Page 4 of Recipes for Life
"Wynn, you can't go to jail. I need you. Lux needs you."
Her rage-filled gaze met mine, but softened at the mention of my daughter—Wynn turned into absolute goo over the mention of her niece.
"Tell me what happened."
So, I did. I told her how excited I was about passing my boards and becoming a PA, about how I couldn't wait to see and tell Murphy, and since Susan also adores her granddaughter, it wasn't a difficult task, asking her to watch her for the night while I surprised him. I got through the part where I walked into the room and what I saw, but I lost it when I tried to explain what I had overheard that wench Helen say to Murphy as I made my escape.
"She...she said that he didn't love me anymore, that he regretted having Lux so young." I choked on my sobs, unable to say anything else. She slid over onto my side of the nook and held me, which was so unlike Wynn, but I couldn't bring myself to do anything other than melt into her embrace and cry.
My heart was breaking. Breaking for the love I thought I shared with someone, for the future I had always envisioned for myselfand my daughter. I saw it melt away, piece by piece—the family vacations, the dance recitals and after dinner meals, the high school dances and worrying together, my daughter growing up with two parents. Everything laid to waste at the bottom of my heart.
Wynn let me cry until there was nothing left, my mind and body exhausted.
"What do you want to do?"
"I want to leave him."
Her eyebrows shot up. She wasn't expecting this response from me, but a slow smile spread over her lips.
"Good. Let me make a call." She stood abruptly and went in search of her phone.
"It's two-thirty in the morning. Who on earth could you be calling?"
Her face was etched in a frown, looking at the screen of her phone. I knew then that Murphy must have called her, trying to get hold of me.
"Is that him?" I whispered.
She didn't have to say anything, it was written all over her face. Her phone buzzed in her hand again. She declined the call and proceeded to make her phone call and put it on speaker.
"Dan, sorry to bother you at this hour."
"Not at all. What’s going on, Wynn?"
Wynn worked in PR for a huge company, so she traveled all the time and had some famous clients.
"I have to let you know you are on speaker with my sister, Odette. Listen, we need a lawyer."
I heard shuffling in the background, as if he was getting out of bed,
"Is everyone okay?" His voice took a very different tone from the one a few seconds prior.
"I guess that depends on your definition."
"Was anyone killed? Drinking and drugs involved?" he asked calmly.
I balked at that. "What? No! Of course not!"
"You forget what kind of people I deal with, sis.” Wynn winked at me. “That’s the norm."
Dan's voice came through the speaker once again. "Okay... Why don't you fill me in?"
Wynn took him off speaker and filled him in on what I walked in on, clearly trying to spare me from having to relive it over again. After that, she put him back on speaker so he could address me personally.
"Listen, I'm a criminal lawyer, so I don't do family law. However, I can get you in touch with one of the best in this area. Wynn mentioned you have a child. Where is she now?"
"Yes, Lux. She’s with her grandma...my mother-in-law."
"That's good, that will help your case that you don't appear to be keeping her from him."
