Chapter 13: Check Your Email

The lawn emptied slowly.

People stopped at the foot of my steps to touch my arm, and then went back to their cars.

When the last taillight turned off Alder Lane, I sat down on the top step with my phone.

Hazel took the baby inside.

Alastair stayed by the hedge, where he had stood all evening.

I opened my email.

The message had come in at 5:03, while I was behind the nursery curtain watching cars park.

The subject line said: Notice of Emergency Petition.

It was from a lawyer I had never heard of, writing for Brennan Montgomery.

It had been filed at 4:50 that afternoon, an hour and ten minutes before Brennan walked up my path with his roses.

He had come to my door to be arrested, and he had known it, and he had left this behind.

The petition said I was emotionally unstable after a difficult birth.

It said I had locked the child's father out of the family home.

It asked a judge to open the house to him and place the baby in his care.

Attached was a video of me at the country club, in front of sixty people, asking a man about his heart.

At the bottom it said: Hearing, Monday, 9:00 a.m., Family Court.

I walked into the kitchen and put the phone face down on the table.

Alastair had followed me in.

He stood by the door with his hands at his sides, waiting to be told where to stand.

"Say it," I said.

"Which part?"

"Whatever you were about to say."