Chapter 7 - The Bloodline
Marcus arrived forty minutes later, his truck tires skidding against the wet gravel of our driveway. He didn't enter the house like an angry man; he entered like a soldier clearing a perimeter. He checked every lock, drew the curtains across the street-facing windows, and then went directly to the guest room where Clara lay sleeping.
He stood over the crib for five minutes without moving, his fists clenched in his pockets.
"We aren't paying him a cent," I said, standing behind him. "If we pay him, we become criminals, Marcus. And a man like that will never stop asking."
"I know," Marcus said. His voice was hollow. "I know who Raymond Cruz is. When I was looking for Jenna three years ago, his name came up twice. He ran a small-time loan-sharking outfit out of a garage on the East Side. He’s been in and out of county jail since he was nineteen."
"Can he take her?"
"If he is the biological father," Marcus said, turning to look at me, "he has constitutional rights. The state will order a paternity test. If it’s positive, Brenda Alvarez cannot terminate his rights without proving abandonment or active danger. And right now, all we have is my word against his."
We called Brenda Alvarez that evening. Her reaction was measured, professional, and devastatingly realistic.
"Mr. Cruz has already contacted our legal division," Brenda informed us over speakerphone. "He filed an emergency petition for paternity determination and temporary custody suspension this afternoon. A hearing has been scheduled for next Wednesday before Judge Vance-Miller."
"She’s an infant, Brenda," I cried out, unable to keep the desperation from my voice. "She doesn't know him! He tried to sell her to us on our front porch!"
"Did you record that conversation, Mrs. Vance?" Brenda asked gently.
My heart sank into my shoes. "No. I didn't have my phone out."
"Then it is hearsay in a family court proceeding," Brenda sighed. "Look, off the record: Raymond Cruz is bad news. We know his file. But the law is clear. A genetic swab will be ordered at the hearing. If he is the biological father, the court will establish a reunification plan unless the district attorney files criminal extortion charges, which they won't do without physical evidence. You need an attorney. A very good one."
The next five days were an agony unlike anything I had ever endured. I couldn't sleep. Every time Clara whimpered, every time she opened her slate-colored eyes, I felt as though someone were peeling away layers of my skin.
Marcus took money from our retirement fund to retain Arthur Vance, a veteran family law attorney who had handled kinship contested adoptions for thirty years.
"Our best hope," Arthur told us in his wood-paneled office on Monday morning, "is that he isn't the father. Men like Cruz often attach themselves to pregnant women in vulnerable situations and assume paternity to leverage state benefits or extract money from families. We don't fight him in the parking lot; we fight him in the laboratory."
"And if the swab comes back positive?" I asked, my voice cracking.
Arthur took off his reading glasses and looked at me with unvarnished pity. "If he is the father, Mrs. Vance, we fight for an immediate termination of parental rights based on failure to provide prenatal support and moral turpitude. But it will be a long, brutal war. And during that war, Clara might be placed in neutral foster care to prevent conflict between the parties."
The room spun. *Neutral foster care.* Taking her from the crib Marcus built, from the boys who kissed her forehead before school, from my arms, and placing her with strangers while lawyers argued over statutes.
That night, as I sat in the rocking chair feeding Clara, Marcus came in and stood beside the window.
"If they try to take her on Wednesday," he whispered, his jaw trembling, "I will take her and leave. We can sell the house. We can go north."
May you like
"Stop it," I whispered back, though tears were soaking my cheeks. "We have three sons sleeping down the hall, Marcus. We don't run. We stand our ground. We do this right."
***
