Sex, Not Love(50)

She again stared out the window, so I started the car to give her some time. We were going to be physically next to each other for the next few hours, yet I thought she might need some privacy to replay things in her head.

But she didn’t put in her earbuds and fall asleep this time. Instead, she looked deep in thought.

After about an hour, I pointed to a bunch of fast food signs on the side of the highway and asked if she wanted to stop and get some lunch. She nodded. Rather than go through the drive-thru as we normally would on the way home, I parked in a spot at Wendy’s. If she was ready to talk some more, it would be easier sitting across from each other.

I grabbed my purse from the back and opened my car door to get out. Izzy’s voice stopped me.

“Nat?”

I turned back to find that Izzy hadn’t made any attempt to get out of the car. She faced forward, but when I looked closely at her, I saw tears welling in her eyes. I pulled my car door shut.

“Talk to me, sweetheart. It’s normal that you’re upset after what happened today.”

A fat tear streaked down her cheek, and her bottom lip quivered. Seeing her pain when she turned to face me choked my throat with my own tears.

“What rights does Dad have?” she croaked with a shaky voice.

At first I didn’t understand the question, but then I remembered the last thing I’d said was that he had every right to know if a man was hanging around her. I thought that’s what she was referring to.

“Well, he’s your father, so I guess I feel like he has a right to know you’re safe and well protected. No matter what happened between me and him, or what he’s done wrong, I would feel wrong letting him worry about your safety.”

She shook her head vigorously. “No. What right does he have to me?”

“You mean legally?”

She nodded.

We’d never discussed the legal aspect of how things were decided by the court. All she knew was she lived with me and visited her grandmother and father. “Well, right now I have full physical custody of you. So no one else has the right to have you live with them. You go to visit your grandmother once a month because that’s what I arranged with her. I think it’s important to keep in touch with her, and she loves you very much. She wanted to have physical custody of you, but she’s seventy-two, and you’d never lived with her before, so the court agreed that you should live with me.”

I waited until she looked up at me and made sure she heard the next part loud and clear. “And I wanted you to live with me because I love you.”

She smiled through her tears and nodded, so I continued.

“But there are two types of rights people have over minors—physical custody and legal custody. Your dad and I share legal custody of you.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that your dad and I both get a say in the important decisions about you—like schooling, medical care, and that type of stuff.”

“Even though he’s in jail?”

“Yes. I didn’t try to fight him for full legal custody. He’s always made good decisions for your well-being, and he does love you. I didn’t want him to feel like I was trying to steal you from him. He made mistakes. Big ones. But he’s still your father.”

I thought I’d done a good job explaining it, but when I finished, she looked even more devastated than when I started. Tears streamed down her face.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Was that too much information?” I leaned over and pulled her into my arms. “Come here. Talk to me. What part upset you?”

She sobbed on my shoulder for a few minutes, and I couldn’t hold back my own tears. It hurt so damn much to see her in pain. Kids shouldn’t have to hurt because of the actions of adults who were supposed to protect them. Yet it happened every day.

I never thought I’d long for angry, pissed-off Izzy to appear. After a while, the sobbing slowed, and she sniffled before lifting her head from my shoulder. Her eyes were puffy and red.

“You’re going to send me back to live with him, aren’t you?”

The question caught me off guard. It had never occurred to me that Izzy might not want to live with her dad when he got out in a few months. It was only in the last few months that she’d started to open up to me, and I’d started to see that she really didn’t hate me—she just hated the circumstances surrounding why she had to live with me, and I was the only person around to blame.

I searched her face. “You don’t want to live with your dad?”

She shook her head.

“You’re upset with him now. I don’t think you’re in the right frame of mind to think about things like this.”

“He’s not a girl. He wouldn’t get stuff. Can’t I just stay with you and visit him on the weekends or something?”

Jesus, I was not ready to answer that question. Even more so, I wasn’t sure I could answer that question. Garrett would certainly want custody of his daughter when he got out, wouldn’t he?

“Izzy, I...I don’t think that decision is up to me, or you, alone.”

Her hopeful face fell. “It’s up to Dad?”

“I guess if you and I decided it would be in your best interest to stay with me, and your dad disagreed, a judge would have to decide.”