Chapter 11: Exhibit A

Jonas drove me to St. Paul with both hands on the wheel and neither of us talking.

He stopped at the corner, a block from Marit's.

"I shouldn't be seen on her street," he said.

"No."

"Call me after you read it."

I got out. My hair was still down, and I was wearing last night's dress under his coat.

The man in the rain jacket stood on Marit's porch with a thick manila envelope.

He had clearly been there since dawn, and he was polite about it.

"Nina Haldorsen?"

"Yes."

"You've been served."

He handed it over, wished me a good morning, and went down the steps.

Marit held the front door open with her flour-dusted hand. She did not say a word about the dress.

We sat at the kitchen table, and I tore the envelope open.

It was a petition for sole legal and physical custody of Poppy Haldorsen, filed by Wyatt Haldorsen, and it was forty pages long.

I read the first page twice.

"Unstable," I said. "Overreactive. Prone to catastrophizing and unnecessary medical intervention."

"Keep going," Marit said quietly.

On the third page I found the sentence that stopped me.

"The petitioner's account is supported by a contemporaneous written record, attached as Exhibit A."

I turned to the back.

Exhibit A was thirty-one pages of a spreadsheet, printed in small gray type.

It had five columns.

Date. Time. Source. Score. Note.

My hands began to go cold.

I knew that grid. I had seen it on his phone on the kitchen counter, with his hand coming down over it.

The first entry was dated fourteen months ago.

"Jan 9, 7:52 p.m. Source: N. Poppy has a rash. Score 3. Note: Maternal anxiety. Called twice."

I remembered that night. It was a heat rash.

I had called him once to ask him to pick up cream on his way home.

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