Molly is dead.
I’d spent the last ten months praying she wouldn’t come back to try to take Olivia from me. She’d obviously been a mess the night she gave her to me; drunk and disheveled, and looking as though she lived out of her car. Maybe that wasn’t the real her, or she’d had a bad night, but that was the mental snapshot she’d left me of her as a mother.
But she had been Olivia’s mother, and in the back of my mind, I’d always assumed she’d be in our daughter’s life somehow. Now that was over. I would never have to explain to Olivia that her mother had left her. Instead, I would have to tell her she died.
She has no mother, either.
A deep pain for my little girl that I added to the noxious concoction of emotions swirling in my guts.
It was my turn to order. “I’ll take a tall coffee.”
“Decaf,” Jackson told the barista, and shot me a wink. His reassuring smile faded as he looked over his shoulder. “This must be them.”
I looked to the front where the Abbotts were coming in, Holloway holding the door for open.
“That’s them,” I said.
“They look like money,” Jackson said.
The knot of fear twisted tighter. The Abbotts had money. Enough to fight me. Enough to tell a judge they had the means to provide Olivia with a life I couldn’t afford.
Jackson sighed and elbowed me in the arm. “Hey. You’re jumping to conclusions in that big brain of yours. Cut it out. Nothing’s happened yet.”
“Yet.”
We took our coffees to a table in the corner that was big enough for five and waited for the Abbotts to join us. My leg bounced under that table too.
“Mr. Haas,” Holloway said, extended his hand.
This time I shook it, and gave the Abbotts a small nod in greeting.
“This is Jackson Smith, my attorney,” I said.
Jackson offered his hand and a bright smile. Introductions were made all around and then the five of us sat with drinks in front of us that only the attorneys touched. The Abbotts studied me with that same mix of hope and fear in their eyes. They had nice faces. Kind. They weren’t monsters, but a grandma and a grandpa. Olivia’s grandma and grandpa.
I tried to loosen my clenched-jaw and unfurrow my brow to look less like an asshole next to Jackson’s friendly smile.
“I’ll get straight to the point,” Holloway said. “Mr. and Mrs. Abbott were only recently made aware of their daughter’s passing six weeks ago.”
“She’d always been on the run,” Alice said in a shaky voice. “We tried to give her everything but it wasn’t enough.”
Gerald covered his wife’s hand. “We hadn’t seen her in so long. We had no idea she’d been in an accident. Nor did we know that she’d had a baby.”
“We knew nothing,” Alice said. “So much joy and sadness all at once…”
Jackson nodded sympathetically. “And when, exactly, were you made aware that you had a granddaughter?”
“Two weeks ago,” Holloway answered. “Through a friend of the late Miss Abbott’s.”
Alice sat straighter, imploring me with her eyes as she spoke. “As soon as we knew, we wanted to see Olivia. To be a part of her life.”
“In what capacity?” Jackson asked. He looked to Holloway. “What’s this I hear about a hearing?”
Holloway folded his hands on the table, his gold watch glinting in the sun in tandem with his gold pinky ring.
“The friend of Molly’s informed us that Olivia’s birth certificate is most likely in your possession. Is that true, Mr. Haas?”
My heart did a slow roll in my chest. I nodded.