Chapter 7 - The Legal Storm
The next morning,
there was a knock on my door.
I expected Julian,
ready to scream at him,
to tell him to leave us alone.
Instead,
it was a man in a navy suit,
carrying a leather briefcase.
"Audrey Foster?"
he asked,
his voice professional and cold.
"I'm here on behalf of Julian Foster."
He handed me a thick envelope,
the paper heavy and expensive.
It was a petition for custody,
and a demand for a DNA test.
My heart plummeted,
hitting the floor with a sickening thud.
He was using his wealth,
using the law,
to take them from me.
"Tell him he'll never win,"
I said,
my voice shaking with rage.
"He abandoned us."
"The law sees it differently,
Ma'am,"
the lawyer replied,
not even flinching.
"He can argue he didn't know they existed.
And a billionaire father,
with unlimited resources,
is a very attractive prospect for a judge."
I closed the door in his face,
leaning against it,
my breath coming in ragged gasps.
I looked at the boys,
who were playing on the rug with their blocks.
They were so innocent,
so unaware that their lives,
were about to be torn apart.
I called the only person I could trust,
my mother.
"He found us,
Mom,"
I sobbed into the phone.
"He's trying to take them."
"He can't take them,
Audrey,"
she said,
trying to sound brave.
"We'll fight him.
We'll use every penny we have."
But I knew my parents' savings,
were a drop in the ocean,
compared to Julian's fortune.
He could hire a team of twenty lawyers,
he could drag this out for years,
until I was broken and broke.
I spent the day in a daze,
looking at the boys,
feeling a desperate,
suffocating love.
I thought about running again,
but his lawyers would find me.
He had marked us,
and there was no place left to hide.
That evening,
I went to the construction site,
demanding to see him.
The guards tried to stop me,
but I pushed past them,
my face a mask of cold determination.
I found him in a temporary office,
looking at a computer screen.
"Stop this,
Julian,"
I said,
throwing the envelope onto his desk.
He looked up,
his expression unreadable.
"I'm not stopping anything,
Audrey.
I missed four years of their lives.
I won't miss another day."
"You think money makes you a father?"
I asked,
leaning over the desk.
"You think a court order,
replaces the nights I spent rocking them to sleep?
The times they were sick,
and I was the only one there?"
"I would have been there,"
he shouted,
standing up.
"If you had given me the chance!"
"You lost your chance in that office!"
We stood there,
breathless and angry,
the ghosts of our past,
screaming between us.
"I want to see them,"
he said,
his voice dropping to a whisper.
"I want to be their father.
Not through a lawyer,
but through time.
Let me in,
May you like
Audrey.
Please."
