Chapter 7: Shared Parenting

The family courtroom on Monday morning smelled of floor wax and wet umbrellas.

I had not slept since Saturday.

The friend who gave Rafe my address had a name, and I kept putting it away and taking it out again.

I had decided to say nothing until I could prove it.

I sat at the long table next to the lawyer my mother's church friend had found.

He was a tired man in a brown suit with a cough drop in his cheek.

My mother sat behind me, holding her purse like a shield.

Across the aisle, Rafe's mother sat with two lawyers in grey and a thick leather folder.

Rafe sat in the back row.

He had not come to the front.

"All rise," the clerk said, and the judge came in, a woman with reading glasses and a small, unfriendly mouth.

Rafe's mother's lawyer stood up first.

"Your Honor, the children were concealed from their paternal family for nearly six years."

He glanced at his notes.

"The mother earns an hourly wage at a veterinary clinic. The petitioner asks for temporary custody pending a full evaluation."

"Concealed," the judge said.

"Yes, Your Honor."

"By their mother, who is their legal custodian."

"Yes, Your Honor. In the face of a clear paternity result."

"Who is the petitioner's relationship to these children?"

"She is their grandmother."

"And the father?"

The lawyer cleared his throat.

"Mr. Hartwell is not a party to this petition."

"So a grandmother is asking me to remove three children from their mother, and the father is sitting in my gallery."

"Your Honor, we believe the father's judgment is clouded."

The judge turned a page.

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