Her father? I didn’t realize my sister even knew for sure who the guy was who impregnated her. And now we were calling him Grace’s father? Where had he been for the past five years?
“And who is this person purporting to be her father? Is child services in the habit of just letting any man walk in off the street and say he wants to take a child? My niece has never met her father. How in the world do you think it would be a good idea for her to be uprooted again in the span of a month and sent to live with a total stranger?”
“Well, you were a total stranger to her, Mr. Allen, but she went with you.”
I wanted to snap at her for that smartass remark, but I held my tongue. “Exactly. Once was bad enough. At least I had seen the child, although it had been when she was small. This supposed father of hers has never even met her. And even more, Grace is happy here. I don’t think she should be taken away from my home.”
“Really? You didn’t seem thrilled to have this responsibility thrust upon you earlier this month.”
This woman was testing my patience and ruining what had been a fantastic morning.
“I wasn’t thrilled, true, but I made sure to provide Grace with a good home and a nanny who she adores. She and Tia have become quite close in the time they’ve been together, and I think it would harm her if you took that away from her. A child needs to know she has someone she can rely on, and she has that in her nanny.”
Now I sounded like Tia, but for the first time since Grace came to live with me, I liked saying something like that. I may not have been the best choice for that kid, but I wasn’t the only person in the house who had grown attached to the nanny.
“As much as I can appreciate her affinity for her nanny, Mr. Allen, it’s out of my hands. The law is clear. As her father, Mr. Groves has a right to his daughter.”
I jumped out of my office chair and began pacing across the room. “You make it sound like she’s an expensive European car or a piece of furniture. Grace is a person, a child who’s become attached to someone here. I won’t let you simply quote me some ridiculous law that the men and women in Albany haven’t gotten around to changing. You’ll be hearing from my lawyers.”
Before she had a chance to say anything else that might make me want to get truly nasty, I ended the call and immediately dialed Andrew Rochester, my lawyer for my business. He likely wouldn’t be an expert on this type of thing since he preferred to keep to the corporate side of the law, but he could point me in the direction of an attorney who could help.
When he answered, I immediately began relaying my problem. “Andrew, I need your help. I’ve got a situation with my niece I need a good lawyer for. Her father wants to show up out of the blue, probably fresh off some nationwide tour of all the open air festivals in the United States, and he wants to take my sister’s kid away. I want to stop him, so who do we know who can help me do that?”
“Nico? You have a niece? Since when do you have a niece?” he asked, frustrating me with how slowly he seemed to be catching on this morning.
“Five years. My sister got in trouble and is spending the next eighteen months upstate for insider trading. You know Fiona. She always has believed she’s got some special talent, but this time it got her sent to prison. But that’s not the point, really. The point is this guy named Groves wants to swoop in and take the little girl away. I don’t think he’s ever even met the kid, and trust me, she’s just settled down and stopped crying after being here for a few weeks, and that’s only because of the nanny I hired. I don’t want him coming in and taking her, so direct me to whoever you know in the child custody business who can help me prevent that.”
He didn’t answer for a long moment before finally saying, “I don’t know, Nico. Parental rights are a tricky thing to get around. Even absent parents have more rights than most people would prefer them to have.”
This wasn’t helping.
“Fine. Then I’m going to need a first rate lawyer, so who do you suggest? Money is no object.”
“Well, if money’s no object, then Jeff Handelman. He’s the best in the business, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. You can throw as much money as you want at a problem like this, but parental rights—”
Before he repeated himself, I cut him off. “Yeah, yeah. They’re tricky. Got it. Okay, thanks again, Andrew.”
I wasn’t above throwing my name and reputation around, and as I listened to the phone ring at Jeff Handelman’s office, I remembered meeting him a few years back. He was dating a friend’s sister or something like that, and they were considering a home in my neighborhood. That would be a good enough introduction and then we could get down to the business of stopping whoever this damn Groves guy was who suddenly came to love the idea of fatherhood.
“Hello, Handelman, Murphy, and Murphy. How may I direct your call?” a soft voice asked.
“I need to speak to Jeff Handelman.”
“I’m sorry. Attorney Handelman isn’t available right now. I can take your name and number and he’ll get back to you.”
All the times I avoided answering my calls instantly came back to haunt me. I gave her my information and impressed upon her that the situation was urgent, but if Handelman was anything like me, that would mean very little.
I’d give it a few hours and then decide what to do if he didn’t return my call. In the meantime, I needed to decide if I should tell Tia about this or put that discussion off until tomorrow.
As much as I hoped whoever this guy who claimed to be Grace’s father would disappear, I doubted that would happen. Any man who stepped up to take a five year old was likely not going to just walk away any time soon.
* * *
Tia blushedwhen I walked into the kitchen, and for a moment, I forgot what I was there for in the first place. I would have preferred telling her how much I enjoyed last night. Instead, I needed to break bad news after my call from Jeff Handelman.
“Where’s Grace?” I asked and then remembered she took a nap every day in the afternoon.
“She’s gone for her nap. We spent a lot of time outside. She really loves leaf hunting, Nico. I can’t decide if she’s a budding artist or a budding scientist,” Tia said with a sweet smile.