Page 53 of Lies and Lullabies
Jonas caught her by the hand. “Give your mom a minute to read her boring papers, okay?”
I didn’t know whether to be grateful that he was trying to distract Vivi, or annoyed that he’d show up in the first place. I walked past the two of them, slitting the big envelope with my thumb as I went.
“Do you know it’s my birthday soon?” Vivi asked.
“I’d heard that,” Jonas said gently. “What do you want for your birthday?”
“A pony,” Vivi said immediately. “Or a rowboat. But I can’t have those because we live in the city.”
“Ah,” he sympathized. “Ponies don’t like elevators.”
My daughter continued to babble to Jonas, and I tuned them out so I could skim the contents of the envelope. The first sheet was a short letter.
Dear Kira,
Please accept my apology for the documents you received from my previous law firm. I would never try to take your daughter away from you.
(My new lawyer did not want me to put that in writing. Lawyers are trained to think of all the outlandish possibilities. But since you’re not the kind of girl who is likely to start a meth lab in your kitchen, I’m just going to go out on a limb here and assume that my intervention for Vivi’s welfare will never be necessary.)
Enclosed please find a standard “complaint to establish paternity.” (I don’t like the word “complaint,” but that’s what they call these things.) After a judge helps me establish that I am Vivi’s father, I will request “reasonable visitation.” But not before discussing it with you.
Again, I apologize for any anxiety my crack legal team has caused. That was never my intention.
Sincerely,
John Jonas Smith
The complaint to establish paternity was the only other document in the envelope. It was not quite two pages long and entirely straightforward.
I let out my breath for what felt like the first time all week.
Thirteen
Jonas
Kira’s shoulders visibly relaxed. Thank fuck. If there was any justice, I’d make it through the next forty-eight hours without finding brand-new ways to alienate her.
It was pretty trippy to be sitting in her apartment. I wanted to wander through the rooms and get a better picture of her life. Or—even better—to sit beside her and ask questions. I wanted to take a seat at one of those barstools separating the kitchen from the living area and listen to her talk about her day.
Years ago, I’d loved sitting at the general store’s counter in Maine, letting her musical voice wash over me and watching the flutter of her pulse at her neck as she worked.
But that wasn’t in the cards today. Because every time I managed to get close to Kira, I found a way to ruin it. It was tempting to blame this latest disaster on my ham-fisted West Coast lawyer, but as usual, I’d been asleep at the wheel when it counted.
Beside me, Vivi was describing the life cycle of a butterfly. My baby was a talker, that was for sure. A lucky thing. It gave me an excuse to observe her, taking in the sound of her high little voice, and the way her eyes were quick and warm, like Kira’s.
“…And then the larva eats and eats. And then it finds a leaf to stick on.”
“It has to make a cocoon, right?” I put in.
“Nope,” Vivi corrected me mercilessly. “You call it a chrysalis. Cocoons are for moths. That’s different. A butterfly has a chrysalis. Chrysalis, chrysalis, chrysalis!”
“Got it.”
From the kitchen, where she was watching us, I heard Kira snort.
“And then the next part is boring, because it takes ten days. But when the chrysalis starts to wiggle, you know the butterfly is going to come out. That’s good to watch. Except when the chrysalis breaks open, some stuff that looks like blood drips out, only it’s not called blood, it’s called something else.”
“What’s it called?”
