Apparently stir-fry was the most offensive thing on the planet

The good news was Tiffany’s DNA test wasn’t admissible in court. The bad news was it was stupidly easy to have a proper test ordered and administered pretty damn quickly. And Wilford knew exactly what Steve had to say before he even answered the phone. Still, he answered it. Steve didn’t say anything other than to come down to his office. Wilford grabbed Nichola from her office and took her with, just to have somebody else there to help him make rational decisions.

Steve had a mountain of paperwork on hid desk. Tiffany was already there, sitting in a chair in the corner while the kid was pulling tissues out of a box, one at a time, and spread them all over the floor. Wilford took one look at the mess and wanted to walk away. But he’d committed to this. His entire reputation was on the line, and it would be ruined in an instant if he turned away and walked back out the door.

“I don’t want it,” he said, shaking his head.

Nichola put her hand on his back and guided him into the office. “Sit down. We’ll figure it out.”

Wilford sat down in front of Steve’s desk, trying to convince himself that he was going to get good news. After a moment, Tiffany got up as well and came to sit by the desk, pulling her chair as far from Wilford as possible. Wilford rolled his eyes and watched Steve fish through the stack of papers on his desk.

“So,” he started ominously. “There’s no point in beating around the bush. Test came back positive.”

“Motherfucker,” Wilford muttered.

Steve ignored him and continued with what he had to say. “As I understand it, Ms Baker, the courts put the child in your custody after your daughter was convicted of multiple felonies, but you haven’t petitioned for adoption?”

Tiffany shook her head. “I am not keeping this kid. My lawyer advised me to seek a blood relative before foster care. And there aren’t any others. Believe me, I’ve looked.”

“You?” Wilford asked. “Should have hired a professional to do a better job.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Tiffany snapped.

“Stop,” Steve said plainly.

Wilford sighed and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Normally, these disputes don’t even get this far, so I need to ask, on the record. Are you here under any threats or blackmail?” Steve look right at Wilford as he said it, making it very clear what he thought the answer was.

Wilford wanted to say yes. It would have been so easy. But he sighed and shook his head. “No. I don’t want him, but no.”

Steve nodded and looked down at the paperwork.

“Okay. But you’re still willing to take the kid to avoid the state getting involved?” he asked.

Wilford couldn’t believe he was in this situation. “Temporarily. Until we can find someone better, or his mother gets out of jail.”

“Prison,” Tiffany corrected. “Multiple felonies. The court terminated her parental rights. We’re in limbo until we find someone who wants to assume them.”

“You already raised one. You know what you’re doing this time,” Wilford pointed out.

“Not now,” Steve said forcibly. “I think we all agree that we don’t want the child in foster care. The courts aren’t going to be very happy with the idea of of him having a new parental figure every three months either. So here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll set an appointment with a judge as soon as possible. You,” he pointed at Wilford, “are going to agree to keep the kid until someone can be found who is willing to adopt.”

Wilford grumbled. This was not on his agenda.

“And you,” Steve said, pointing to Tiffany, “are going to agree to waive any custodial rights. Going forward, you will have no input on the situation.”

“Gladly,” Tiffany said.

Wilford turned to look at Nichola. This didn’t feel like the right choice. Nichola tried to give him a reassuring smile and rubbed her hand on his shoulders, but nothing about it was reassuring. This was already a nightmare.

“Great,” Steve said. “You’ll hear from me when I have a date. Ms Baker, you’ll retain guardianship until then. Neither of you should leave the county until we’re in court.”

“Fine,” Wilford said. It’s not like he had anywhere to be anyway. “You’re the second person this month who’s told me not to leave the county.”

“I’ll get this filed immediately,” Steve said, trying to organise all the paperwork in front of him.

Wilford just wanted to go home. The whole thing was stupid. He still couldn’t believe he was agreeing to it. He got up and started following Nichola out the door.

“She’s pretty,” Tiffany said as Wilford walked past. “How long have you been together?”

Wilford stared blankly at her, watching as she cleaned up the little brat’s mess. “She’s my producer.” He didn’t wait for her to say anything else flippant, and walked out of the room.

---

Somehow, Wilford was surprised to get a court date. He was surprised when Tiffany showed up, with the kid in tow. He was surprised he was going along with any of it. He was surprised when it took all of ten minutes for the judge to hand over custody. His last line of defence was relying on the judge to be part of the demographic who sent in mountains of crayon-written hate mail to the show. She was not, and Wilford had no idea what he was supposed to do about it.

“I don’t want to deal with moving everything over in the parking lot. I’ll just drive him to your place,” Tiffany said, once they were adjourned.

Wilford still wasn’t sure what the hell was happening. “Go pick up whatever you need to from the hotel,” he said.

She shook her head. “No, it’s all in the car. I’m dropping him off and going straight to the airport.”

Wilford waited for her to go before he took off his tie and started walking to his car. Nichola followed him, not saying anything until they were both in the car with the doors shut.

“Why are you going along with this?” she asked.

Wilford threw his tie into the back seat and pulled out his phone to start fiddling with it. “You know why,” he said. He knew what happened to kids that wouldn’t be missed. Nobody ever noticed when they disappeared. Social workers were so buried in work, the ones nobody was kicking up a fuss about went ignored. He knew it firsthand, and from a lifetime of reporting on it to make sure other people knew what when on in those places. And now it had all come back to bite him in the ass. It would have taken about three days for someone to find out and destroy everything he’d worked for.

He knew Nichola was giving him That Look again, but he ignored it and started the car. It was the same look she wore every time holiday plans and birthdays got brought up. He hated it, and he didn’t want to see it. He just wanted to drive home and figure out what to do next.

Tiffany was already waiting at the gate by the time Wilford pulled up to the house. She definitely wasn’t wasting any time in trying to unload the kid. Wilford opened the gate and pulled in after her, parking off to the side to give her room to make her escape. He didn’t want to get out of the car, but she was already unloading the back of the SUV, so he figured he might as well go up and unlock the front door and make sure the dogs were out of the way. Nichola followed him up, walking straight into the kitchen to start the coffee machine. A few moments later, Tiffany walked through the front door with the kid and a backpack. She sat both of them down on the floor and left again.

The kid immediately started heading toward the records again, but Nichola rushed over to pick him up, already spouting nonsense gibberish at him. Wilford was in hell.

Tiffany walked back through the door, this time dropping a heavy, plastic seat onto the floor. She handed Wilford an envelope.

“Have fun,” she said, turning toward the door again.

“Wait, this is all he has?” Nichola asked incredulously. “Just this?”

“It’s more than he had when I got him.” Tiffany shrugged and left. “He wets the bed. Good luck.”

It wasn’t her problem anymore, and she fled just like Wilford knew she would. Ignoring Nichola’s sudden upset over backpacks, Wilford opened the envelope to see what was inside. He was expecting something more official than a few handwritten pages of guesswork.

“Nguyen?” he asked, looking over at the kid. He was back on the floor while Nichola dug through the backpack.

“Oh my god,” she said, giving up and pouring the whole thing out onto the couch. There wasn’t much in it. An empty bottle, a few pairs of pants and t-shirts that all looked dirty. Nothing came out of the backpack that looked like it was designed to keep a bed-wetting two-year-old from ruining sheets and mattresses. “This is insane,” Nichola said.

Wilford sat down at the kitchen table. He couldn’t deal with this. He needed to call Abe and hire him for a real job, because already, it was too much.

“We need to go shopping,” she declared.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Wilford said stubbornly.

Nichola sighed and gave him that look again. “Then I’m going shopping. Give me your keys.”

Wilford glared at her. “Why?”

“Because I don’t have a back seat, and you can’t go shopping for a kid if you don’t know what size they are,” Nichola said.

Wilford sighed and handed over his keys. Nichola grabbed the plastic seat, but left the kid on the floor. As soon as she was out the door, the kid got up and walked straight back to Wilford’s records.

“No!” Wilford said, rushing to his feet. He picked up the kid and moved him over to the sofa where he couldn’t break anything. Just touching him made Wilford feel sticky. Wondering why Tiffany hadn’t bothered doing any laundry while she was in town, Wilford stuffed everything back into the backpack and threw the whole thing down the stairs so he could shove it in the wash later.

“Don’t touch anything,” Wilford said to the kid.

The kid either didn’t understand or didn’t care. He climbed down from the sofa and walked over to the TV to put his sticky, disgusting hands all over it.

“No!” Wilford said again, once more picking up the kid to put him on the sofa. The kid laughed and immediately climbed back down again, now running toward the kitchen. The dogs had noticed something going on, and were watching through the patio door. As the kid got closer, both dogs started barking and trying to force their way through the locked dog door. The kid slapped his hand against the glass door, cackling when the dogs got even more frantic.

“Goddamnit, no,” Wilford said, picking the kid up again. As soon as he put the kid back on the couch, he wormed again again and ran off. This time, toward the stairs. Wilford managed to grab him before he got to the landing, and was on his way to taking the kid back to the sofa when Nichola walked back through the door.

“What’s going on?” She asked.

Wilford shoved the kid into her hands. She wanted to take him shopping so badly, so she could deal with him now. “He’s a nightmare. Get him out of here. Don’t come back,” he said.

Nichola gave him the other look he hated. The one that said he was being a complete idiot over something. “Come on, Mikey,” she said, hefting the kid up into her arms. “Daddy’s being a grump.”

“Daddy?” Wilford demanded. Oh, hell no.

“Would you prefer grandpa?” Nichola asked.

As soon as she said it, Wilford realised that was even worse. He wasn’t even forty. What the fuck. He shook his head and walked toward the stairs to deal with the disgusting laundry he’d tossed down there. He took his jacket off and tossed it into his bedroom on his way toward the stairs, ignoring the noises Nichola was still making on her way out the door. The backpack had bounced off the wall and was over by the fireplace on the floor. Wilford picked it up and took it out to the garage where the washer and dryer were, starting the cycle and letting the basin fill up while he dug through the pack’s contents again, tossing clothes into the machine and trash onto the floor. With that done, he went back upstairs to change out of his court clothes and into something more comfortable. He wanted to let the dogs in, but he didn’t have the first clue about how to handle dogs and a kid in the house, so he made sure the patio door in the office was opened, and closed the room off to the rest of the house. That way, they could at least get out of the sun.

With that all taken care of, he grabbed his phone and called Abe. “Hey, I got a paying job for you,” he said. “Strictly confidential.”

He explained the situation, relaying all the names he knew. It wasn’t going to be the easiest, with everyone relevant being on the other coast, but that’s what the internet was for. He just needed someone — anyone — from either Tiffany’s family or the boy’s father’s family to take the kid. As long as they were willing, and weren’t as awful as the boy’s parents, they were a good candidate.

“What about your side?” Abe asked.

Wilford laughed. “Yeah, good fucking luck with that, pal. Come get your cheque.”

Abe had time to come collect his money and leave before Nichola came back. She brought the kid up first, handing him over to Wilford before she disappeared out the front door again. Wilford didn’t want to hold the kid. He was still gross, and had apparently been fed something along the way that made him even more sticky than he’d been before. Afraid he’d never get whatever gross nastiness off, Wilford put the kid back down and made sure doors everywhere were closed. There was no door closing off the stairs, which was going to cause a problem. The dogs didn’t like the stairs and didn’t go up or down them unless they were told, but Wilford felt like the kid was going to lack that amount of self-preservation. As Wilford herded the kid back out to the front room, Nichola walked back in carrying about eight huge bags in each hand.

“What in the fuck is all this?” Wilford demanded. He expected her to go grab a few pairs of jeans and maybe some shoes. Not half the goddamn store.

“He’s a baby,” Nichola said. “He can’t just sit here staring at the walls all day.”

This was not part of the deal. He stood helplessly, watching Nichola unpack all the shit she’d bought. The kid was right there, eager to take a look at everything and immediately toss it onto the floor. Nichola found a patchwork stuffed cow in one of the bags, and made a horrible mooing sound as she handed it over. The kid took the toy and ran right over to the window, plopping down onto the floor. It had never occurred to Wilford before to wonder if the floor-to-ceiling glass was tempered. The house was old enough that it probably wasn’t, but now it was suddenly a concern. Great.

“Does he really need all this?” Wilford asked, horrified at the stack of crap Nichola was piling onto his floor.

“Just because you’re a material nudist doesn’t mean everyone is,” Nichola said, stacking clothes into neat piles as she went through everything.

“Shut up.” Wilford had stuff. He just didn’t have a bunch of stuff he didn’t need. That wasn’t a bad thing. Sighing, he collapsed into his seat and tried to ignore everything that was going on around him. He buried his face in his hands, trying to drown out everything.

“Do you want me to stay tonight?” Nichola asked suddenly.

“Why don’t you just take him?” Wilford asked. He’d expected to park the kid on the sofa for a week while Abe found someone else. He hadn’t intended for the kid to move in.

Nichola sighed. “You committed to this. I’ll help, but this was your idea. You’re the one who thought it was the right choice.”

Wilford had already changed his mind. This had not been the right choice. It was a stupid choice that he’d been forced into making.

“Where do you want everything?” Nichola asked.

Wilford shook his head. “I don’t care,” he said. And he didn’t. Abe was going to find someone else to take the kid. Wilford just had to survive until then.

Nichola got up and took the stacks of clothes back to Wilford’s bedroom. While she was gone, the kid apparently decided he was bored with his stuffed cow and tried to climb up into the chair with Wilford.

“The hell are you doing?” he said, trying to lean as far away from the sticky mess as possible. “You’re gross. Go away.”

He wondered if the kid was deaf, since he didn’t seem to hear a word that was being said to him. Wilford got up, leaving the kid on the chair as he walked back over to the envelope Tiffany had left. There was nothing really useful in it. No vaccination records. No birth certificate or social security card. Just a handful of written notes. Name, birthday — which was apparently in less than a month — warnings that he’d get randomly sick but nobody seemed to know why. Fantastic.

“When do they start talking?” Wilford shouted.

“I don’t know,” Nichola shouted back from the bedroom. “Why are your drawers all full of so much shit? This expired ten years ago!”

“Get the fuck out of my socks!” Wilford growled to himself as he pulled his phone out to ask Google his question. He wasn’t sure what he expected to find, but the website he found seemed to contradict what he was seeing. At least it was an easy theory to test.

“Michael,” he said sharply.

The kid looked up at him and climbed down out of the chair.

“I wasn’t inviting you over,” Wilford complained as the kid rushed over. But that was that theory eliminated. The kid knew his name and could hear when he was spoken to. He just didn’t seem to have a whole lot to say. “Do you say anything?” Wilford asked.

Michael held up his cow. That was apparently a no.

“What’s going on?” Nichola asked as she stepped out of the bedroom.

Wilford shook his head and shrugged. He didn’t even know where to start. “Have you heard a single word come out of this kid?” he asked.

Nichola paused, looking vaguely perplexed. “No,” she said after a moment. “He made a lot of noise, but I don’t think he said a single word. I thought he was just too young.”

Wilford sighed and dropped the papers down onto the table. “According to that, he should be talking your ear off.” He was starting to understand much better why Tiffany had been so eager to dump him onto anybody else. Wilford was suddenly feeling the same need as well. He unlocked his phone again and tore through his recent calls. She was probably in the air by now, but Wilford figured he could at least leave a very angry voicemail — assuming the phone wasn’t a burner.

It almost completely caught him off-guard when Tiffany answered the phone.

“Jesus, already?” she asked. The noise in the background suggested she hadn’t even left LS yet.

“What the fuck are you doing leaving me a kid with no documents?” Wilford demanded. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

“I gave you everything that I was able to find at their apartment. I don’t know what to tell you. You should have everything you need to request his birth certificate at least.” She hung up. Wilford called again to scream at her some more, but she didn’t answer. He tossed his phone onto the table and walked into the kitchen. Nichola followed after him, stopping to pick up the kid first.

“That social worker’s coming by tomorrow, right?” she asked. “You can ask then what you’re supposed to do.”

“Yeah,” Wilford said. He’d made a lot of mistakes in his life, but this one definitely ranked amongst the top of the catastrophic fuck-up list. He threw open one of the cupboards, and pulled a pan out, slamming it down onto the counter. He wanted to punch something, but that wasn’t an option, so he figured he’d make dinner instead.

“Okay,” Nichola said behind him. “You know what, mister? You need a bath. Let’s go do that.”

She took the kid away, leaving Wilford alone with his rage. As he banged around too loudly in the kitchen, he could hear Nichola starting the water and digging out a toy from all the crap she’d bought. He ignored them both, realising suddenly that the dogs had been locked out all day again. He could hear them in the office, suddenly alert from the sounds of banging around in the kitchen. Sighing, Wilford walked past the office and into the bathroom, where Nichola was distracting the kid with half a dozen rubber ducks so she could wash his hair.

“I need to let the dogs in,” Wilford said, closing the bathroom door. If he could feed the dogs first, they might not be needy enough to start jumping all over everybody. He opened the office door so the two of them could rush in and get all their sniffing out of the way now. While they examined everywhere the kid had been, Wilford started cooking their dinner. He had some cod fillets that needed to be used up, so they’d get that with some peas and carrots and their egg. As the dogs inhaled their food, Wilford could hear Nichola struggling to get the kid dressed again. He had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do when she brought the kid back out again. Nichola seemed to have the same thought on her mind, since she kept the kid in the bathroom for much longer than she needed to. Eventually, after the dogs had finished their dinner and started sniffing around again, Nichola opened the bathroom door.

“Think you can hang on to both of them?” she called out.

Wilford sighed. If this was the way they were doing it, fine. He got up and grabbed both their leashes from the hook by the door, hooking them both up to the dogs’ collars so he had more to hold onto. With the leashes wrapped around both arms, Wilford sat down on the floor and grabbed both dogs by the collars, holding them low to the ground.

“All right,” he said.

The dogs were already squirming, even before Nichola stepped into view. When she walked around the corner holding the kid, the dogs both tried to get up to go get a closer look, but Wilford held them close. As soon as he saw the dogs, the kid pointed at them with a grin. “Ba ba ba ba!” he said

“Yep, those are doggies,” Nichola said, slowly bringing them over. “Nice doggies.”

The kid continued to ‘ba ba ba’ as Nichola put him down on the floor, hovering close to grab him if she needed. Sure enough, the dogs were all too eager to get close, and even restrained nearly knocked the kid over. This was apparently hilarious. He squealed and cackled as the dogs sniffed and pushed and licked. Even as he fell backwards onto the floor, he kept laughing. Wilford let go of Buster’s collar, giving him a little more slack to go say hi. He trusted Buster a little more than he trusted Bailey with kids.

“Stay off him,” Wilford warned.

Buster danced around, apparently trying not to crowd the kid while he crowded the kid. Bailey, on the other hand, barely responded to commands at all. Apparently dogs from other worlds were even more stupid than the dumbest dog Wilford had ever seen. Wilford let Buster get all his hellos out of the way before telling him to get out of the way. Buster complained loudly and went to lie down in front of the fireplace with a huff. It gave Wilford an extra hand to hold Bailey back with, and she was already big enough to test his strength. And somehow, she was supposed to get twice as big by the time she was done growing.

She wanted to pounce right into the kid, but Wilford had to hold her back, even as the kid got way too close. Nichola quickly pulled him back. “Careful,” she said. “That’s a big doggy.”

When it didn’t seem like Bailey was likely to try to eat him or anything, Wilford unclipped her leash and got up to free Buster from his. Bailey immediately got all up in the kid’s face, but he was still cackling, so he probably wasn’t too traumatised.

“All right, you’re done,” Wilford said anyway. “Lie down or you’re going back out.”

Bailey did not seem to have any intent on listening to him, so Wilford grabbed her collar and pulled her back toward the office, locking her behind the door before she could hurt anybody. That had been more nerve wracking than he’d expected it to be. Letting the kid ‘ba ba ba’ at Buster all he liked, Wilford went back out to the kitchen to start working on dinner for the two-legged crowd. He was half-tempted to give up and order something, but he was kind of done dealing with other people for the day. He had enough stuff in the fridge for a super quick stir-fry, so that’s what he went with. It wasn’t until he was done, and everything was served up that he realised the kid probably wouldn’t be able to reach the table from the chairs. Sighing, he brought the plate out to the living room and cleared a spot on the coffee table, and then grabbed a towel for the kid to sit on. He was going to eat at his chair, like he did every night, and Nichola could sit wherever she wanted. She chose to sit down on the floor next to the kid, trying to coax him into eating something he apparently didn’t want. Abe could not call back soon enough. At least the show was dark until the investigation was over. Wilford wouldn’t have to deal with that hell, at least.

“No, Mikey, come on,” Nichola plead. “You gotta eat something, buddy.”

The kid slapped his hand into the table, catching the handle of his fork and launching it across the room. Buster immediately got up to fetch every last scrap that was thrown along with it. Wilford sighed and buried his face in his hands.

“Mikey, no,” Nichola said.

The kid was starting to cry. Apparently stir-fry was the most offensive thing on the planet.

“You liked chicken with lunch. What’s wrong with this?” Nichola said, getting up to pick up the fork and get a new one.

Wilford wondered if it was possible to actually just roll over and die. The kid was crying, the dog looked like he was about five seconds away from stealing his food, and Nichola was already digging through the cupboards for something else. Wilford was in hell.