Episode 1073: Respect

“I don’t come here to upset you,” Paul said, stepping inside and removing his shoes.

The guy was at least mindful of not tracking a mess through her home, but he wasn’t nearly as mindful of whether or not he turned her life into a mess.

“I come to see you because I’m upset and you’re the one person who will understand it. You’re the only person I have in my life to talk about this with. No one else knows.”

“You could tell someone else. Then every time you get an itch about maybe going for visitation or custody or whatever fancy strikes you, you could then bring that to this other person instead of to me. You don’t seem to get how alarming it is to then be left wondering is Paul going to go through with it this time or is it still just talk? Is he going to upend Hope’s life as she knows it and then what happens? It’s nerve-wracking to be left to wonder when or if the other shoe is going to drop. Then it doesn’t drop and I breathe easier until you show up again. So what is it today? Are you thinking about just showing up at their house out of the blue or serving them-”

“I…” Paul paced a bit then turned to her with imploring eyes. “Don’t you ever think about this?”

“I do, of course. I do. But for the most part, I try not to.” Lucy had intended to leave it at that only to volunteer, “she came here awhile back. Halloween. Whether by accident or design or dared by a friend, I don’t know. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if that was her way of reaching out or nothing at all. I thought about telling her parents but then I thought maybe that’s a violation of her privacy. I work with kids every day yet I struggled with what to do when it came to my own daughter. How old is eleven when it’s your own kid? It’s a lot more complicated than from an outsider’s perspective, I’ll tell you that, it’s making me second guess myself at work with other people’s children.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know if I handled it the right way. But here’s what I told myself, here’s what we both need to tell ourselves when we get ideas about changing up this situation. Eleven years old is old enough that at least the initial decisions about us should be in her court, it should be about what she wants and asks for, and we also really need to remember that we aren’t her parents, she has parents, we need to respect that, accept that. I have no doubt that Michael is a great mom.”

“And her father?”

“She has a great mom.”

Episode 1074: Innocent Man?