Fort Lupton (2 page)

“
You think Annette’s
behind this?” Sam asked as he cleared his throat.

“
Who else?” Rodney
asked.

Sam nodded. With nothing else to say, the
room filled with silence again. Time lagged. A half hour became an
hour. The day began to warm up outside, and people arrived to start
their day at the veterinary clinic. The veterinarian came out from
the back in a long, blue paper gown.

“
Mr. Smith?” the
veterinarian said.

~~~~~~~~

Tuesday morning — 8:25 a.m.

“
That was nice of you to
make Miss T go to school,” Dionne said to Jeraine as she walked
into his living room from the kitchen.

She held out a mug with a huge yellow smiley
face. Jeraine looked at the mug. His old Ecstasy supplier had given
him the mug to advertise his product. Tanesha had packed the mug up
in a box with his “drug things.” She’d told him to throw it out,
but he hadn’t gotten around to it.

Clearly, his mother had been busy unpacking
boxes today. Dionne raised an eyebrow to encourage him to take the
coffee. He took the mug and looked inside.

Coffee with a little cream.

He set the mug on the coffee table and
looked up at her.

“
Miss T?” Dionne
asked.

“
Oh,” Jeraine said. “We
don’t know anything, so she may as well go.”

Jeraine nodded to reassure himself. Dionne
sat down next to him on the couch.

“
It was nice of you,”
Dionne said.

Jeraine picked up the mug of coffee and took
a drink. He smiled. His mother made a good cup of coffee. She took
his smile as a compliment and smiled in return. The moment passed,
and their smiles faded.

“
Listen . . .” Dionne started at the same
moment Jeraine said, “Schmidty . . .”

Jeraine smiled and nodded to let her
talk.

“
I was going to say that
we will find the boy,” Dionne said.

“
I . . .”
Jeraine gave a slight shrug and looked away.

“
What is it, son?” Dionne
asked.

“
I haven’t even known
him,” Jeraine said. “All this time. He was
just . . . something that belonged to me, not a real
person, a real boy, not
my
boy. Then, WHAM!”

Jeraine smashed his hands together. His
motion tipped the yellow smiley mug, and coffee splashed onto his
mother’s arms. She smiled and got up to get a towel. When she’d
returned, Jeraine had retreated into silence. She mopped up the
coffee from the table and held the towel out to him. He took it
from her and set it on his knees.

Dionne picked up the smiley mug and
disappeared into the kitchen. She returned with the mug refilled
with coffee and set it back onto the coffee table. She sat down
next to him. He drank the coffee for a moment.

“
Then wham,” Jeraine said
in a soft voice. “He’s here and amazing.
I . . .”

Dionne put her arm around her son as if to
protect him from the demons she knew lived inside his head.

“
Are you thinking of
using?” Dionne asked.

“
Sure.”

Dionne sniffed her surprise at his honesty.
She looked at him, and he shrugged.

“
I’m always thinking about
using,” Jeraine said. “Just an old solution to a new
problem.”

Dionne shook him a little, and he smiled.
There was a noise at the door, and Schmidty came into the house.
Jeraine’s agent and attorney caught sight of the yellow smiley face
mug on the coffee table and stopped short. He gave Jeraine a hard
look and picked up the mug. Without saying a word, he took a sip of
coffee.

“
You make the best coffee,
Mrs. Wilson,” Schmidty said with a smile.

“
Would you like a cup of
your own?” Dionne asked.

“
No,” Schmidty said. “I’ll
take this one.”

Schmidty gave her a smile and walked the
offending mug back into the kitchen. They heard the water in the
kitchen come on and the cabinet open. Schmidty returned with a mug
of coffee from Tanesha’s collection. He set the new mug in the
place of the old mug.

“
Is there something wrong
with that mug?” Dionne asked.

“
It’s a gift from his MDMA
dealer.” Schmidty nodded to Jeraine.

“
And you didn’t get rid of
it?” Dionne shook her head at Jeraine. “Miss T is going
to . . .”

Jeraine raised his hands as if he
surrendered, and Dionne chuckled.

“
You are your father’s
son,” Dionne said.

“
I am that.” Jeraine
smiled. He picked up the fresh mug of coffee, and said, “You forgot
the cream.”

Schmidty laughed, and Jeraine smiled.

“
What do you know?”
Jeraine asked.

“
The minor Jabari Wilson
was taken into protective custody by Atlanta Child Protective
Services this morning,” Schmidty said.

“
What?” Jeraine said. He
and his mother sat up straight.

“
The Atlanta Family Court
has petitioned Denver Family Court for records,” Schmidty said.
“Atlanta is saying they are taking jurisdiction.”

“
Where is my son?” Jeraine
asked.

“
He’s in Atlanta General,”
Schmidty said. “The stress of last night seems to have caused some
kind of relapse.”

“
Or?” Dionne asked. “I
know that look, Schmidty Junior. Your father always had it when
there was an ‘or.’”

“
He was drugged,” Schmidty
said. “And that caused some kind of relapse.”

“
How did my son get to
Atlanta?” Jeraine asked.

“
Would you like to see
what Annette says?” Schmidty asked. He nodded toward the
television. “She’s explaining everything to
Good Day Atlanta
right
now.”

“
I don’t want to see
that.” Jeraine shook his head. “What does she say?”

“
She says that she
received a call from you last night,” Schmidty said. “You
supposedly told her that you wanted a healthy child. You didn’t
want to deal with a sick child. If she wanted him, she could have
him. Did you speak with Annette last night around nine?”

“
No,” Jeraine said. “I
picked Miss T up from school and we went to a crazy party at her
friend Heather’s mother’s house. Miss T’s parents were there with
Jabari. They left early because the boy was tired. We went back
inside a little while later. We didn’t get home until
late.”

“
And Annette?” Schmidty
asked.

“
I didn’t speak with her,”
Jabari said. “I haven’t spoken with her directly since you told me
not to after Yvonne found Jabari.”

“
That’s what I told them,”
Schmidty said.

“
But?”

“
She has a phone record
showing that someone from your home phone number called her cell
last night,” Schmidty said.

“
We weren’t home,” Jeraine
said.

“
She has a tape,” Schmidty
said.

“
She hired someone who
sounded like me to make that call,” Jeraine said. He pointed to the
phone sitting on a table in the hallway. “From that
phone.”

“
It’s likely.” Schmidty
nodded.

“
What is she doing?”
Dionne asked. “She doesn’t want the child. She
told
me she didn’t want the
child.”

“
She put him on a plane
without a care for what happened to . . .” Jeraine
swallowed back Jabari’s name, “ . . . my
son.”

“
She claims to be a pawn
in some game you’re playing,” Schmidty said. “After all, you’re the
drugged out pop star and she’s just the baby-momma.”

“
She works for me,”
Jeraine mumbled.

“
What?” Dionne asked. She
turned to look at Jeraine.

“
It’s something she says,”
Schmidty said. “She works for Jeraine. She’s his slave. He tricked
her into getting pregnant and then abandoned her at the altar for
Miss T. Jeraine’s strung her along because he’s a control
freak.”

“
I hold all the cards
because I hold the money,” Jeraine said.

Dionne sniffed with anger. She picked up
Jeraine’s mug of coffee and drank it down. They sat in a kind of
stunned silence.

“
Why now?” Dionne asked.
“She stopped coming to the custody hearings in Denver the moment
the judge kicked out the cameras. Why is she doing this, Schmidty?
It makes no sense.”

Schmidty nodded. Jeraine cleared his throat.
His mother and Schmidty turned to look at him.

“
She gave DNA yesterday,”
Jeraine said.

Dionne gawked at him, and Schmidty
nodded.

“
Did
she give a sample yesterday?” Dionne asked.

“
I believe so,” Schmidty
said. “Let me check.”

Schmidty got out his phone and placed a
call. He turned his back to them and spoke in quiet tones on the
telephone. When he turned around, he clicked off the call and
tucked the phone into his pocket.

“
She fulfilled her
subpoena yesterday morning,” Schmidty said. “The DNA evidence is
already on its way to be tested.
But . . .”

Schmidty nodded.

“
But?” Dionne
asked.

“
Her doctor’s office was
broken into last night,” Schmidty said. “All outgoing mail and
samples were stolen.”

“
Including Annette’s?”
Dionne asked.

Schmidty shook his head.

“
What?” Jeraine
asked.

“
I had her sample picked
up the moment she gave it,” Schmidty said. “It arrived at the lab
this morning. I have the receipt right here.”

Schmidty took out his phone and tapped
around for a moment until an email from FedEx came up on the
screen. Schmidty smiled.

“
I guess that’s
something.” Jeraine shrugged.

“
All of this is to cover
up the fact that she’s not Jabari’s mother?” Dionne
asked.

“
We knew that,” Jeraine
said.

“
What it means is that
this situation will be resolved,” Schmidty said. “What it means is
that this is a legal matter to be handled by your
attorneys.”

Jeraine shrugged.

“
What is it, son?” Dionne
asked.

“
I just want my son back,”
Jeraine said.

Shaking his head, Jeraine got up from the
couch and went to the back of the house.

~~~~~~~~

Tuesday morning — 11:25 a.m. ET

Atlanta, Georgia

“
He’s sleeping now,” the
doctor said to Annette. They peered through the small rectangle of
glass in Jabari’s door. “I’m sure you’d agree that he should
sleep.”

“
Of course,” Annette said.
“Of course. I just wanted to see my
baby . . .”

She turned toward the reality star nearest
to her and sobbed into the woman’s bony shoulder. The doctor nodded
to the orderly, who pushed Annette, her friends, and the camera
crew away from in front of Jabari’s hospital room.

Only the machines made a sound.

Jabari opened his eyes. He looked at the
window panel in the door. Seeing no one, he smiled. He rolled onto
his side and continued playing cars with the cups he’d snagged from
the airplane. One cup smelled like coffee, which reminded him of
Yvonne.

“
Vroom! Vroom!” Jabari
said.

With his hand on one cup-car, he moved the
other cup-car in front of the first car. The car in his hand
smashed into the second. Jabari made a big crash sound and giggled.
He immediately shushed himself with a “Shh, shh!” He looked at the
window again. Seeing no one, he looked around the room until he
spotted something tiny and pink.

“
I know you’re here,”
Jabari said.

No one said anything.

“
I can
see
you,” Jabari said.

In her fairy corps size, Abi stepped out
from behind the cup-car in his hand. Jabari nodded.

“
Are you a good witch or a
bad witch?” Jabari repeated what he’d heard in a movie
once.

“
I’m not a witch at all,”
Abi said.

“
Oh.” Jabari’s eyes welled
with tears. “I thought maybe you could take me home.”

“
I can’t take you home,
but . . .”” Abi made a show of reaching behind the
cup. She pulled out Jabari’s favorite soft elephant. She’d barely
gotten the elephant out when Jabari grabbed it. He pressed the
stuffed animal against his face and began to cry.

Abi did her best, but it was oddly difficult
to be comforting in a tutu. She didn’t dare get big, or she might
get caught by someone at the hospital, or worse, by Annette, or
even worse, by her camera crew. When the tears stopped, the boy’s
huge eyes — larger than Abi herself — looked over the grey soft
elephant at her.

“
If you’re not a witch,
you can’t take me home,” Jabari said.

“
I’m a fairy,” Abi said.
“We’re more powerful than witches, older, nicer.”

“
I know. I’m an expert on
fairies,” Jabari said. “My daddy read me some books about
fairies.”

“
I’d expect that you are
an expert then,” Abi said.

“
Do you know who I
am?”

“
I do,” Abi said. “You’re
Jabari the fierce.”