Echoes

Part 28

After fuming for a good half hour, I finally forced myself to call Charles Rice back. I played what had been me dropping the phone off as spotty cell phone reception. We discussed the information he'd just given me, and the fact that I felt Asher had been forging my signature and that Michele had served as a false witness.

"Look, Shira," he said, "why don't you come down to my office and I'll see what we can figure out? I'll call this kid's lawyer, as well as a few clerks and judges and see what we're really dealing with. Bring any documents that pertain to your daughter with you."

"Okay. I've just got to gather the paperwork and I'll be on my way."

My head became a sea of confusion as I went about gathering everything from Giselle's birth certificate to her social security card. What exactly was Asher doing? Filing for sole custody without so much as mentioning it to me was an asshole move, but at least it wasn't totally unreasonable. Maybe he really did think he was the better parent, as laughable as that seemed. But to want Michele to adopt Giselle was beyond my comprehension, to say nothing of this marriage. As much as I wanted to chalk the marriage up to a means to speeding up the adoption he wanted, I knew it couldn't be so lightly dismissed. Michele had quit her dream college and transferred to a local school she swore she'd never attend all to be closer to Asher. And he was giving her jewelry. There was a seriousness to the relationship whether I liked it or not, and this marriage probably meant something to them. It made me wonder just how long they'd been sleeping together before I found out about it. I wracked my brain for a moment before finding myself fixated on the day Michele had asked where a particular DVD of mine was. I could have sworn Asher was checking her out but had talked myself out of it. 

While I doubted they'd gotten together by that point, considering how tense their goodbyes had been when she left for school less than two weeks later, it was obvious the sexual attraction had started then. By the time she'd visited for Halloween, the two of them were able to control their usual animosity impressively well. No backbiting, no outright antagonism, just relatively ignoring each other aside from a few strange looks here and there that I had chalked up to their mutual discomfort being around one another. I knew now that sometime between the day she'd left for school and the day she'd come in for Halloween, something had happened, even if only on an emotional level. If they hadn't started sleeping together by Halloween, they must have started shortly after. I shook my head in disgust. They were sickening people, especially him. If he was with her that far back, why had he bothered being with me? He knew full well that I wouldn't keep him from seeing Giselle over anything aside from negligent parenting on his part. He didn't need to be in a relationship with me to see her. Why would he want to be with me while in some secret relationship with my best friend? What was the point? Obviously, all he really wanted was to be with Michele and raise Giselle with her, so what benefit could there be in being with me? My thoughts halted momentarily as I realized I was rushing down the stairs. I had hardly noticed getting ready and gathering the papers. Adrenaline was starting to hit me, and I felt as if many of my actions were on autopilot. I set the manila folder in which I'd placed the paperwork down on the kitchen table and went to grab a few final things before heading out the door.

Part of me couldn't believe that he would try to get me out of Giselle's life, but maybe it was true. It had to be true, really. It was the only thing that made any sort of sense right now. Was everything about him getting back together with me a lie? What if it had been a whole lie from the very beginning? What if our romantic relationship wasn't the only thing that was inauthentic? What if even his initial apology and attempt to get on good terms was, too? He had admitted before that he had caved into the pressure from his parents before. That was why he had broken up with me and hadn't been heard from until after Giselle was born. He'd said he had finally realized it wasn't worth it and cut ties with them, but what if that had never happened? He had probably convinced them to allow him to see Giselle without cutting him off. They had probably agreed to accept her even, provided my family and I weren't involved. Not even the Harrisons could hate an innocent baby and Asher was their only child. More pragmatically, he was his father's only possible heir to the family business. They were probably more than happy to welcome Asher back into the fold with Giselle as long as I wasn't part of the deal.