Titus fiddled with the ratty corner of the Yellowpages, gripping the edge. He tore it out. Another page of an Attorneys section that wasn't even close to Napolm, it was added to the accumulating pile right next to the printed out website lists, the lawyers' names, addresses, and numbers all melding into one as more pages were added.
When he got done with searching through the phone books that he'd selected from the gas station, Titus just leaned back in the kitchen chair. It creaked under his weight, the sound echoing throughout the empty house. Devoid of both his girls, that was just what it was. Empty.
It had been a few hours ago when Anna had decided to go and spend time with her friend, Sam, who was about a month along with her own pregnancy. She'd taken Ella along, and although he wanted to spend time with his daughter, the absence of their crying six-week-old would only benefit him. He now had more time to work and focus on finding an attorney that charged a single, flat fee instead of by the hour.
He couldn't afford to take out too much money, especially after he and Anna had opened up that joint bank account at the earlier stages of their marriage. It had been a decision that had brought ease and convenience into paying the bills, but now that this whole situation with expensive attorneys had come up, Titus began to regret it.
He had cash, a good amount in the paper bag upstairs, but from what he had looked up from online about the hourly rate charges, what he had wouldn't be enough. The lawyer could drag it on much longer than he or she was supposed to, leaving Titus with uncertainty and distrust despite the fact he hadn't even met with a single one of them yet.
He'd begun calling the list of attorneys last week. Some lawyers told him their rates personally, while others' secretaries gave him a vague description. A few of the larger firms just told him to hold for an ungodly amount of time, until he just hadn't been able to stand. And even some of the smaller ones had asked him what it was about, but he'd remained tight lipped through it all. If they were too expensive, there was no need to tell them exactly why. It would just waste time, and he didn't want that nasty gossip spreading quicker than wild fire.
Which was why he was here now, leaning back in the kitchen chair and listening to the lazy clock tic away in the kitchen. He'd been scouring the Yellowpages and the internetfor what felt like an eternity, getting enough disappointing calls to know that this wasn't going to be easy. They called when he worked, when he tried to sleep, and when he was with Anna and Ella. Their messages were all the same, all deflating his hope and leaving him to force a smile onto his face. Leaving him to lie straight to Anna's that it was just something about a cattle sale.
She was a little suspicious, he knew, but she didn't say anything about it. Her eyes would dull a little and her mouth would turn down just the slightest bit, but she never asked. He had always been somewhat of a decent liar, but when it came to Anna – after everything they had been through – it seemed as though she saw right through his faulty excuses.
Sighing, Titus picked up his cell phone once more and dialed yet another number in the pile that he'd printed out from a Texas website. From what he could see on the page, it was a smaller firm that specialized in domestic and custody affairs. But with his luck, he'd be told that such a service was too much for him. With how things were going, he may not even get a call back by today.
“Hayes and Associates. How can we help you?” a polite female voice said through the phone.
“Hi,” he said. “How much does one of your lawyers charge? Is it at an hourly rate or something more simple like a flat fee?”
“It depends on the attorney and what type of case you need an attorney for.”
“Something like child custody. What would that be?”
“Ms. Hayes, Mr. Hunner, and Mr. Abbott are our attorneys. Which one would you-”
“Any one go by the flat fee?”
“That would have to be discussed with them. It all depends on exactly what case you're looking for.”
“Oh, ok-”
“But Charles Abbott specializes in the shorter cases, where paternity rights should be established, so he usually is just one flat fee. Ruthie Hayes, on the other hand, usually takes on the longer lasting ones, if that makes any sense. She specializes in domestic abuse and misconduct of legal guardians. Austin Hunner wouldn't be of much help. He deals mostly with divorce and marriage disputes.”
His grip on the phone tightened, gears turning wildly in his head. “Charles Abbott? Is he uhm...busy?”
“He's with one of his clients, at the moment. Would you like to schedule a free consultation appointment?”
After telling her his name and that any available date would work for him, he hung up the phone and breathed a sigh of relief. His consultation appointment was on July eleventh, only three, short days away. All the way up in Carson, the trip to Hayes and Associates would be about a four hour drive, but it didn't matter. Far away or not, this was the attorney. Titus could feel it.
Rolling his shoulders to get all the knotted kinks out, Titus got up from the table. The ripped and printed pages were placed in the manila envelope, the books placed into a lightweight cardboard box. With the box and envelop in hand, he went downstairs, coughing a little bit at the scent of detergents, dust, and frozen food.
In the room where they kept the old fire stove, he got a few pieces of the resin wood and lit a match. The phone books' recycled paper acted as good kindling, igniting well as soon as they hit the flame. One by one, he put them all in, stopping once the box was empty. A few feet from the stove was the safe, where he placed the manila envelope in the shelf where he kept the ranch finances and medical records.
Still coughing from the some of the smoke that escaped, he waved it away and waited until it finished burning. It took awhile, but the last of the flames eventually died down, allowing him to leave. The upstairs smelt of the fire, but he didn't need to worry. They burned their unwanted papers most of the time, anyway.
“Salt.” Titus shook the bag of cat food for the cats. “Pepper.”
Like always, they scampered into the room with their full-grown limbs. They were no longer the awkward, gangly little kittens that Anna had first brought to him. Now, they were the fully matured cats who, more times than not, acted as if they were the sole guardians of Ella.
Whenever Ella was on the floor, they surrounded her. If Ella began to cry, Pepper went to the foot of the baby's crib while Salt danced all over his and Anna's faces. He was so proud of their two cats and couldn't wait for Ella to be old enough so that she could appreciate them, as well.
Crouching down, Titus rubbed those spots behind their ears, feeling as if the whole world was coming together again. The case with his baby would now be settled. He didn't have to search anymore. And Anna, he hoped, would be home soon.
He loved it whenever she came through that front door. Her hair would be blowing from the summer wind, and a wide smile would be on her face as she walked in with Ella in her arms. He'd pull her into his arms and with Ella in between them, they'd share a leisure kiss that went from slow and relaxed to fast and worked up.
Titus would never tire of their routine.
Humming an upbeat tune to himself, he donned his hat and boots and then went outside for the rest of his chores. Luther waved to him, and he waved back, feeling on top of the world. And he stayed that way. When Trigger kicked him square in the knee after he accidentally hit the wrong part of her leg, Titus couldn't be happier. As sweat, dirt, and all sorts of smelly substances stained his clothes and caked his arms, he just smiled and hummed his song.
The little tunes of his voice that had never been choir worthy matched his and the environment's movements. The golden rays of sunset filled him up with so much energy that by the time he was finished with the list, he almost felt like flying through the barn's roof. And as soon as the familiar, cherry red of Anna's car entered his peripheral vision, Titus sprinted to the house.
The Camry pulled into the driveway just as his boots hit the bottom patio stairs. As casually as he could, Titus sat down in the love seat rocker and waited. After unhooking Ella from her car seat, Anna didn't take long to come up the stairs, the jean shorts she wore showing off her long, pale legs.
“Sit.” He patted his thigh.
She rubbed the soft tuft of Ella's brown hair before seating herself right on his lap, her feet hanging off the edge and her head leaning on his shoulder. Right in between them, Ella lay limp. She sleepily sucked on her pacifier with wet, pudgy lips, not at all trying to draw the attention onto her but getting it anyway.
With her delicate eyelids closed and hands gripping at thin hair, his daughter was a sight to see. Spare the exception of her hair, she was the spitting image of her mother. Just like Anna's, her nose was a cute button that he knew would burn more than tan whenever they would let her play outside in the sun. Their eyes were the same shade of blue, and the tiny smiles that she would sometimes exchange with them were exactly like Anna's.
“She looks so much like you,” he said and kissed his wife on that freckled nose.
“It's so different, ya know?”
“How is it-”
“Just being here, with you.”
He thought it over for a few minutes before saying, “I don't think it's different.”
“A year ago, I'd probably be here, but we wouldn't be like this.” She kissed his face. “We'd probably be making dinner or playing some silly board game, and it'd be just another good time spent with a person I've known my entire life. You'd bring me cupcakes in about two weeks, would hold me when I cried over something that Hunter did, and would stay with me the entire night because I wouldn't be able to get to sleep. And the entire time, the entire time you would show me just how much you love me, I wouldn't have a clue. But now I do, and I'm sorry that it took me so long.”
“Don't apologize. I was the one who-”
“Titus,” she said, “if you so much as say a single bad thing about yourself, I just might smack you.”
“But I-”
“You did everything for me. Hell, you even told me what to wear whenever I went out with that piece of”– she looked down at their sleeping daughter –“that piece of work. If I had to do that for you – if I were so selfless as to help the person I've been in love with for ten years pick out a dress – I don't think I'd be able to do it.”
He grinned. “You wouldn't?”
“No, I wouldn't. I'd give her a very stern talking-to and would add like, a stick of butter to everything she ate. Ten sticks of butter, actually. Then she'd get fat, and she'd try to go on all these diets that would just make her extremely cranky, and you'd get annoyed, and I would be there, and-”
He pressed his mouth onto hers, silencing her rambling. His chest ached as he thought about all those years of going through a living hell every time he had thought about Anna with anybody else but him. But this, this certainly made up for it. Just one, innocent kiss from his spitfire wife, and it was as if that entire decade of his life had never happened.
“It's a good plan,” he said, after pulling away, “but you won't ever have to use it.”
“I hope not. Butter's expensive.”
They were silent after that, just listening to the wind play with long grass and watching the sun fall below the horizon. He smoothed his hands up and down Anna's legs, just as her fingers did to the expanse of his t-shirt covered chest that smelled of his previous hard work. She didn't seem to mind, however, and Titus just sat there, with his family.
“Legs still sore?” he asked a long while later.
Her leg soreness was something he'd teased her about all yesterday. During their three days of rampant, non-stop love making, Anna had pulled something at the inside of her thighs. She'd actually been limping yesterday, and he hadn't known if he was supposed to be proud or concerned. Titus was more proud of both their staminas than anything else, so he'd just settled on joking around with her.
“Jerk,” she murmured into his ear. “You know what Sam asked me today?”
“What?”
“She literally asked, 'When was your six-week check-up?' And she had this creepy – extremely creepy – look on her face, and I could tell she just knew that we-”
“Had a three day sex marathon?”
“Yes. That. And that was when Kyle,” she referred to Sam's husband, “decided to come in, telling me about all sorts of stretches that they do. Seriously, he had this look on his face that was all 'Been there. Done that.' And I'm pretty sure that if you were there, he would have fist bumped you or something.”
“How's he doing, by the way?” Titus hadn't seen the younger man in awhile.
“Good, good,” she said. “Freaks out a little whenever Sam goes somewhere without him, but other than that, he's pretty excited. We were thinking about going out to dinner, actually. Ya know, catch up on old times? You want to?”
“'Course.”
“We were thinking this Friday, maybe. There's this seafood place up in Hinney that Sam's been wanting to try out.”
He thought back to the phone call he'd placed and the free consultation appointment that was at three o'clock this Friday afternoon. It was a total of eight hours of driving alone to just get into Carson county, making him leave at around ten and getting back past eight. At the earliest. And that was if they didn't need him the next few days to draw up whatever papers were needed in this situation.
“I don't know if Friday will work. How about next weekend?” Titus asked, trying to school his features into a nonchalant mask.
Anna's brows furrowed. “Do we have another doctor's appointment or something?”
“No. I'm just...I'm just gonna be gone for most of Friday. I might have to stay the night. Maybe even 'til Sunday.”
“Why?”
And there was that single word that could easily fell him. He'd told her a few nights ago that it had been a cattle sale, a stupid mistake on his behalf. For being a rancher who only sold his beef in the winter months, telling his wife that he was suddenly switching up his schedule wasn't the best plan of action. But now he had to stick with it.
“There's this auction. I got a few bulls that I planned on culling, and this guy thinks he could use 'em at his ranch.
“Oh,” she said, but Titus felt the suspicion that tinged her voice. “Okay. Next weekend, then?”
“Yeah. They'll understand.”
The mood became a damp mess soon after. Ella began to cry, and Anna's body became stiff in his arms. As they walked up the stairs to go change their daughter, she didn't say anything. It didn't matter, however. He could almost hear the questions as they rang through her mind. Each and every one plagued him.