just not fair.”
“It’s fair, it’s just challenging. And It’s challenging on purpose. You have to earn this, Aaron.”
“She didn’t,” he quipped. “She just got it all.”
“You let her,” Meghan replied. “Look, you tried to represent yourself, and you hit a wall. This is going to be harder now because of that. But don’t give up, ok?”
He nodded, and they parted ways.
The air outside was starting to get chilly. Autumn was in full swing, though in the heart of the city, the only real sign was that every cafe and coffee shop advertised pumpkin-spiced products, and the big box stores had put out their Halloween displays.
Aaron longed for autumn when he used to live out in the country, but its charms were lost on the urban jungle. He wrinkled his nose as he walked across the parking lot, the stench of cigarettes utterly dominating the downtown air.
He found his black Honda Civic with the scratch all down the driver’s side – inflicted by April, undoubtedly, though he could never prove it. As he got in, he took out his cracked smartphone and texted a friend, Charles Green, to meet him for drinks that night.
He sat back and stared at his phone background for a while. The nine-year-old girl looking back at him through the screen wore a big smile on her face. She had curly dark hair and big brown eyes like his, but her nose and chin were identical to April’s. Her skin was mildly tan, closer to April’s complexion than his own.
April named her Caitlyn. Aaron wanted to name her after his mom, but he was vetoed.
He put his phone away and put the car in gear. That evening he picked up Charles outside his house in the suburbs. A tall, clean-shaven man walked out, hands in his pockets, wearing blue jeans and a fleece jacket, and a rose-gold watch on his left wrist.
He got in the car and the men bumped fists and gave each other a nod in greeting.
“How’s Stevie?” Aaron asked.
Charles checked his curly fringe in the mirror. ”I don’t even know, we’re between arguments right now. We’re still too heated to make up, but we’re not mad enough to keep fighting it out, so whatever. How was court?”
“Let’s just say after all these years I’m finally making April happy,” Aaron scoffed.
Charles patted him on the shoulder. “That bad huh? Man fuck this whole week. Let’s get drunk.”
“Lets.”
Aaron drove to the bar, which sat at the far end of a strip mall with a fading sign that read “Gallagher’s Pub”. Inside the dimly lit establishment, they got a booth in the back corner and Aaron went to the bar to get their drinks. The two men sat across from each other, clinked their shot glasses together, and swallowed their shots of whiskey in tandem, chasing it with a beer each.
Charles was far more social than Aaron. A few drinks later he was ingratiating himself with a few of the other patrons seated at the bar.
Aaron pulled up a simple puzzle game on his phone to stave off the boredom as he nursed his fourth beer of the night.
“Looks like your friend ditched you,” a woman’s voice called from over his shoulder.
He looked up at her, as she leaned against the side of the booth, dark auburn hair cascading down her back with dyed fiery-red tips, and a charcoal sweater-dress.
She looked back at him, with dark eyes and a coy grin, and he immediately felt energized by her gaze.
Aaron glanced over at Charles laughing and talking with a couple, and he nodded. “He’s the social type.”
“And you’re the ‘stare at your phone in public’ type?” She teased.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I am, and I happened to be enjoying my time staring at my phone before you so rudely interrupted.”
“Oh, were you? My goodness, I am just so sorry,” she retorted with mocking sincerity. “Your friend stole my seat while I was in the bathroom. Tell you what, as an apology for interrupting you, I’ll have a drink with you.”
Aaron chuckled. “What an honor! How could I refuse?”
She flashed that grin again, and Aaron couldn’t help himself from smiling in return. He slid out of the booth, and she playfully offered her hand and said “Mi’lady.”
“What a gentleman,” Aaron replied without skipping a beat, taking her hand as he stood.
They walked together to the bar, and she ordered a rum and Coke, while he got another beer. She brushed her hair from her eyes and plucked the lime from the rim of her glass. She chewed on it for a moment before dropping it into her drink.
“You like limes, do you?” Aaron asked incredulously.
She nodded. “I always chew on the lemon or line when I get a drink. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.”
“You drank rum and Coke as a kid?” He quipped.
“I drank whatever I could steal from my dad, thank you very much.”
“Stealing, very classy,” Aaron said with a grin.
She turned in her stool so their knees were touching, and she gave him a sultry look. “So do you have a name or do I get to give you one?”
“Aaron Calloway. And what do they call you?”
“I don’t know if I want to say, people usually laugh when I tell them,” she said, smirking.
“I promise… that I will laugh too. And bully you mercilessly.”
She playfully slapped his chest. “You’re awful, Aaron Calloway.”
“Absolutely terrible. So your name is?”
She leaned in closer, and her hair spilled over her shoulders. “My name is Tara, but my friends call me Yorkie.”
“Yorkie?”
“Like the dog, you know?”
Aaron chuckled a little. “As a pre-emptive apology for all the bullying I am about to put you through, let me buy you another drink.”
“I’m prepared, give me your best shot!” Yorkie retorted.