Chapter 11: What Came After
The district attorney's office filed charges against Lorraine six weeks later.
Forgery of a legal document.
Contributing to the unlawful detention of a minor.
Patricia called me on a Tuesday morning while I was making Mia's lunch.
"It's done," she said.
"She was formally charged this morning.
Her attorney entered a not-guilty plea, but given the voicemail and the forensic analysis, they're going to have a very difficult time."
I set down the knife I was using to cut Mia's apple slices.
"And Cassandra?" I asked.
"Cooperating witness.
She won't be charged." A brief pause.
"She asked if you would be willing to speak with her at some point.
Not now.
When you're ready.
Or never, if that's what you decide."
I looked at the apple slices on the cutting board.
Mia's blue cup on the counter beside them.
"I don't know yet," I said.
"That's a fair answer."
Lorraine did not go to trial.
Three months after the charges were filed, her attorney negotiated a plea.
She admitted to the forgery.
She received a suspended sentence, two years of probation, and a permanent no-contact order with Mia.
Her family law attorney — the one who had helped her plan the custody strategy — faced a separate bar complaint filed by Patricia, which was still under review.
I found out about the plea on a Wednesday afternoon.
Patricia left a voicemail.
I listened to it while sitting in my car in the hospital parking lot after a long shift, and when it ended I sat for a moment with my hands in my lap.
Then I drove to Ruth's to pick up Mia.
She was in the backyard when I arrived, running in a wide circle for no reason that I could identify, her pink sneakers flashing with every step.
Ruth was on the porch steps watching her with a cup of coffee.
"Good day?" Ruth asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"Good day."
Mia spotted me and changed direction without slowing down, running full speed across the grass and throwing herself at my legs.
"Mommy, watch," she said, and ran the circle again so I could see.
I watched.
I clapped when she finished.
She took a bow, very seriously, and then ran to get Rosie from the porch steps where she had been sitting.
Rosie's button eye had been resewn.
I had done it the previous weekend, sitting at Ruth's kitchen table with a needle and thread while Mia supervised and offered instructions.
The eye was slightly higher than before, which Mia had decided she preferred because it made Rosie look surprised.
She held the doll up so I could admire the repair.
"Good as new," I said.
Mia considered this.
"Better," she said firmly, and tucked Rosie back under her arm.
I moved out of Ruth's and into a rental two streets from the hospital — small, bright, with a yard big enough for Mia to run circles in.
Jackson had his supervised visits on Saturday mornings.
He was quieter than he used to be, more careful, and Mia came home from those visits neither happier nor sadder than when she left, which I decided to count as progress.
The divorce was finalized on a Thursday in March.
Patricia and I shook hands outside the courthouse.
The sky was flat and grey and the air smelled like rain coming.
"You did well," Patricia said.
"You did well," I said.
She smiled.
"We both did."
I drove home.
Made dinner.
Gave Mia a bath.
Read her two chapters of the book we were working through, which was about a rabbit who kept losing things and finding them again in unexpected places.
Mia found this extremely funny and insisted on hearing the losing parts twice.
When she was asleep, I sat in the kitchen with a glass of wine and Rosie on the table in front of me, the repaired eye catching the light.
I thought about the afternoon I had stood on that porch with the doll in my hands and the house locked in front of me and my husband sighing on the phone.
I thought about the voice inside me that had said something is wrong, and the fact that I had listened to it.
I picked up Rosie and looked at her for a moment.
Then I set her gently back on the table, turned off the kitchen light, and went to bed.
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*Sometimes the most important thing a mother can do is trust herself — even when everyone around her is telling her she's wrong.*
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