Chapter 11: Two Hours
The voiding motion was granted in twelve days.
The judge reviewed Conrad's filing, the original documents, Alaric's statement, and the Portland case records, and she signed the order on a Tuesday morning while I was home feeding Luke.
Conrad texted me a single line: *It's done.
Waiver is void.
Guardianship documents have no legal standing.
You're clear.*
I read it three times.
Then I set my phone face-down on the counter and finished feeding Luke, because he was hungry and the world could wait.
Alaric moved out two weeks after that night.
He took his clothes, his books, and the armchair.
He left everything else.
He didn't argue about the house.
Conrad said his new attorney had advised him that cooperation was his only viable position, and whatever the reason, he cooperated.
He asked to see the babies before he left.
I let him.
He sat on the nursery floor with all three of them for an hour.
I stood in the doorway and watched him hold Grace, then Thaddeus, then Luke, one at a time, carefully, like something he was afraid of dropping.
He didn't say much.
He made the small sounds people make with babies, and the babies made their sounds back, and I watched my husband become a visitor in his own children's lives and felt something I hadn't expected.
Not satisfaction.
Not relief.
Something quieter and sadder than both.
When he stood up to leave, he looked at me.
"I'll pay whatever Conrad asks," he said.
"Child support, the house, all of it.
I won't fight any of it."
"I know."
"I just want them to know me.
When they're older.
I want them to know I'm their father."
"That depends on you," I said.
"Not on me.
On who you decide to be from here."
He nodded.
Picked up his bag.
Walked to the door.
He paused.
"I'm sorry, Nevaeh.
I know that's not enough.
But I am."
I looked at him — this man I had loved for fifteen years, who had sat beside me in every waiting room, who had cried at the ultrasound, who had also written a letter designed to make me leave without a fight.
"I know you are," I said.
The door closed.
Petra came out of the kitchen.
She had been there the whole time, quiet, just present.
"You okay?" she asked.
"I don't know yet," I said honestly.
She put her arm around me.
We stood there in the hallway, the baby monitor humming softly, three small lives breathing upstairs.
"You know what the worst part was?" I said.
"What?"
"He said the plan was to give me two hours a week." I leaned my head against her shoulder.
"Two hours.
After eleven years."
Petra was quiet for a moment.
"And now?"
I looked toward the stairs.
May you like
"Now I have all the hours," I said.
"Every single one."
