FIANNA:

"I'm pretty sure we're gonna have to make two trips, Mik," I remark as we pull grocery bags out of the trunk of her car.

"Oh, I'm sure we will, since we found so many good deals," she answers.

I unfasten Bren from her carseat and stand her next to me, and she turns around as soon as her feet touch the pavement reaching out her hands and declaring, "I's big girl now, Mommy! Me help wif droceries too!"

"Yes, you are getting to be a big girl, Smidge," I reply, handing her a package of paper towels, which is pretty much the only thing I'm sure won't break or spill if she drops it. "So you can carry this in and put it in the pantry for me. And if you can manage that without dropping it, I'll find something else for you to carry, if you want to."

"Me no dwop it, Mommy," she assures me. "Me wikes to give helps."

The three of us haul as much as we can handle into my apartment and put up the cold items before we go to retrieve the rest. As we head back toward Miki's car, a familiar voice says, "Oh, there she is!"

We turn to see Mr. Frobisher, the elderly man who lives across the hall, waving at me. "Fianna, dear, this gentleman has been looking for you." he informs me, pointing to a short, chubby black man standing by the mailboxes.

"You Fianna Chandler?" he asks as he walks toward us.

Since Mr. Frobisher has already told him who I am, it seems kind of pointless to deny it, so I reply, "Yes, I am. And you are?"

Instead of answering, he walks up to me, takes hold of my hand, and places an envelope in it. "You've been served," he says flatly, then turns and walks away.

"What the heck was that?" Miki asks.

"Mommy, who him was?" Brenna inquires.

I rip open the envelope, pull out the paper inside, and unfold it. As my brain manages to process the words I'm reading, my knees give out and I slide down the side of the car until I'm sitting on the scorching asphalt of the parking lot.

"Aunt Kaela, Mommy sick?" Brenna pipes up in a scared little voice.

"No sweetheart, Mommy's just been out in the heat for too long. She'll be fine when we go inside," Miki assures her as she grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet.

We head inside, and as soon as we step into the living room, I hand her the sheet of paper. She scans it, I see her jaw tighten, and she starts mumbling under her breath. As Bren stands next to me, patting my hand and still looking worried, Miki looks at me and says, "Okay, I'm gonna go get the rest of the bags and bring 'em in. Then I'm going to make a couple of calls, and we're going to my place. Smidge, we're gonna go to my house for a little while, so why don't you go grab Pickle to play with?"

"Otay!" she shouts, turning and running down the hall to her bedroom.

"I guess you were right last week," Miki grumbles, "He is gonna push this. I guess the asshole doesn't expect anybody to push back. Bad idea!"

She practically shoves me into the couch, then goes to get the rest of the bags out of the car, and I hear her talking to someone as she comes back inside. After a couple of minutes, she comes back to the living room and says, "All right, let's go. Uncle Bill is meeting us at the house, and we're going to work on getting this shit straightened out!"

Brenna drops Pickle into my lap and runs to the bookcase to collect her yellow puppy-dog bank. "Aunt Kaela said a naughty! Me gets a twarter!" she crows.

Miki reaches into her purse, pulls out a ten dollar bill, and stuffs it into the slot. "And I'll probably say a few more before the day is over, so I'm just gonna pay you in advance. Here you go, sweetie."

Bren puts her bank away, grabs Pickle, and we go back out to the car. As I'm buckling Brenna into her seat, Mr . Frobisher walks over and says, "I'm sorry about that, dear. If I'd known he was here to start trouble, I wouldn't have pointed you out."

"It's okay, Mr. F. If I wasn't here, he probably would've just tracked me down at work."

We get in the car, Miki drives us back to her and Ryan's place, and he's just getting out of his SUV when we pull in. He jogs up to the car as we get out, and says, "What happened? Why did you need me to come home now?"

"Show him," she says, and I hand him the paper. He gives it a quick scan, then takes the time to look it over again, more slowly.

"Awww, crap!" he groans. "He can't seriously think this is gonna work!"

"Apparently, he does."

As we start to walk into the house, a big red Dodge Ram pickup pulls into the driveway, and Miki's uncle gets out. "Hey there, how's my favorite niece?" he queries, as he drops an arm across her shoulders and gives her a squeeze before greeting the rest of us.

"Royally pissed off!" she replies, snatching the paper out of my hand and passing it to him. He reads through it carefully, then suggests that we go inside.

As we enter the living room, Brenna turns to him and questions, "You play colors wif me, Unca Webby?"

"Not today, peach, I have to talk to your Mommy about something. Why don't you color a pretty picture for Aunt Pauline, so I can take it home to her later, all right?"

"I will makes Aunt Pawie a pitty futterbye!" she agrees, and goes off to her little table with Pickle.

We all sit down in the kitchen, and he holds up the paper and says, "So, your ex has decided to sue you for custody of Brenna. I wasn't aware that he was still in the picture, so how did that come about?"

The three of us walk him through the situation, with him asking the occasional question to clarify things. When we finish, he sits quietly for a minute, then inquires, "Fianna , do you happen to have a dollar with you?"

"Yeah, I think so. Why?"

"Because if you give me that dollar, that will be my retainer," he explains. "I will then be your attorney of record, and anything we talk about will be confidential."

I reach into my purse, dig out a dollar, and hand it to him. He puts it in his pocket, then says, "I need to ask you some questions, and I need you to answer them honestly, even if you find them embarrassing or offensive. If this goes to court, his lawyer, or the judge, might ask the same questions, and I need to know what to expect."

"Go for it, ask anything you want," I tell him.

"First, just to get it out of the way, is there any chance at all that this man might not be Brenna's father?"

"None whatsoever."

"Do you have any sort of a police record?"

Shaking my head, I reply, "Dude, I've never even had a speeding ticket!"

"Have you ever had a drug or alcohol problem?"

"I have no use at all for drugs, and the only time I was ever drunk in my life was at a slumber party when I was thirteen, not too long after my dad died," I respond. "My friend said it would make me feel better, but I threw up so much I pulled a muscle in my stomach, and it felt like somebody was reenacting the Battle of Helms Deep in my skull. So never again!"

"What about him?"

"He drinks, yes, but I never personally had any knowledge of him using any drugs."

"Was he ever abusive?" he queries.

"He never hit me, if that's what you mean. He said that a man who would hit a woman wasn't really a man," I explain. "What concerns me is that he seemed to have the idea that what he wanted was all that mattered, and I'm not sure if he can get past that and figure out that he can't just go off at the drop of a hat and do whatever if he has a two year old to think about."

"Brenna, sweetheart, can you come here for a minute?" he calls out. We hear the clatter of her dropping her crayons onto her table, and she dashes full-speed out of the living room to join us.

"Here's me, Unca Webby!" she announces as she stops next to his chair and grasps one of his fingers.

 He picks her up into his lap and says, "Brenna, I need to ask you some questions, and they're very important, so if you don't understand, tell me, and one of us will help you. The first question is; do you know what a lie is?"

She nods so emphatically that her curls bounce around her face. "Me knows! Dat's when Wogan say dat Ivy bwoked Miss Kim's chair, but for weally him doed it! It's naughty to say wies to peoples!"

"That's absolutely right," he agrees. "So I'm going to ask you another question, and I want you to tell me the truth. Is your Mommy ever mean to you, Bren?" he asks.

Her curls bounce again as she declares, "Uh-uh! Mommy not a meanie, her is nice! She gives me lots of hugs, and wets me watch Pooh Bear and Dora on the TV! And her wets me seeps in she's bed when me has bad dweems, and we has snuggles! I wuvs Mommy this big!" she exclaims, spreading her arms out as wide as she can. " Mommy ams mines goodest fwend!"

"Well, that's good enough for me," he says with a chuckle, and she climbs down from his lap and runs around the table to clamber up into mine.

"All right, I'll file a response first thing in the morning, and I'd say that his chances of actually winning the suit as is are basically nonexistent, but there is a chance that he could be granted visitation, so be prepared for that," he tells us.

"If I could be sure that he wouldn't wind up deciding that being a dad isn't as much fun as he thought it would be and bailing, I might be okay with that, but I'm not sure if he will. I don't want her to get attached to him and then have him disappear."

"I completely understand, but we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it," he says.

He gets up to leave, and Bren runs back to her table to retrieve not only the butterfly picture for Miki's aunt, but a picture of a blue and orange zebra for him, which he tells her he's going to hang in his office. She asks for a drink, and as I turn back toward the kitchen to go get her some juice, I see Mik handing him what looks like a book or folder of some sort before he walks out.

"What was that?" I ask her as she and Ryan join us in the kitchen .

"Just some research work that I promised him," she replies.

"Fi, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get this crap started!" Ryan says.

I reach out to give him a hug, and tell him, "Dude, it's not your fault, you didn't know anything about us being together. It was just one of those weird things."

"Well, if we're lucky, Uncle Bill will finish it, and you won't have to ever deal with him again!" Miki states.

 I shake my head and say, "Somehow, I don't think you should count on that, Mik. I know I'm not."