“If I stop moving, she wakes up,” Nicole explained. “The only time I can get her to nap is when she’s in the stroller.” She blinked back more tears, and tried to cover with a more lighthearted tone. “Sorry. I’m a little sleep-deprived.”
Victoria stepped around so she could peek inside the stroller. She was far from an expert on babies, but guessed this one to be somewhere around four months old. Wrapped in a pink and lime green blanket, and with a little bit of dark brown fuzz on her head, she slept with a pacifier in her mouth. “She’s adorable. What’s her name?”
“Zoe.”
“That’s pretty.” Victoria gestured to her front door, the words coming out of her mouth before she even thought about them. “You’re welcome to wait inside my place until your brother gets home.” She nearly thunked herself on the head—For Pete’s sake, Slade, what happened to minding your own business? Really, she didn’t need to be getting involved with whatever the problem was here.
“Oh, no,” Nicole said. “That’s nice of you to offer. But we’re okay out here. I wouldn’t want to impose.”
Back and forth with the stroller.
And more sniffles.
Victoria sighed to herself, thinking about the quiet evening she’d envisioned, the glass of wine and the hot, relaxing bath she’d had planned. “Are you sure you don’t want to come in and sit down?” She went for a joke. “Because I’m getting exhausted just watching you push that thing.”
Nicole hesitated. “Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind . . . actually, it would be nice to sit down for a few minutes.” She managed a slight smile in return. “Thank you.”
“Of course. It’s not a problem.” Victoria let them inside her condo, holding the door open so Nicole could get in with the stroller. She shut the door quietly, being mindful of the sleeping baby. “Make yourself comfortable. Can I get you something to drink? I have Diet Coke, water, iced tea . . .”
“A glass of water would be nice, thanks.”
Victoria headed into the kitchen, and set her umbrella and briefcase off to the side. Watching as Nicole took a seat on the living room couch, she cracked open a bottled water and poured it into a glass with ice.
Okay . . . a little awkward here, having a perfect stranger—with a baby—in her home. A crying stranger, no less. Not exactly sure what to say, she set the glass of water on the coffee table in front of Nicole, and then smiled as she sat down in the chair next to the couch.
Nicole continued to push the stroller back and forth across the hardwood floors. “Thanks. I should probably text my brother to let him know that I’m here.”
Victoria wondered how that message would go over, seeing how she and Ford were hardly on the most neighborly of terms. With one hand, Nicole pulled her phone out of her jeans pocket. “Would you mind pushing the stroller while I type?”
“Oh. Sure.” Victoria took hold of the handle and slowly pushed it back and forth, imitating Nicole’s pace. She peered down at Zoe, all nestled in her blanket next to some giraffe toy that was clipped to the side of the stroller.
If anyone had told her that she would be rocking a baby to sleep in her condo today, she would’ve said they really needed to cut back on the hallucinogenic drugs. Not that she had anything against babies, but if she went down that road at all, they weren’t in the schedule for another good four or five years.
Soak it up while you can, girls, she told her hormones.
Nicole finished typing and then looked around the loft. “This is a nice place.” She checked out Victoria’s suit. “Are you a lawyer?”
Victoria smiled. “Is it that obvious?”
“My brother’s best friend is a lawyer. You remind me a little of her. What kind of law do you practice?” Nicole’s phone buzzed with a new text message. She checked it, then looked up at Victoria quizzically. “You said your name is Victoria, right?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I told Ford. He seems really surprised that I’m with you.” She typed a quick reply to her brother. “‘Yes, your neighbor, Victoria,’” she typed, in a tone that was equal parts annoyance, mocking, and affection. Then she put her phone down and gestured to the stroller. “Thanks. I can push again.” She took over from Victoria, then brushed her hair off her face with one hand. “Sorry, you were saying something about your law practice?”
“I’m a family lawyer. I run my own firm, actually.”
Nicole paused, then reached for her glass of water. “Huh. That’s interesting. So . . . do you handle child support cases, then?”
“Child support is certainly part of a lot of my cases, yes.”
Nicole leaned forward in her chair. “How does that work in situations where the mother and father were never married? Say, hypothetically speaking, that a woman wants to collect child support from the guy who got her pregnant. What does she have to do?”
Victoria glanced down at Nicole’s left hand. No ring. “Well, first she would file a petition for child support. Assuming we’re talking about someone who lives in Illinois”—and, given Nicole’s very interested look, Victoria had a sneaking suspicion they were—“there are guidelines for what the father will pay, based on his income and the number of children. She’d want to make sure he’s being truthful in his financial disclosures and not hiding anything. Also, she can request separate contributions toward the child’s education, medical expenses, and extracurricular activities.”
“I didn’t realize you could ask for those kinds of things.”
“A good lawyer would help with all of that. As well as any custody and visitation issues that might arise.”
Nicole’s eyes darted toward Zoe. “Custody?”
Victoria treaded delicately here. “I’m not sure what the situation is between the mother and father in this particular hypothetical, but if you ask a man to support a child financially, he very well may want to be a part of that child’s life.”
“Right. Or . . . maybe he won’t care at all.” Tears welled up in Nicole’s eyes again.
Victoria went out on a limb. “Nicole, we’re not really talking about a hypothetical here, are we?”
After a moment’s hesitation, the other woman shook her head. “I shouldn’t be bothering you with this—I don’t even know you. It’s just that you mentioned you’re a family lawyer, and lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about these things. It’s what I planned to talk to Ford about tonight, actually.” Her lip began to tremble. “I’m just not doing so well, raising Zoe all by myself.”