Sing You Home: A Novel Read online

  “Objection!” Wade says. “Prejudicial!”

  “Withdrawn. If this court gives your brother and sister-in-law the embryos,” Angela Moretti asks, “where do you fit in?”

  “I . . . I’m going to be an uncle.”

  “Ah. How are you going to be the uncle if you’re the biological father?”

  “It’s like an adoption,” I say, flustered. “I mean, it is an adoption. Reid becomes the father and I’m the uncle.”

  “So you’re going to give up your parental rights to these children at birth?”

  Ben Benjamin said that, no matter what you sign, at any point, grown children might come find you. Confused, I look at him, sitting at our table. “I thought you said I couldn’t ever really do that?”

  “You want these embryos to go to a traditional Christian family?” the lawyer says.

  “Yes.”

  “But instead you’re suggesting that the court give them to a biological father who is called the uncle and is living in the basement of the home of the parents who are raising him. Does that sound like a traditional Christian family, Mr. Baxter?”

  “No! I mean, yes . . .”

  “Which is it?”

  Her words are like bullets. I wish she’d talk more slowly. I wish she’d give me time to think. “It’s . . . it’s a family—”

  “When you created these embryos with Zoe, you intended at the time to raise these children with her, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet Zoe is still ready, willing, and able to take these embryos and raise them as her children. On the other hand, you left.”

  “I didn’t leave—”

  “Did she file for divorce, or did you?”

  “I did. But I left my marriage, not my children—”

  “No, those you’re just giving away,” Angela says. “You also testified that between the time when you got divorced and when Zoe came to talk to you about using the embryos, you hadn’t thought about them?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that—”

  “But that’s what you said. What else have you said that you don’t really mean, Mr. Baxter?” She takes a step toward me. “That you’re fine with giving these embryos to your brother and taking a backseat in their upbringing? That you’re a completely changed man? That you aren’t instigating this entire lawsuit as a means of getting revenge on your ex-wife, whose new relationship makes you feel like less of a man?”

  “Objection!” Wade roars, but by that time I am standing, shaking, my face red and a hundred angry answers caught behind my teeth.

  “That’s all, Mr. Baxter,” Angela Moretti says, with a smile. “That’s plenty.”

  Wade calls for a recess, to let me get control of myself again. As I leave the courtroom, the members of the Westboro church applaud. It makes me feel a little dirty. It’s one thing to love Jesus with all your heart; it’s another to protest outside temples because you believe Jews killed our Savior. “Can you get rid of them?” I whisper to Wade.

  “Not a chance,” he murmurs back. “They’re fantastic press. You’ve gotten through the hardest part, Max. Seriously, you know why that lawyer had to get you all riled up? Because she didn’t have anything else to work with. Not the law of this land, and certainly not the law of God.”

  He leads me into a tiny room that has a table, two chairs, a coffee-maker, and a microwave. Wade walks over to the microwave and bends down until his face is level with the glossy black door. He smiles so that he can see his teeth, uses his thumb to pick something out from between two of them, and then grins again. “If you think that cross-examination was ruthless, you just sit back and enjoy what I’m planning to do to Zoe.”

  I’m not sure why this makes me feel worse.

  “Can you do me a favor?” I ask. “Can you get Pastor Clive for me?”

  Wade hesitates. “As long as you’re talking to him as your spiritual counselor, and not as a sequestered witness . . .”

  I nod. The last thing I want to do right now is rehash that last hour in court.

  Wade leaves, taking all the air with him. I sink into a plastic chair and put my head down between my knees, sure that I’m going to pass out. A few minutes later, the door opens again and I see Pastor Clive’s white linen suit. He drags a chair beside mine. “Let’s pray,” he says, and he bows his head.

  His words run over me, catching on all the rough patches and wearing them down. Prayer is like water—something you can’t imagine has the strength or power to do any good, and yet give it time and it can change the lay of the land. “Max, you look like you’re struggling,” he says.

  “I just . . .” Looking away, I shake my head. “I don’t know. Maybe I should just give them to Zoe.”

  “What’s making you doubt yourself?” Pastor Clive asks.

  “What her lawyer said. That I’m really the father, but I have to be like an uncle. If I’m confused already, how is a kid going to be able to sort it all out?”

  He clasps his hands, nodding. “You know, actually, I remember a situation very similar to this one. I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it before.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. A biological dad, whose child was raised by another couple. They were handpicked by this man—just like what you’re doing—because the father wanted to do what was best for his child. Yet he still managed to have a say in his child’s upbringing.”

  “Did you know them?”

  “Very well,” Pastor Clive says, smiling. “And so do you. God gave Jesus to Mary to bear, and Joseph to raise. He knew it had to be done. And Jesus—well, clearly, he was able to sort it all out.”

  But I am not God. I’m just someone who’s screwed up time and time again, who is trying hard not to make another mistake.

  “It’s all going to work out, Max,” Pastor Clive promises.

  I do what I always do when I’m around him. I believe what he tells me.

  When Reid enters the courtroom, I have to admit, my doubts start to fade. He’s dressed in one of his fancy Savile Row suits, with hand-sewn Italian loafers. His black hair is trimmed precisely; I know for a fact that he had a real barber do his shave early this morning. He is the sort of man who draws attention when he enters a room, not just because he’s good-looking but because he is so sure of himself. As he passes by me to take the witness stand, I smell aftershave and something else. Not cologne—Reid doesn’t wear any. It’s the scent of money.

  “Can you state your name for the record?” Wade asks.

  “Reid Baxter.”

  “And where do you live, Mr. Baxter?”

  “Newport. One-forty Ocean Drive.”

  “What is your relationship to the plaintiff, Max Baxter?”

  Reid smiles. “I’m his big brother.”

  “Are you married, Mr. Baxter?”

  “To my lovely bride of eleven years, Liddy.”

  “Got any children?” Wade asks.

  “God hasn’t blessed us with children,” he says. “Though—I confess—it’s not for want of trying.”

  “Tell me a little about your home,” Wade asks.

  “It’s a forty-five-hundred-square-foot house on the ocean. There are four bedrooms, three and a half baths. We’ve got a basketball hoop and a huge yard. The only things missing are kids.”

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a portfolio manager with Monroe, Flatt & Cohen,” Reid says. “I’ve worked for them for seventeen years, and I’m a senior partner. I manage, invest, and reinvest other people’s money in order to preserve and increase their wealth.”

  “What’s your net worth, Mr. Baxter?”

  Reid looks modestly into his lap. “A bit over four million dollars.”

  Holy shit.

  I knew my brother was well off, but four million dollars?

  At the very best, the most I could offer a kid was a partnership in a crappy landscaping business and all my knowledge about how to grow roses in a difficult climate. Not exactly a trust fund.