Episode 1164: Family Affair

“I can’t give you those,” his lawyer replied. “Given his family’s profile, he’ll have powerhouse lawyers at his disposal, too, if he decides to take it that far.”

“You’d better be prepared to be more of a powerhouse.” Curran ended the call on that vague threat. He pinched the bridge of his nose, tired of his lawyer’s uncertainty. Furious with Paul Jordan for dropping into their lives like that, ambushing them with demands right in front of Hope, not even having the decency to speak privately about visitation before dragging a kid into the middle of it.

The only silver lining to the entire situation was that Hope, upon hearing Paul introduce himself as her father, had said, “no, you’re not.”

And she’d maintained that hostility ever since. Hope had sided with her actual father against seeing Paul. If ever a kid deserved to be spoiled rotten, it was Hope this holiday season, Curran thought to himself as he took yet another break from work to shop online for presents for his daughter.

While he’d prefer it if his lawyer could permanently remove Paul from their lives, so far, as long as his girl had the good sense to refuse to visit Paul, and Paul stood by his word to comply with her wishes, they were golden.

Michael brought the last two boxes down from the attic, setting them on the floor in their living room. She and Hope had pushed the coffee table to one side when the tree was delivered earlier and the coffee table remained in the corner, leaving plenty of room to dig through the boxes, spread out their trove of holiday decor and get it all organized for family decorating that night with Curran.

“Well, detangler extraordinaire, how do you feel about tackling these?” Michael asked, nudging the box of tree lights in her daughter's direction.

“Wow, worse than ever,” Hope declared holding up a strand that appeared as round and tightly packed as a snowball. She smiled. “Challenge accepted.”

Michael took that as her opportunity to to segue into a difficult conversation. While organizing ornaments before decorating definitely made for a smoother operation, really Michael had planned this afternoon with her daughter in a casual merrymaking setting and without Curran, for a purpose. She wanted Hope to consider the situation without her father’s influence. Whatever Hope decided it needed to be for her, not for Curran. “You know, speaking of challenges, Paul got in touch with us, he asked if you might like to do some decorating at his place, too.”

Episode 1165: Most Wonderful Time