Chapter 4
Jack would not speak to me for three days.
He spoke to Lucy.
To nurses.
To Detective Harris.
To the hospital therapy dog.
Not to me.
I sat outside Lucy’s room with coffee I never drank and listened to my son’s voice through the door.
“Did you try to come home?”
“Every day,” Lucy said.
“Did Dad know?”
Silence.
Then Lucy whispered, “No, baby.”
“But he believed her.”
“Yes.”
I pressed my fist to my mouth.
Diane had trained me slowly.
Lucy was emotional.
Lucy was unreliable.
Lucy wanted attention.
Lucy would hurt Jack if I let her back in.
Every lie sounded reasonable because I was tired, lonely, and angry after the divorce.
Diane fed every ugly feeling in me until I mistook poison for comfort.
My lawyer, Nora Field, arrived with papers.
“Diane forged several custody documents,” she said.
I looked up.
“What?”
“She filed statements claiming Lucy abandoned Jack and waived visitation. Signatures are fake.”
My head dropped into my hands.
“How did I not see this?”
Nora did not comfort me.
“You wanted the easier story.”
That hurt.
It was true.
Police charged Diane with kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, assault, forgery, and fraud.
Her restaurant was sealed.
Her accounts frozen.
Then came another blow.
Diane had withdrawn money from Jack’s education trust using emergency guardian forms.
My signature was on them.
Forged.
Lucy’s too.
Diane had stolen from the child whose mother she hid.
When I told Lucy, she closed her eyes.
“She always watched Jack like he was a prize.”
I looked at my sleeping son.
“No. He’s a boy.”
May you like
Lucy opened her eyes.
“Then start treating him like one.”
