Chapter 12: You Said Four

By noon, the family lawyer was at Marit's table with the whole exhibit spread across the oilcloth.

She read it through once in silence, with her pen in her teeth.

Then she took the pen out and smiled for the first time since I had known her.

"He filed this himself," she said.

"I know. It's his petition."

"No, Nina. Listen. He attached his own diary of neglect to a court filing."

She tapped the last page. "That is not our problem. That is our case."

Marit set a cup of coffee in front of me. My hands were still not steady.

"It says maternal anxiety on every line," I said.

"It also says that on February twenty-fifth at 1:34 a.m. he was sent a photograph of a hundred and six point one."

She turned the page toward me. "Seven minutes later he scored it a four, and a lawyer told him to keep it that way."

"Is that allowed?"

"It's a note in his own record. He cannot say he didn't see it." She sat back.

"Every judge in Hennepin County has a child. A judge who reads entry two hundred and twelve will not need me to explain it."

I stared at the grid.

"The hearing is in four weeks," I said.

"And the board meets in three."

"The board."

"Your thirty percent." She looked at me over her glasses.

"He expects you to panic. A woman who panics calls his office and begs."

"I'm not going to beg."

"No," she agreed. "I think you're going to read it aloud."

The phone buzzed on the table before I could answer.

It was Wyatt. I let it ring out.

A text came a moment later.

"Pickup is Saturday at St. Anne's as usual. Bring her on time. We should be adults about this."

I read it and put the phone down.

On Saturday morning I stood in the lobby of St. Anne's with Poppy's hand in mine.

I had not slept.

I had told Jonas about the exhibit that night, in his kitchen. He had held me for twenty minutes and then gone quiet.

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