The Nanny, the Husband, and the Woman They Forgot I Was novel · Chapter 5 of 32
Chapter 5: Ex Parte
Vivian arrived at nine-fifteen in a black car with a driver.
She walked through my house without asking and stopped in the nursery doorway.
She looked at the rocking chair for a long moment.
"Burn that later," she said. "Not now. Now it's evidence."
Then she went across the street.
She came back twenty minutes later with a signed statement from our neighbor and a slice of coffee cake on a napkin.
"I like her," Vivian said. "She wanted to know if I was single."
"Are you?"
"Twice divorced. Very profitable." She ate the cake in two bites. "Get the baby. We're bringing her."
"To court?"
"To court. You're the unstable mother who doesn't want her child. Let the judge watch you not want her."
The family courthouse in San Jose was beige inside and out.
The courtroom smelled like carpet cleaner and old coffee.
Blake was already at the front table in a navy suit, with his hand on the back of Harper's chair.
His lawyer had silver hair and gold cufflinks. He shook Vivian's hand.
Harper wore a plain beige dress and no jewelry.
She had pulled her hair into a low, humble ponytail.
She looked like a nanny in a commercial for a nanny.
When she saw Rosie on my chest, her eyes filled up.
I looked away first.
The judge was a heavy, tired man with half-moon glasses.
He read the petition while we waited.
Then he looked at Blake's lawyer.
"Emergency," he said. "Tell me about the emergency."
The lawyer stood up and buttoned his jacket.
"Your Honor, Mrs. Linwood has been in a serious decline since the birth. She doesn't sleep. She doesn't bathe. She weeps for hours. She has told the nanny she doesn't want the child. The nanny, Ms. Bell, has been the baby's real caregiver for three months."
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